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Many of us had to deal with a lot during the 80s in terms of the beliefs much of the country (world) had about our music and our games. I'll try to remember some of what i dealt with and if /as others post their experiences, i am likely to remember more to post. I'll start with a broad overview and a few examples.

Beliefs in my area- small town in WV.
-Heavy metal music is satanic. If you play it backwards, its the devil telling you what to do.
-All metal muscicians are cult leaders out to get your souls.

-Games- satanic. Your characters become you and take over your body making you do as they desire.
-You actually become your characters and turn evil.
-If your character dies, you die.
- That you summoned real life demons from hell and sacrificed animals.
-That gamers were constantly on the lookout for blonde haired blue eyed virgins to rape/sacrifice.

Getting lateand I'm not fully coherent. this oughtta be enough to get us started.If you were there for it what have you heard from those who were and remember?

Depending on where you go, or who you talk to...... Not much has changed

Gamers are socially awkward virgins who don't get invited to the cool parties.

I'd like to meet the gamer who didn't fill this stereotype.

feeder wrote:
Gamers are socially awkward virgins who don't get invited to the cool parties.

I'd like to meet the gamer who didn't fill this stereotype.

Well, this depends on what you call the 'cool parties. lol. I got invited to a lot but usually to babysit and drive since I didnt drink. They were definately cool to me but made up of what the cool rich kids thought of as riffraff. i was also only socially awkward around girls. Boy did that change after high school. lol

Boy George
Duran Duran

Step brother and sister doing some serious fan bashing to point of fist fighting

Dime bag was five dollars back then
Dungeon and Dragons came onto the scene
Nintendo
MTV Headbanger Ball


Card game was Rummy 500

I do remember a few ways it affected me. When I was interested in girls, it was not socially acceptable to be seen with me because then they would be seen as tainted and a satanist by extension. The ones who DID show an interest did because they wanted to be seen as rebels whil being put off because i was not all I was cracked up to be in the stories.

I did have to worry about getting jumped and people constantly wanting to pound on me. One of the reputations I got was actually true. People thought of me as a sword swing maniac. I did have to start carrying swords and machetes and such in order to eep people from attacking me.However, that was as a reaction to the other effects rathen than them occurring because of it.

It also hurt me in terms of getting a job. No place wanted to be seen as the one to hire a satanist. This forced me to go out of town for work and was not able to get work in town until an outside company came in and took over one of the plants and hired me because they were strangers with no local ties.

That playing heavy metal backwards thing was stairway to heaven, wasn't it? The accusations against it probably were an angry reaction to the lyrics of the song itself. As for witchcraft and D&D, i've always liked this little gem: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

I'm not sure what you mean by 'in the 80s', though. I see that sort of thing all the time still.

Hmm I'd like to see more 80's culture in gaming

This was an amazing gem

Didn't have any effect on me.

Sure, we heard the same recycled US and UK stories (and the same crap Tom Hanks ' mazes and monsters' movies).

I didn't grow up in an area straightjacketed by a perverse take on religion - there were guys at school who played d&d in the library (at least in high school, the early 80s for me) but I wasn't one of them.

I read SF books and watched the odd SF movie. I didn't become a gamer until after I'd left school - and as a grown up, restrictions against what children could do or see or play became irrelevant.

The whole hard rock music being satanic thing was a bit of 70's-80's things that's mostly died out. The main reason being that most of the original fans of that music (the ones whose souls where apparently in danger 30 years ago) have now grown up, entered the mainstream and in many cases are now the people who make the money and form opinions.

Today the same right wing news outlets that demonised hard rock in the 80's now welcome the opinion of people like Dave Mustaine and Ted Nugent.

It's a cycle that consistently repeats. What causes moral panic today usually will be looked on nostalgically by conservatives 30 years in the future.

Yeah.

Hypocrisy wasn't just an 80's thing (though the hypocrites were quite vociferous.)

I was often amused by the fact that the accusations that these so called religious zealots came up with were far more perverse and satanic than anything that happened in a D&D game or metal song. Truly, their imagination was a dark place.

All of this from those who claim to follow the "judge not, lest ye be judged" faith.

Bloody hell, my parents grew up in the 80s, and they still believe that D&D is satanic. I've played the game a couple of times briefly, but it's pretty clear that the game is nothing but a fun fantasy game (and I doubt the sanitizing in later editions really made a major difference). My mom found a D&D character sheet in my room when I was in high school and she was VERY concerned... one of many times that ignorance and repeating hear-say has made me want to beat my head against a desk.

feeder wrote:
Gamers are socially awkward virgins who don't get invited to the cool parties.

I'd like to meet the gamer who didn't fill this stereotype.

Well 1 out of 3 is correct.

The 80's...my mother was OK getting me Testament and Slayer albums one Christmas, but squashed the Twisted Sister request. D&D cartoon? Nope. Just in case Lucifer spoke during the credits, or something, I guess. I was the first boy in my elementary school to sport an earring, thanks to mom's OK.(I chose an upside down cross). Video games weren't ever discussed, other than a quick comment about arthritic thumbs from an Atari 2600 button. Those days, violence was limited to a pitfall. These days, a hummer in a video game doesn't mean the vehicle!

Hmm...thinking about it now, like many evangelicals, my mother was one conflicted and confusing individual. I imagine then, like today, we let outside influences unfairly color our views of parenting and people.

This isn;t 80s, but close enough.

If you listened to metal, you wanted to kill your mother. The phrase I got in high school was "Kill your mother, eat your father" with mock headbanging and the Gene Simmons devil horns.

(thanks to "One", presumably)

That was as a reaction to the other effects rathen than them occurring because of it.

feeder wrote:
Gamers are socially awkward virgins who don't get invited to the cool parties.

I'd like to meet the gamer who didn't fill this stereotype.

Sounds like you've got some really cool friends.

feeder wrote:
Gamers are socially awkward virgins who don't get invited to the cool parties.

I'd like to meet the gamer who didn't fill this stereotype.

There are quite a few of them here.....

Now I wasn't alive in the 80's but I was into gaming (mostly video gaming, but I think the principle at the time was the same) and heavy metal as I went through high school and am still into those interests to this day. And I conclude to this day that this was the better path to take.

I mean what's the alternative? Join the football team and listen to gakky pop music?

And by the way, all the cool parties are nerd parties!

 Wilytank wrote:
Now I wasn't alive in the 80's...

So you haven't had the experience of getting home from a HS football game just in time to watch the premiere of MJ's 'Thriller' on NBC's Friday Night Videos? You missed out!

I mean what's the alternative? Join the football team and listen to gakky pop music?

...or not.

I'm from a very religious background and even attended a religious university.
You know what we did to keep out of trouble? We played D&D. A lot. Lots of us did. Many also all played guitar/bass/drums.
No one cared. Yeah, it was nerdy, but times have changed. Stop holding on to this victimized status that was decades ago.
There are still smatterings of that 80's mentality around, but they're from close minded ignorant people that you wouldn't want to associate with anyway. I go to a lot of sci-fi/fantasy conventions for my writing, and I embrace nerd culture and love it. Who cares what others think?
(You'd also be surprised how many nerds are in the army.)

80s had that last of the Cold War Could Go NUKE! threat thing going on which gave speed/thrash bands lots of fodder for songs and album covers (Nuclear Assault's Game Over being an easy example). Also had some great politics going on which the 80s punk bands took as great inspiration.

My mom was (still is) pretty religious and didn't like the Slayer 'Hell Awaits' or Dio's 'Holy Diver' album covers. I don't think she looked at too many punk albums close enough to be offended, though my dad chuckled at the Holiday in Cambodia cover.

Gaming in my area was pretty limited. Some D&D, stuff like SJGs OGRE and Car Wars, some miniatures stuff.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Depending on where you go, or who you talk to...... Not much has changed

Maybe that is the case in the US. But even back in the early 00's, when I went to Iran, heavy metal was already cool and trendy there (heard MetallicA for the first time in a taxi in Tehran by night ), and likely even the government thought it was less satanic and evil that pop music with naked ladies .
Ah, the United States of America .

 Wilytank wrote:
I mean what's the alternative? Join the football team and listen to gakky pop music?

Goth music Don't use language like this on Dakka. Reds8n ! That was the alternative. As far as I can tell, the 80's were the golden age of goth music.
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=1k1Rhi0MSnI&feature=related

 Wilytank wrote:
Now I wasn't alive in the 80's but I was into gaming (mostly video gaming, but I think the principle at the time was the same) and heavy metal as I went through high school and am still into those interests to this day. And I conclude to this day that this was the better path to take.

I mean what's the alternative? Join the football team and listen to gakky pop music?

And by the way, all the cool parties are nerd parties!

Well, there was always the option of taking music, games, and/or parties as occasional entertainment, and spending your time studying or working instead...

Rusty Trombone wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:
Now I wasn't alive in the 80's...

So you haven't had the experience of getting home from a HS football game just in time to watch the premiere of MJ's 'Thriller' on NBC's Friday Night Videos? You missed out!

Ha!

A local radio station used to do a simulcast thing with Friday Night Videos so that you could listen through your stereo and watch on your TV.

Those were obviously the days before home theaters and super-Doppler stereo TVs.

Ozzy. Just have to blame Ozzy for being the one to bringing Satanic angel into it. Anyone remember him biting a bat head off?

Damn Jake you brought up Slayer and Dio's
I counter with Iron Maiden "Wasted Years" and Pantera "Cemetary Gates"

 Jihadin wrote:
Ozzy. Just have to blame Ozzy for being the one to bringing Satanic angel into it. Anyone remember him biting a bat head off?

Damn Jake you brought up Slayer and Dio's
I counter with Iron Maiden "Wasted Years" and Pantera "Cemetary Gates"

I remember Ozzy wizzing on the Alamo.

I had several Maiden albums on vinyl, to include KIllers and Number of the Beast. I think the Number of the Beast cover was another one that set off Mom's Jesus Meter. As did Celtic Frost's 'To Mega Therion'. Oh my, she really didn't like that one.

I throw in White Zombie into that mix

Edit

Those who did not grow up in the eighties cannot contribute to this

 Jihadin wrote:
I throw in White Zombie into that mix

Edit

Those who did not grow up in the eighties cannot contribute to this

Zombie's concerts are the most theatrical I've ever seen. If you haven't gone, I highly recommend it.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
I throw in White Zombie into that mix

Edit

Those who did not grow up in the eighties cannot contribute to this

Zombie's concerts are the most theatrical I've ever seen. If you haven't gone, I highly recommend it.

They were a straight out BLAST lol

Also I will add to the "evil Satan inspire groups" INXS "Devil Inside"