7 ms·

Visiting Scarfolk, the Most Spectacular Dystopia of the 1970s

148 points by tintinnabula 11y ago

voodootrucker 11y ago
I couldn't think of a more poignant analogy for modern society. A look at any anti-smoking poster should be reminiscent.
marcus_holmes 11y ago
There's something so wonderfully British about this
sjclemmy 11y ago
The TV Detector Van of the 1970s(?) is a classic 'real' example of this sort of thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvritKhT3j8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvritKhT3j8 And if anyone thinks this is a joke, I remember watching these adverts as a child and thinking they really could work out what you were watching on the telly.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  TV Detector Vans were a legendary hoax. A very small fleet of real vans existed, but they were completely useless and the electronics were just a movie prop. This has never been admitted officially: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ73 http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ73 Which is all extremely weird - because it means the BBC spent real money buying a few vans and kitting them out with fake buttons, lights, and switches. And then more real money driving them around the UK and parking them in random locations. To frighten people. As for Scarfolk - found it a few years ago, thought it was hilarious. Technically it's an example of hauntology, which is borrowed from Derrida[1], but only really makes sense in the grimmer parts of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hauntology_artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hauntology_artists [1] Obviously...
  - lewiscollard 11y ago
    This explanation is fascinating. Got further reading for the "detector vans were a hoax" thing? (I may be misremembering but I'm sure those ads were around in the mid-80s too.)
  - jdietrich 11y ago
    Detecting a CRT television isn't remotely difficult - any decent radio amateur could do it with the equipment they have at hand. The intermediate frequency and the CRT deflection signal are emitted at detectable levels, particularly on cheap sets. Frankly, I think it's implausible that detector vans were a complete hoax. The BBC undoubtedly had the technological capability to reliably and quickly locate TV sets. I do think it's plausible that the actual use of detector vans was overstated for PR purposes.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      There are exactly zero records of prosecutions obtained using evidence collected by a detector van. It would be one thing to detect an analog TV IF signal, another to triangulate its position precisely enough to identify a specific house in a street or room in a block - given that every other TV in the area would be generating exactly the same IF oscillator signal - and a third to prove the TV was tuned into a program and not being used for pong, a computer, or watching a video. And it would be unnecessary. The licensing enforcers have always kept a record of addresses without a license. If - like me - you don't have a TV, you get a regular stream of letters threatening prosecution anyway, and an occasional knock on the door. If you're an enforcer, the easiest way to check if someone has a TV is to look at a house after dark. Most living rooms in the UK are visible from the street.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        > There are exactly zero records of prosecutions obtained using evidence collected by a detector van. How did you check?
      - jdietrich 11y ago
- chiph 11y ago
  Well, in theory, yes they could see what you watching (no great stretch, as Britain only had a few channels to choose from at the time), via TEMPEST techniques. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)
- jaxb 11y ago
  apparently they can now (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter)
richardjdare 11y ago
This really nails the psychological atmosphere of my late 70s-early 80s British childhood. I remember being terrified of rabies thanks to films and posters like the one in the article, and believing that I would one day have to fight the Soviets in some foggy, anthrax infested field. All before I was ten years old! This diminished as the 80s went on, along with that sense of Orwellian paternalism that seemed to suffuse British life (see films like Scum, If..., The Offence) - Perhaps it was the shadow side of the "cradle-to-grave" era which ended with Thatcher - a welfare state administered by former aristocratic imperialists. I don't know. I was too young to have a handle on it, and like the creator of Scarfolk, the time has a kind of mythological existence for me. The article mentions how the creator of Scarfolk was inspired by public information films. These were a source of pure terror to any kid who grew up in 70s-80s Britain. Imagine you are watching something fun on childrens TV, then, out of nowhere a short horror film appears - only, as the authoritarian narrator reveals - this isn't fiction - this is real. You couldn't watch tv without the fear of some horrible thing being shown at random. There were certain times of day when they were more likely and you could feel the dread mounting as they approached. Here's an example of the wholesome and educational material 80s kids were subjected to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWfOLN9Z1yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWfOLN9Z1yw This scared the crap out of me as a child. If you're at all interested in horror or propaganda then I highly recommend them! There are a bunch of them on youtube.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  Not forgetting this was a time where children's TV was happy to scare the crap out of the young uns. Children of the Stones stands out as memorable. Or is that for scarring a generation? :) Scarfolk gets the mood, typography and graphics perfectly. I discovered it ages ago, forget it and get reminded every couple of years and catch up.
- lordelph 11y ago
  If you grew up anywhere rural in the late 70s/early 80s there is one public information film you never forget: Apaches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GyRz_lOQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GyRz_lOQA Over the course about 20 mins 6 kids playing on a farm are dispatched by falling into slurry pits, drinking chemicals and getting run over by tractors.
ilamont 11y ago
In the U.S. in the 70s children were exposed to media and other exercises with similar themes. In retrospect they were some pretty scary concepts (although nowadays my kids have to deal with "shelter in place" exercises at their own schools thanks to guns). In my elementary school we didn't do "duck and cover" but we did have to regularly go down in lines to the basement which was an official "fallout shelter" of our city. In the mid-70s I remember being shown a film in school about a society living underground owing to some unexplained environmental catastrophe, and for her birthday a young girl is allowed to go aboveground in a spacesuit with a guide to explore an abandoned city. One of the scenes showed a museum with exhibits like "North American Squirrel - Extinct 1984". In the early 80s there was a hullabaloo about a TV film showing the impact on Lawrence, Kansas, after a US-Soviet nuclear war. The pundits warned parents not to let kids watch it, yet we kids had grown up with the implicit threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. Of course I watched it, and was not too surprised about what it I saw on the screen ...
- aptwebapps 11y ago
  TV film showing the impact on Lawrence, Kansas, after a US-Soviet nuclear war The Day After http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/
  - arethuza 11y ago
    If you think The Day After is grim then you should see Threads - the UK BBC equivalent: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ The one I remember most as a kid was actually the QED episode "A Guide to Armageddon": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA Edit: The part starting around 6:40 gave me nightmares when I saw it... The 1965 The War Game was so bad (i.e. realistic) that it wasn't broadcast until relatively recently: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059894 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059894
coco1989 11y ago
for more information please reread
MikeNomad 11y ago
I'm a little surprised that neither side of the interview brought up J.G. Ballard's collages from the 1960s. Sorry for the lack of link. I know some are included in Re/Search #7/8.
ihavedna 11y ago
I can't help but think there's a little bit of a Welcome to Night Vale influence - but a (distorted? misinterpreted?) Southern Gothic trend started around 2012-2013. I saw a lot of revisiting of dark recolorings of reality in that vein crop up when that podcast came out, particularly on tumblr. If you look up the "Southern Gothic Meme" or "____ Gothic" memes (for your city, state, concept, etc) theres some really entertaining shortform writing out there. :)
golemotron 11y ago
The lighter side of nostalgia for that era is the British series 'Look Around You' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You It's a TV series of parody kids' educational films from the late 70s-80s. Immensely funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaI6kBVyu00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaI6kBVyu00
Aardwolf 11y ago
Reminds me of some of some of David Firth's work.
dmschulman 11y ago
Archive.org has a ton of these films peppered around various collections: https://archive.org/details/british_gov_public_films https://archive.org/details/british_gov_public_films https://archive.org/details/educationalfilms https://archive.org/details/educationalfilms https://archive.org/details/prelinger https://archive.org/details/prelinger

148 points by tintinnabula 11y ago

I couldn't think of a more poignant analogy for modern society. A look at any anti-smoking poster should be reminiscent.

marcus_holmes 11y ago

There's something so wonderfully British about this

sjclemmy 11y ago

The TV Detector Van of the 1970s(?) is a classic 'real' example of this sort of thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvritKhT3j8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvritKhT3j8 And if anyone thinks this is a joke, I remember watching these adverts as a child and thinking they really could work out what you were watching on the telly.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
TV Detector Vans were a legendary hoax. A very small fleet of real vans existed, but they were completely useless and the electronics were just a movie prop. This has never been admitted officially: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ73 http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ73 Which is all extremely weird - because it means the BBC spent real money buying a few vans and kitting them out with fake buttons, lights, and switches. And then more real money driving them around the UK and parking them in random locations. To frighten people. As for Scarfolk - found it a few years ago, thought it was hilarious. Technically it's an example of hauntology, which is borrowed from Derrida[1], but only really makes sense in the grimmer parts of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hauntology_artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hauntology_artists [1] Obviously...
- lewiscollard 11y ago
  This explanation is fascinating. Got further reading for the "detector vans were a hoax" thing? (I may be misremembering but I'm sure those ads were around in the mid-80s too.)
- jdietrich 11y ago
  Detecting a CRT television isn't remotely difficult - any decent radio amateur could do it with the equipment they have at hand. The intermediate frequency and the CRT deflection signal are emitted at detectable levels, particularly on cheap sets. Frankly, I think it's implausible that detector vans were a complete hoax. The BBC undoubtedly had the technological capability to reliably and quickly locate TV sets. I do think it's plausible that the actual use of detector vans was overstated for PR purposes.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    There are exactly zero records of prosecutions obtained using evidence collected by a detector van. It would be one thing to detect an analog TV IF signal, another to triangulate its position precisely enough to identify a specific house in a street or room in a block - given that every other TV in the area would be generating exactly the same IF oscillator signal - and a third to prove the TV was tuned into a program and not being used for pong, a computer, or watching a video. And it would be unnecessary. The licensing enforcers have always kept a record of addresses without a license. If - like me - you don't have a TV, you get a regular stream of letters threatening prosecution anyway, and an occasional knock on the door. If you're an enforcer, the easiest way to check if someone has a TV is to look at a house after dark. Most living rooms in the UK are visible from the street.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      > There are exactly zero records of prosecutions obtained using evidence collected by a detector van. How did you check?
    - jdietrich 11y ago
chiph 11y ago
Well, in theory, yes they could see what you watching (no great stretch, as Britain only had a few channels to choose from at the time), via TEMPEST techniques. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)
jaxb 11y ago
apparently they can now (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter)

richardjdare 11y ago

This really nails the psychological atmosphere of my late 70s-early 80s British childhood. I remember being terrified of rabies thanks to films and posters like the one in the article, and believing that I would one day have to fight the Soviets in some foggy, anthrax infested field. All before I was ten years old! This diminished as the 80s went on, along with that sense of Orwellian paternalism that seemed to suffuse British life (see films like Scum, If..., The Offence) - Perhaps it was the shadow side of the "cradle-to-grave" era which ended with Thatcher - a welfare state administered by former aristocratic imperialists. I don't know. I was too young to have a handle on it, and like the creator of Scarfolk, the time has a kind of mythological existence for me. The article mentions how the creator of Scarfolk was inspired by public information films. These were a source of pure terror to any kid who grew up in 70s-80s Britain. Imagine you are watching something fun on childrens TV, then, out of nowhere a short horror film appears - only, as the authoritarian narrator reveals - this isn't fiction - this is real. You couldn't watch tv without the fear of some horrible thing being shown at random. There were certain times of day when they were more likely and you could feel the dread mounting as they approached. Here's an example of the wholesome and educational material 80s kids were subjected to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWfOLN9Z1yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWfOLN9Z1yw This scared the crap out of me as a child. If you're at all interested in horror or propaganda then I highly recommend them! There are a bunch of them on youtube.

anexprogrammer 11y ago
Not forgetting this was a time where children's TV was happy to scare the crap out of the young uns. Children of the Stones stands out as memorable. Or is that for scarring a generation? :) Scarfolk gets the mood, typography and graphics perfectly. I discovered it ages ago, forget it and get reminded every couple of years and catch up.
lordelph 11y ago
If you grew up anywhere rural in the late 70s/early 80s there is one public information film you never forget: Apaches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GyRz_lOQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GyRz_lOQA Over the course about 20 mins 6 kids playing on a farm are dispatched by falling into slurry pits, drinking chemicals and getting run over by tractors.

ilamont 11y ago

In the U.S. in the 70s children were exposed to media and other exercises with similar themes. In retrospect they were some pretty scary concepts (although nowadays my kids have to deal with "shelter in place" exercises at their own schools thanks to guns). In my elementary school we didn't do "duck and cover" but we did have to regularly go down in lines to the basement which was an official "fallout shelter" of our city. In the mid-70s I remember being shown a film in school about a society living underground owing to some unexplained environmental catastrophe, and for her birthday a young girl is allowed to go aboveground in a spacesuit with a guide to explore an abandoned city. One of the scenes showed a museum with exhibits like "North American Squirrel - Extinct 1984". In the early 80s there was a hullabaloo about a TV film showing the impact on Lawrence, Kansas, after a US-Soviet nuclear war. The pundits warned parents not to let kids watch it, yet we kids had grown up with the implicit threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. Of course I watched it, and was not too surprised about what it I saw on the screen ...

aptwebapps 11y ago
TV film showing the impact on Lawrence, Kansas, after a US-Soviet nuclear war The Day After http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/
- arethuza 11y ago
  If you think The Day After is grim then you should see Threads - the UK BBC equivalent: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ The one I remember most as a kid was actually the QED episode "A Guide to Armageddon": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA Edit: The part starting around 6:40 gave me nightmares when I saw it... The 1965 The War Game was so bad (i.e. realistic) that it wasn't broadcast until relatively recently: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059894 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059894

coco1989 11y ago

for more information please reread

MikeNomad 11y ago

I'm a little surprised that neither side of the interview brought up J.G. Ballard's collages from the 1960s. Sorry for the lack of link. I know some are included in Re/Search #7/8.

ihavedna 11y ago

I can't help but think there's a little bit of a Welcome to Night Vale influence - but a (distorted? misinterpreted?) Southern Gothic trend started around 2012-2013. I saw a lot of revisiting of dark recolorings of reality in that vein crop up when that podcast came out, particularly on tumblr. If you look up the "Southern Gothic Meme" or "____ Gothic" memes (for your city, state, concept, etc) theres some really entertaining shortform writing out there. :)

golemotron 11y ago

The lighter side of nostalgia for that era is the British series 'Look Around You' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You It's a TV series of parody kids' educational films from the late 70s-80s. Immensely funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaI6kBVyu00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaI6kBVyu00

Aardwolf 11y ago

Reminds me of some of some of David Firth's work.

dmschulman 11y ago

Archive.org has a ton of these films peppered around various collections: https://archive.org/details/british_gov_public_films https://archive.org/details/british_gov_public_films https://archive.org/details/educationalfilms https://archive.org/details/educationalfilms https://archive.org/details/prelinger https://archive.org/details/prelinger