Talk:Folk devil

Comments

On 22nd January I wrote a piece on 'Folk devils'. I was trying to help and to put a useful text where there was none. Somebody called, 'Ihcoyc' deleted my whole text and put his/her own there instead. 'Ihcoyc' made a good contribution. It was better than mine. Despite this I would like to ask, 'Why did 'Ihcoyc' deleat my whole work?' I've restored the greater part of my text and added a bit to it. I think my text improves the article.

Barbara Shack.

Having read the before and after sections, I would say that your text wasn't exactly deleted. It was just rewritten to fit in with the style of the Wikipedia. This is normal behaviour for contributors to the Wikipedia and you should expect it unless you try to write in the Wikipedia style. You can find out how to do this by reading the tutorial articles on style.

Since you have now added your original text back in to the article, it is now repeating itself on some points and consequently you should expect that people will edit it to remove the repetition and to make it fit in with the Wikipedia style once more. Please don't worry about it. This happens to every one of us and it generally leads to better articles. The inportant thing is that your original facts remain. -- Derek Ross

The article seems to have become opinionated as this user has added more to it. It needs another major rewrite soon. Any volunteers? SimonMayer 17:37 Mon 26th October 2004 (UTC/GMT).

26 October ? I know that we all live in different time zones but that's taking it to extremes. Time to fix your computer clock I think. -- Derek Ross 17:41, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. It must be national pride, I consider my country nine months ahead of the others, but I'm pleased that you pay such close attention. SimonMayer 17:51 Mon 26th January 2004 (UTC/GMT).

As the guilty party who did the rewriting, I would say in my defence that it was a page that appeared on a page called Wikipedia:Cleanup, which seeks to call users' attention to pages that need work. I saw it there and took my cue from there, and attempted to rework it into something more stylistically consistent with other articles here.

I hope this experience has not soured you on Wikipedia generally; it is somewhat dismaying to see your own work being rewritten, I know. You may wish to sign up for an account and get a user name, do some more looking around, and try to improve the article yourself. I thank you for beginning it! -- Smerdis of Tlön 01:37, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The article seems to be quite substantial now, is the stub note really still warranted? -- Kizor 13:21, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Quote from article:

The concept of the folk devil was introduced by sociologist Stanley Cohen in 1972...

Can any sociologists confirm if the term is used in any other context at all? Both of the external links refer to it specifically as Cohen's invention, and all the other references I can find are quotes of this article. If the term was used only by Cohen, or even if it is used generally by sociologists but not elsewhere, the article should say so in the first paragraph. Securiger 09:09, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've seen it elsewhere, particularly in books by the folklorist Bill Ellis. However, unlike moral panic, the concept of folk devil seems not to have penetrated much into the surrounding culture. I suspect it is used mostly by professional folklorists and sociologists. Smerdis of Tlön 15:11, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I thought a folk devil was something like the chupacabra or the Jersey devil. -Branddobbe 07:28, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

Refugees and Gypsies?

I'd like to add the current moral panics re:ayslum seekers and Roma in the UK to the list. I'm aware that this could be my POV so adding it here first. Secretlondon 02:36, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Adding them to the list sounds reasonable to me but if you're worried about POV issues, how about finding a citation to back it up ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:08, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Volksteufel?

There is no German word like "Volksteufel", appropriate terms for folk devil could perhaps be (in a sociological meaning) "Außenseiter" (outsider) or "Sündenbock" (scapegoat). Who put this very bad translation into the article? - Andreas 05:28, Sept 14, 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.233.218.135 (talk) 15:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed To Catch a Predator reference

I removed the To Catch a Predator reference, because it made no sense in the context of this subject. Folk devil refers to a group that is maligned as criminal, not an actual group of criminals. Snookumz (talk) 02:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

--- I noticed the ending references to the Catholic Church, and frankly it sounded anti-Catholic, biased, and prejudiced. We could similarly present many more sources that argue the opposite: That the secularized media and opponents of the Church have tried to use the sex scandal as a means to vilify the Church and turn it into a "folk devil". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.255.142.50 (talk) 11:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Pedophiles and child molesters (or sexual predators, which is a more general term: predators do not necessarily target children) are never distinguished from each other in popular use, but they are not the same group (even though there is considerable overlap, of course). Pedophiles are a group that is collectively maligned as criminal, although not all of them are criminal (contrary to what Snookum states), therefore they fit the definition. The removal of this example from the article was totally unjustified. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Additional references

Beyond folk devil resistance: Linking moral panic and moral regulation (July 2011)

The Drug Addict as a Folk Devil (1977)

Mobilization Through Interpellation : James Bulger, Juvenile Crime and the Construction of a Moral Panic (1997)

Deviance "Down under" or How a Deviance Assignment Became a "Folk Devil" (Oct 1993)

Slartibartfastibast (talk) 14:49, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Hitler

not to downplay the bad things the historical figure did but hear me out. "Worse than Hitler" is a common phrases we know what it means

Hitler does seem to fit the mould of a folk devil as he and his supporters have become a boogieman. And there is a fear among some that their presence real or imagined is omnipresent

Musical artists such as Maralyin Manson who wanted to antagonize or satirize the conservative culture contemporary to the 20th century often had themes which mentioned the antichrist, deamons and things of that nature which had a negative response and contributed to such music being associated with events such as colombine.

The culture is different from 1996 when Manson put out antichrist superstar.

The establishment today says "diversity is our strength" rather than in "God we trust" like back then.

Figured such as Hitler might be invoked not from a position of animosity towards groups such as the Jews but rather animosity towards the establishment status quo.

the most milquetoast right leaning individuals are described as turbo Nazis to a point where people are desensitized.

Christianity in Western countries doesn't have a particularly strong influence compared to the past and moral panics over hitlerism are likely to follow the same pattern as the satanic panic.

Yes there will be real Nazis but there were also real people who committed murder because they believe in satanism but those probably weren't the same people posting church of Satan memes on myspace back in the day

We've always had left and right existing concurrently it's more an issue of what foot the boot was on during a particular era ~2025-43644-46 (talk) 05:59, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Possibly, but we need sources describing Hitler or the Nazis as folk devils and bogeymen, not our own research. Though the argument reminds me a bit of the stock characters who were used as villains in Gothic fiction:

• • "The birth of Gothic literature was also thought to have been influenced by political upheaval. Researchers linked its birth with the English Civil War, culminating in the Jacobite rising of 1745 which was more recent to the first Gothic novel (1764). The collective political memory and any deep cultural fears associated with it likely contributed to early Gothic villains as literary representatives of defeated Tory barons or Royalists "rising" from their political graves in the pages of early Gothic novels to terrorize the bourgeois reader of late eighteenth-century England."
  • I wonder whether the long-dead Nazis and other figures of World War II will keep being used to evoke cultural fears for the rest of the 21st century. Dimadick (talk) 12:38, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

calling somebody a Nazi is increasingly as impactful as calling them a "Poo poo head"

godwins law and the boy who cried wolf come to mind.

That doesn't mean some don't feel a very strong attachment to using those terms to describe people they don't like.

People can look at Vlad the impaler objectively and consider his merits and compare his brutality to world leaders who existed around that era instead of somebody who was in office last Tuesday.

you could consider that without instilling fear into his opponent he would have not been able to defend his territory as effectively, this also demoralized his opponent.

Besides him impaling the invaders there is the fact that he impaled his own men when they were too wounded is unambiguously considered an evil even by people who consider his enemies fair game but military necessity would be considered justifiable.

We can find people who speak of Stalin in such a manner to what I just did about Vlad but currently speaking about the Germans and their leader during the second world war and the latter interwar period is still taboo.

But the forces that make it taboo aren't permenant.

im a bit skeptical about if Nazis will have any sticking power following a cultural shift as Hitler is mostly s boogieman to middle and upperclass Urban whites.

both middle-class and white are categories in numerical decline on censuses.

however I don't know if there's going to be anyone who will upstage them in the popular imagination

A disappearing middle-class and demographic change would affect their cultural hegemony in western countries.

Fixation on racism as a Cardinal sin and Using often hypocritical and counterproductive ways of "Fighting racism"

may have a boomerang effect (though they wouldn't have cultural hegemony)

Kazakhstan has reversed it's status as a Russian majority country to become majority Kazakh

There's a lot of institutional "positive discrimination" for example the Royal air force of the UK complaining about how the applicants they are getting are "Useless white men" useless for meeting BAME quotas.

this is known as "Two tier policing" though the earlier expression one rule for us Annother for them springs to mind.

in some far right satire for example Murdoch Murdoch there is a joke about east Asians invading the US and instead of a 36th class citizen whites are now second class citizens.

Granted these are people far away from the Overton window where people say things they wouldn't say in public for fear of consequences for being too far from what the current establishment deems politically acceptable.

there is also the "Notably absent" criteria where there are government programs to help every group but one.

And how selective enforcement of the law legally enshrined racial biased to "Protect minority groups"

During an era of decreasing upward mobility, decreasing affordability of housing structured in a way where the wealth transfers from the renting serfs created wealth trickles up to the landed bourgeoisie who's only qualification is entering the Ponzi scheme sooner.

meanwhile the government provides free housing to everyone but the people who consider themselves 36th class citizens.

I'm going to mention the infamous Piers Morgan interview not because I agree with either of them because personally I don't like either but I do nonetheless considered it an important event when observing cultural shifts.

Nick said he thought there were positives to Stalin and Hitler and said they were cool.

piers played a clip of some bourgeoisie aristocrat from the UK house of Lords to talk about how his family suffered under Hitler and Stalin.

He was uninterested in this and it has become the subject of memes which treat the subject of the Holocaust the same mocking way Maralyin Manson and similar musicians from that era who liked to put pentagrams St Peters crosses Baphomets etc on their album art and sing about how much they love things that would offend Christians and such because that was back in the day the establishment.

I have lived in South America for a while and see parades and events with an overtly Christian theme but I couldn't imagine that happening in England for example people would get arrested for potential to offend minorities or LGBT or whatever.

Be this from the actions of people trolling the formerly Christian establishment or boomers and their brand of politics becoming unchallenged when the previous generation disappeared as a voting bloc and the younger generation being too small to challenge them (Mileneals have the reputation for this politics when really they're just blending in with the current political concensus)

We can look back at the breakup of Yugoslavia and consider it a possible model of colapse but that being said we don't definitely know how the culture will shift we just see the impermanence of what keeps the culture as is.

That doesn't mean we're going to get a traditionalist utopia or socialist paradise (Though I imagine worse of both worlds combination of the 2 is definitely possible)

people who don't feel strongly about their country of residence (which is really just an economic extraction area for goliaths like BlackRock to buy everything up often using taxpayers money) won't feel particularly strongly about victory over Germany in what is now aincent history or consider it a big deal if the global language was English, German, Russian or Chinese because if that had happened before you were born you'd already speak it fluently ~2025-43644-46 (talk) 06:13, 4 January 2026 (UTC)