“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic…The truth is far more frightening – Nobody is in control.” – Alan Moore
2021 has been another strange year yet the revitalisation of Satanic Panic – although it might seem to be on the surface – isn’t that strange at all. The last several years have arguably seen the largest rise in the moral panic since its feverish height in the 1980s. As heavy metal began to dominate in that decade, the widespread public feared that children were suddenly at risk of occult rituals, cannibalism, human sacrifice, and child abuse.
Bands such as Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Metallica, and Iron Maiden were cited for their unholy influence, even blamed for murders and suicides. The news even suggested that AC/DC stood for Anti-Christ/Devil’s Child. Backwards masking became a mass fear, with people worried that music played backwards contained subliminal messages advocating for the devil and other dark tidings.
In 1985, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) made the ‘Filthy 15’ list of songs deemed to have dangerous themes for children: rock and metal heavyweights AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Mötley Crüe, and Judas Priest were also joined by pop stars such as Prince, Sheena Easton, and Madonna.
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Three decades later and the increased popularity of conspiracy theories propounded by the likes of QAnon has certainly made Satanic Panic more visible but it never really went anywhere; what 2021 has done is confirm that it will probably always will be here to stay.
If you’ve been anywhere online over the past several days, you’ll have come across all manner of Satanic theories surrounding the tragic events of Astroworld. And it’s the speed at which these outlandish conspiracy theories are developing now that is increasingly alarming: no sooner had news spread of the death and carnage at Astroworld than the first wave of Satanic theories started to emerge.
The death toll was not even confirmed yet and people were insensitively posting their darkest conspiracies on social media (strip everything away for a second and just consider how disgusting it is to indulge in fantastical notions of satanism and death rituals when we now know that people as young as 14 died at the festival).
TikTok videos racking up thousands and millions of views posited bizarre theories of the Astroworld stage being a portal to hell; people were insisting that Travis Scott was offering up his audience as part of a Satanic ritual; scorpio season was also mentioned as being an influencing factor. With everything being catalogued to the tiniest detail on TikTok and Instagram now, there is even more scope for conspiracy theories to be bred and grow. Yet the truth is much more believable, although no less sinister.
Scott and his team had been well warned about the potential dangers of the festival, with lack of exits, insufficient security, and an overly-packed crowd cited as huge risks. The outcome, you feel, was almost inevitable. This is an artist, too, who it must be noted has previous history with dangerous concerts.
Astroworld may be the most notable example of Satanic Panic in 2021 but it’s not the first. When Lil Nas X released the music video for his song, ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’, which sees him being seduced in the Garden of Eden and offering Satan a lap dance, outrage ensued. His video was both hailed as transgressive and blasphemous, but whichever one it was, what it didn’t constitute was a rallying call for Satanism.
A group of parents in the U.S. started a petition to remove a high school principal for loving Iron Maiden and displaying flags with their Satanic imagery. Their attempt at ousting her ultimately failed as a counter petition started by her pupils received far more signatures.
Just last month, Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson was asked about his band’s use of Satanic imagery in an interview. His answer sums it up greatly: “Cause it’s really dramatic,” he said. “What heavy metal bands did by adopting imagery was they shocked people.”
An incorporation of Satanic or unholy imagery into an artist’s aesthetic doesn’t correlate to an endorsement; just as Martin Scorsese making countless films about the mafia doesn’t mean he’s glorifying their practices, nor does Iron Maiden having a looming fiery image of the devil. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of art on a basic level, a misreading that takes everything to be too literate.
What this year has confirmed is that there will always be new artists to incite old panics; there will also always be old panics ready to be reignited by new sources. For now, though, let’s hope the aftermath of Astroworld can be handled correctly and sanely, and that future tragedies like it can be avoided; no one deserves to go to a concert to see their favourite musician and not come home.
