The Knockout Game: New Name, Old Moral Panic

Random acts of violence have been a part of the human condition since one Sumerian was in a bad mood and clubbed another Sumerian who was minding his own business. And even then, there were probably other concerned Sumerians ready to proclaim this attack was part of a larger trend of brutality that everyone in Sumer needed to be afraid of.

In the case of the knockout game, we have the latest name for an assault committed by youths against random strangers, picked out for no reason or because of their race. The goal of the “game” is for the unlucky victim to be knocked out with one punch to the head. The assault is filmed on a phone and uploaded to YouTube, with gangs trying to outdo each other for the viciousness of their crime.

Putting aside whether the trend actually exists, these attacks are very real. They went national after a spate of assaults in Brooklyn in November. Previously, there were possible knockout game attacks in Washington DC, Spokane, Syracuse, Lansing and Pittsburgh, starting with a 2011 murder in St. Louis. The first victim first allegedly goes back to 1992, with a Norwegian exchange student murdered in Boston. But it was the November spike that put the knockout game on the national news radar, with pundits and op-ed columnists declaring that nobody was safe from the roving gangs of juvenile delinquents randomly killing people for cheap thrills.

However, the truth about the knockout game, what it is and what it isn’t, is less interesting and much more sinister – for a different reason.

http://skeptoid.com/blog/2013/12/02/the-knockout-game-new-name-old-moral-panic/

I know this has nothing to do with porn, but I found it interesting.
Anyone remember the "satanic panic" of the 80's and 90's?