Both US and UK are prone to “won’t someone think of the children??” panics, most of which leave subsequent generations thinking “wth was that about?” There’s always somebody getting money/power out of it, though.

I’m not implying other countries aren’t prone to these panics, of course. When I arrived in Japan there was a panic going on about the moral degeneracy of teen girls wearing loose socks. shihyenshoes.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/j... Japanese loose socks (ルーズソックス) | shihyenshoes

I remember seeing those socks bunched up around ankles in Tokyo and elsewhere and thinking "WTF!"

The fashion itself was pretty wtf, but the reaction by schools was super-wtf. Admin and some teachers were freaking out. I was like “It’s a weird fashion, but so what? Ignore it and it’ll disappear in a year or two.” Most fellow teachers agreed, but had to enforce school-uniform policies.

I can assure you, most people thought the ninja thing was silly +at the time+. Like I said, it was mostly +one man+, who had a really weird thing about nunchuks.