PitW in 2015

[Henpecked]

The whole situation regarding Bruce Jenner got me thinking.

Peter is the Wolf began in 2005. Canonically speaking, we're still in that year. During that era, cell phones still flipped open, social media was in its infancy, and the country was still felt a certain degree of uncertainty about terrorism.

Fast forward to today. Anyone who doesn't have a smartphone and a Twitter account (much less Facebook) might as well be living in the dark ages. Drones and quadcopter-mounted cameras have entered the consumer market. More importantly, society has become much less worried about a big bogeyman trying to blow us up and more concerned about promoting equal rights of even the smallest minorities.

To that end, would it be possible under these circumstances that in the PitW universe, certain were communities might decide to lift the veil and reveal the secret, in attempt to get in front of the inevitable revelation? It would probably have to start at the local level, with a very modern-thinking pack living in a part of the world that celebrates the counterculture (San Francisco and Portland come to mind). There'd be backlash, for sure, and maybe even some hysteria, much like the AIDS hysteria of the late '80s-early '90s: rumors of who in Hollywood/government/business is or isn't a were, scaremongering from religious zealots about the wickedness of the existence of weres, and so on. But with the eventuality of having their cover involuntarily blown hanging heavier and heavier over the were population, and a society that seems to be pretty cool with a former Olympic champion declaring him/herself as transgender, would the current social climate be enough to convince weres to try being more open about their existence?

Or would the party line still be "Nope, can't be discovered, the secret must stay secret forever and ever and ever"? Because frankly, that would be awfully disappointing.

[stardude]

Are you trying to say that some people in the comic universe correctly predict the course of events a decade in advance?

Historically speaking when societies lean as far left as our society has they tend to have massive corrections to the right complete with jack booted thugs and mass killings. These were societies have been around for thousands of years I think they know better than to follow trends.

And just think as technology advances to make personal recording easier it also makes faking videos that much easier. It is actually pretty easy to hide a lie out in the open if it is big enough.

[rdfox]

What he's trying to do is ask is what the environment would be if the same situation occurred ten years down the road, not suggest that people in the comic could have predicted the next ten years' social changes.

I've had thoughts along similar lines before, and asked in the "what if?" section if there was a possibility that the more progressive/liberal were communities might consider a slow and gradual campaign in the mass media to largely desensitize the public to the concept of weres before carefully--and likely subtly and slowly--opening up the Secret to the general public, on the theory that with the levels of surveillance and private recording equipment out there today (and how stupid so many people are about the internet!), the Secret can no longer be kept forever, and it would be better to intentionally reveal it, on your own terms and after carefully preparing the general public for it, than to have it be accidentally blown to an unprepared populace. (Sort of like a prosecutor asking his witness questions that will get unfortunate facts about them out in the open before the defense can, so as to allow for damage control, or a particularly wily politician being open about his/her failings and potential scandals, so that the opponent can't spring them as an "October Surprise" that doesn't give them time to spin it or do damage control before Election Day.)

I don't think we ended up with a very firm answer as to whether that might happen, though it did result in some very interesting discussion about how one could argue that the were population already *is* manipulating the mass media to desensitize us IRL (using things like Twilight, Marvel's various werewolves, and even this very comic!)...