Quote from: RPGPundit on January 29, 2025, 08:25:08 AMI agree that some of the people who would have become the moral busybody "church ladies" in the 1980s are today instead becoming Hillary-voting childless cat ladies. The core element wasn't religion for them, it was finding a socially-approved means of interfering in other people's lives.

But that shows how much change has taken place.

I agree with the statement, just not in the way you probably intend.

Its not like the scolds began in the 80s. They were scolds of Rock & Roll before that, and of behavior in the roaring 20's before that, and... you get the picture.

The only thing that's really changed is we stopped stigmatizing the scold (sort of). Even as late as the 1980's mainstream media mocked the Scold. Little House on the Prairie had Mrs. Olsen as a scold to be overcome and mocked. SNL's Church Lady skits were absolutely mocking what today would be just another Karen. In past centuries dunking, stocks and other public humiliations were inflicted on scolds.

I say "kind of" because even today we mock people as "Karens" so its not like the stigma is gone entirely.

I think the key as relates to the Satanic Panic and modern WokeScolds is that to get around their stigma they chose already marginal targets... D&D was mostly played by the uncool kids so it was a target that would have few defenders to them flexing their moral busybody muscles. Their attempts at influence target authorities who will go along with whatever causes the least disruption. Uncool kids getting dumpec on more is about as undisruptive as it gets.

That's why the modern WokeScold couches all their attempts at influence in terms of various "moral evils"; Racism, sexism, colonialism, etc. The goal is to paint the target as someone not worth defending just like the uncool kids playing D&D in the 80s.

In other words, I'd say very little has changed at all. The walls have a new coat of paint, but it's still the same miserable people upset that others aren't doing what they want running the shop.

Human nature is human nature whether it's AD 2025, AD 1025, or 1025 BC. The scolds have always been with us just as the social outcasts they enjoy targeting have been.