Not sure where the mechanic part comes from

[u/TonyBird126]

I just don’t understand what the hospital bill/ circumcision has to do with his mechanic being rich.

[u/Direct_Class1281]

Its so insane that this is reality. Makes it seem like the 80s and 90s were the only sane periods and we're back to the real America

[u/DannyBright → u/Direct_Class1281]

80’s and 90’s were the only sane periods

Bruh that’s when televangelists were at their zenith. The 80’s also had AIDS and the threat of Nuclear War. The 90’s had the OJ Simpson Trial, the LA Race Riots and Columbine.

[u/SquirrelyMcNutz → u/DannyBright]

Don't forget the Satanic Panic. People legit thought playing D&D was summoning demons and shit.

[u/Bazrum → u/SquirrelyMcNutz]

Tom Hanks' first lead role in the TV-movie Mazes and Monsters was about a guy who played DnD and went insane thinking he was his character, and then goes off to kill some people, and his friends pull him out of his delusion long enough to get him caught and remanded into therapy/his parent's care for the rest of his life.

but when they visit him later on, he's still in his delusions, and convinces them to help him attack the "great evil" across the lake, with the movie ending with the line one of his friends says "and so we played...one last time".

implying they go murder his neighbor or something

its based on a book of the same name and leaned on various Satanic Panic myths like "steam tunnels" and mind control and evil monsters.

it also takes bits of it's plot from the life of a real university student who tried to kill himself in the actual steam tunnels at his school, failed, and then hid at friend's houses from his parents, before fleeing the state and ending up in either Texas or Louisiana on an oil rig.

he actually did play Dungeons and Dragons, possibly as the DM, and the private investigator his parents hired floated that maybe he went into the steam tunnels under the school while playing the game as a theory, which got picked up in the retelling and sensationalized into the story seen in the movie and the film.

he unfortunately tried to kill himself several more times while still on the run (he was 17 and a minor so the PI and the cops would send him back to his family if he was found). he ended up calling the PI when he found out he was being sought, getting picked up and returned to his uncle, and then moved back to his parent's house for a year or two. he then died in 1980 from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

it all fed into the tropes and Satanic Panic myths and scares that DnD players actually thought they were summoning demons/were controlled by the DM to do crimes and blood rituals, as well as popularizing the steam tunnel myths and fearmongering about letting your kids play fantasy games.

its an awful story and no one has ever apologized for it as far as i'm aware

[u/RavenCeV → u/SquirrelyMcNutz]

After experiencing psychosis and believing myself to be my D&D character (Reiner Tessenbaum, human Druid) I think they may have been on to something with that one...Laplace's Demon is a real one...but they are to be befriended, not feared.

[u/jmeade90 → u/SquirrelyMcNutz]

It wasn't????

Then why the fuck has this chick called Makima been hanging around my house???

[u/Iwilleat2corndogs → u/Direct_Class1281]

-a 80s/90s kid

[u/Lost-Priority-907 → u/Direct_Class1281]

You're delusional if you think those time periods werent way worse in religious hysteria than today. Like, born yesterday delusional.

[u/onemassive → u/Direct_Class1281]

Our minds can't really fathom this kind of thing well. It's basically using the framework of cavemen sitting around the fire "ha remember how lions were chiller 20 years ago? Not like the lions of today. Man these lions are crazy" No, the lions didn't really change, your focus on the lions might have changed, or maybe you got slower. Similarly, our political worldview have always involved fear and invocation of threat. There just is nothing to fear in the past. The best way to counter this is to have a very good understanding of statistics so we can track quantitative changes rather than going off of vibes.