<p>When I was a kid, there were serious discussions in churches, schools, and in front of Congress about whether the music my friends and I listened to might be satanic.</p><p>I remember my friend’s mother making him throw away all of his Metallica tapes. I remember hiding the parental warning labels when asking my mom to buy the new Pantera album. I can still see my father breaking my Bone Thugs-N-Harmony CD in half when he realized they dropped more F-Bombs than Nixon in Cambodia.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://markmanson.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twisted-sister-album-cover-780x778.png" alt="" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twisted-sister-album-cover-780x778.png 780w, /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twisted-sister-album-cover-300x299.png 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twisted-sister-album-cover-250x250.png 250w, /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twisted-sister-album-cover-768x766.png 768w, /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twisted-sister-album-cover-640x639.png 640w, /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twisted-sister-album-cover.png 1400w" sizes="100vw" width="780"></figure><p>In case anyone asks, this is the album that caused the downfall of human civilization.</p><p>By the time I reached adolescence, the grown-ups had moved on from offensive music and commenced their hysterics over the corruptive forces of violent video games. The Columbine Massacre in 1999 was peak hand-wringing about violent entertainment. Back then, <a href="https://markmanson.net/school-shootings">school shootings</a> were still a rare occurrence. And it was only fitting that such an incomprehensible act be explained by such a new and incomprehensible form of entertainment.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://markmanson.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/violent-video-games.png" alt="" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/violent-video-games.png 600w, /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/violent-video-games-300x225.png 300w" sizes="100vw" width="600"></figure><p>Sorry. Correction. This video game is what caused the downfall of human civilization.</p><p>Today, we chuckle at the hair metal bands of the late eighties as innocent fun while the shocking hip hop of the early nineties has evolved into a cornerstone of our modern culture. And after hundreds of studies across multiple decades, the American Psychological Association reports that they still haven’t found any evidence that playing video games motivates people to commit violence.<a href="https://markmanson.net/social-media#footnote-1">1</a></p><p>Time has resolved our collective anxiety. The new has become the old, the shocking has become the expected. Yet, today we find ourselves in the grips of another moral panic—this time around social media.</p>