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Until this moment, it never occurred to me that others were also scarred from this period (yay internet!). In our house my father was the one who bought into t

Until this moment, it never occurred to me that others were also scarred from this period (yay internet!). In our house my father was the one who bought into the hysteria, He Man was also banned, and the D&D cartoon was as well. We've talked about it since, and he has no memory of telling us (me and my siblings) that listening to secular music would lead us to the devil. He wasn't religious before this episode, and hasn't been since. I've always held resentment toward him from this time, but to find he didn't even remember was a shock. My question for you guys is: how did it effect you? How did you recover? For me the result was, at the time, going to school and spewing this nonsense to my friends and ostracizing myselft. I had socialization problems anyway an that just increased my perceived isolation. Took years to work thru all that.

bane 13y ago
I personally never bought into it since I could never understand the mechanism that took somebody from playing a board game (my reference point at the time was Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders) to all the kinds of terrible things being discussed. It never made sense to me so I didn't carry that around with me. Instead I became deeply skeptical of my parent's ability to parse these kinds of issues out for my well being. Which of course led to all kinds of wonderful moments as a teenager ;) Over the years I also discovered that my mother was deeply susceptible to counter-mainstream, alternative movements. So I also grew up with all kinds of weird fad diet of the year, carb-load, bran, high citrus, vegetarian, soy, uncooked veggies, low-carb, acai, quinoa, dozens of others, or a stint where we all did Chinese medicine and ate lots of ginseng or a brief stint with homeopathy. No surprise my mother eats gluten free today but I suspect that's about to change as the next fad diet starts to infiltrate popular culture - Metabolism B, Dash, Paleo whatever. I usually indulged her at home (after all some of the diets were pretty tasty) and just ignored it all when I was out on my own. More importantly it's made me very skeptical whenever large groups of people cotton onto something. It seems the more intense the group interest in something is, the less I'm inclined to go along...whatever it is. I grew up almost anti-cool - skeptic kind of personality. It saved me from most of the terrible fashion fads that everybody I grew up with regrets these days. But in terms of what HN would be interested in, I tend not to really "get" large scale trends either -- since I've basically been trained to revolt from them unless there's a clear advantage to following it. So it definitely had an impact on my thinking in that sense.
protonfish 13y ago
I was a rebellious little brat, so my mom's hysteria only increased my interest in D&D and Rock and Roll. I still enjoy these things today so I'd say it worked out well for me.
Dove 13y ago
how did it effect you? How did you recover? I was warned against D&D, violent video games, and various harmless television shows. It was a bit silly at my house; violent games included Scorched Earth and Starcraft, and inappropriate TV included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Simpsons. I thought at the time that my parents' fears were misplaced, and I argued as much . . . but I respected their rules because they were my parents. When I moved out, I asked my mother if she would prefer I continue to avoid those things out of respect for her, and she told me that as an adult, that sort of decision was mine to make. I promptly installed TONS of violent video games day 1 at college, and went on to form a rather excellent D&D group. ;) I resented my parents a little bit for the parts of geek culture I missed out on. And it cost them a bit of respect that I couldn't rationally persuade them they were wrong (we had a relatively robust debate culture at our house). But you know, those have both since mended. It's easy to go back as an adult, and pick up things you missed. And their rules relaxed a lot, shortly after I moved out, to the point that my adult siblings and I can have a Left 4 Dead LAN in their living room, and they think nothing of it. Looking back, it really was only a handful of things they taught me that were wrong; they taught me a lot of very valuable things that were right, too. I find that the older I get, the more I quote them. And while they laid down certain rules I disagreed with, they very much raised me to think for myself and make up my own mind, and for that I'm grateful. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to think hard about when rebellion against authority is necessary on moral principle, and when it would be selfish even if you're right. As a kid, I had great respect for their judgement, and I don't think it was misplaced. They were occasionally wrong, but I think I was wrong a lot more often. I understood they had greater experience and wisdom than I did, and greatly valued their opinions. That's still true, and I still do. Part of me resents not playing Magic with my geek friends in junior high, but a larger part of me is glad that I respected their decisions. I think it was the right thing to do, and I'd do it again.

bane 13y ago

I personally never bought into it since I could never understand the mechanism that took somebody from playing a board game (my reference point at the time was Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders) to all the kinds of terrible things being discussed. It never made sense to me so I didn't carry that around with me. Instead I became deeply skeptical of my parent's ability to parse these kinds of issues out for my well being. Which of course led to all kinds of wonderful moments as a teenager ;) Over the years I also discovered that my mother was deeply susceptible to counter-mainstream, alternative movements. So I also grew up with all kinds of weird fad diet of the year, carb-load, bran, high citrus, vegetarian, soy, uncooked veggies, low-carb, acai, quinoa, dozens of others, or a stint where we all did Chinese medicine and ate lots of ginseng or a brief stint with homeopathy. No surprise my mother eats gluten free today but I suspect that's about to change as the next fad diet starts to infiltrate popular culture - Metabolism B, Dash, Paleo whatever. I usually indulged her at home (after all some of the diets were pretty tasty) and just ignored it all when I was out on my own. More importantly it's made me very skeptical whenever large groups of people cotton onto something. It seems the more intense the group interest in something is, the less I'm inclined to go along...whatever it is. I grew up almost anti-cool - skeptic kind of personality. It saved me from most of the terrible fashion fads that everybody I grew up with regrets these days. But in terms of what HN would be interested in, I tend not to really "get" large scale trends either -- since I've basically been trained to revolt from them unless there's a clear advantage to following it. So it definitely had an impact on my thinking in that sense.

protonfish 13y ago

I was a rebellious little brat, so my mom's hysteria only increased my interest in D&D and Rock and Roll. I still enjoy these things today so I'd say it worked out well for me.

Dove 13y ago

how did it effect you? How did you recover? I was warned against D&D, violent video games, and various harmless television shows. It was a bit silly at my house; violent games included Scorched Earth and Starcraft, and inappropriate TV included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Simpsons. I thought at the time that my parents' fears were misplaced, and I argued as much . . . but I respected their rules because they were my parents. When I moved out, I asked my mother if she would prefer I continue to avoid those things out of respect for her, and she told me that as an adult, that sort of decision was mine to make. I promptly installed TONS of violent video games day 1 at college, and went on to form a rather excellent D&D group. ;) I resented my parents a little bit for the parts of geek culture I missed out on. And it cost them a bit of respect that I couldn't rationally persuade them they were wrong (we had a relatively robust debate culture at our house). But you know, those have both since mended. It's easy to go back as an adult, and pick up things you missed. And their rules relaxed a lot, shortly after I moved out, to the point that my adult siblings and I can have a Left 4 Dead LAN in their living room, and they think nothing of it. Looking back, it really was only a handful of things they taught me that were wrong; they taught me a lot of very valuable things that were right, too. I find that the older I get, the more I quote them. And while they laid down certain rules I disagreed with, they very much raised me to think for myself and make up my own mind, and for that I'm grateful. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to think hard about when rebellion against authority is necessary on moral principle, and when it would be selfish even if you're right. As a kid, I had great respect for their judgement, and I don't think it was misplaced. They were occasionally wrong, but I think I was wrong a lot more often. I understood they had greater experience and wisdom than I did, and greatly valued their opinions. That's still true, and I still do. Part of me resents not playing Magic with my geek friends in junior high, but a larger part of me is glad that I respected their decisions. I think it was the right thing to do, and I'd do it again.