The most thorough discussion is an article that appeared in the journal Social History, back in 1995, entitled The Case of the Mohocks: Rake Violence in Augustan London.

The "Mohocks" are a bit like the social media frenzy over "Mo Mo", the Duke Lacrosse team or the Central Park "rapists" -- a hysteria that had some kernel of truth to it, but which was overwhelmed by drama and invention and a desire to over-hastily read into an ambiguous incident some list of perceived deviance in contemporary society

The Mohocks show up in March 1712 -- Jonathan Swift mentions them in letters, as does Lady Strafford. Then the press starts writing about them, and like local news during sweeps week today, folks who wrote for a living saw a meal ticket. So, for example, in the Newcastle Courant of 12 April 1712, we read

For about 10 days past, we have had several Persons undertook the Pranks of the Mohocks in London. Every Night some Persons being knock'd down, cut, or prick'd, or otherwise misused, without provocation, in so barbarous a manner that their Lives are despaired of. Women have been very ill used, set on their Heads, or Pins stuck into them. On Thursday Night these Mohocks met with, near Michael's Lane, one Sullinan, Buttler to my Lord Inchiquin, whom they cut and prick'd with their Swords, in an inhumane manner, but Sullinan making a great Noise, the Mohocks fled, and took into the London Tavern, where, being by one of the Drawers suspected, he called the Guard, and they were seized, and kept on the Guard all Night, and yesterday Morning all were committed to Newgate, who appear to be a parcel of young raking fellows.

Four of their names are as follows: Tooly, Stephens, Cane, and Underwood. Notwithstanding these were committed, last Night a Woman was very ill used, and had a Fish-Hook stuck in her cheek, with a string fasten'd to it, and so dragg'd about, till these unmerciful Wretches thought fit to cut it out. All our Discourse is at present, on these People, for we want 3 English Pacquets [e.g. in Newcastle they're waiting for more news from London]

So the question is: " was this the "wilding" of the early 18th century? Note that in the newspaper quote above, the writer speaks of "Pranks of the Mohocks" almost as a generic term from violence-- he gives no indications that this actually is a specific gang of that name, his account is equally consistent with the idea "'Mohocks' is the name we're giving young drunken disorderlies today". Note that the account itself states that despite the arrest of these individuals, more violence was subsequently committed-- either these aren't "all the Mohocks", or more logically this is just a name that's being applied to random drunken thuggery.

One of the curiosities of the affair is that without knowing much about these carousers, much public commentary was devoted to whether they were Whigs or Tories. Jonathan Swift thought they were all Whigs, seeking to undermine the government, and while that was the prevailing conspiracy theory, the Whigs did spin one of their own in which the Mohocks were Jacobites, with a plan to put the Pretender (James Francis Edward Stuart "The Old Pretender") on the throne.

What really was going on here? We can be sure of a few things, and skeptical about many more. What we know is that London was a rough town at night, where crime, libertinism and political rivalry all mixed. Prostitution was also a part of the scene, and the reports of "women ill-used" should be understood to imply something more-- a psychoanalytically minded reader make much of the dubious but symbolic tale of the "fish-hook" . . . a skeptical reader will account this lurid urban legend.

So too, the claim that there was an "Emperor of the Mohocks" and some mystic rituals. Court records offer little evidence of anything, but the popular press keeps on writing-- you can read of "the Mohock Catechism" and their purported credo "Tho' Friends to Venus, and the God of Love, Dire Foes to Brothels"

So what we seem to be looking at is something real, an emerging libertine street culture, of young men out gambling, whoring and fighting. This is threatening, and the threat is interpreted through the prism of [then] contemporary concerns. In the early 18th century, tales of native American savagery were favorite lurid story, and at the same time there was a dramatic political contest between Whig and Tory, together with a generous dose of misogyny centered on women of the city.

So the violence-- it existed, some of it, but it was more of the same, with a new lurid spin. The perpetrators might, in imitation of the press, have called themselves "Mohocks", but there's no sign of an organization, just young men getting into trouble and being labeled with the favored threat to civilization of the day. Even at the time, some were willing to express skepticism:

[In Gay's] "tragi-comical farce" entitled The Mohocks (1712) presents us with one of the most unusual of the vast number of trial scenes preserved in English drama. In the course of this diverting legal procedure Mr. Justice Scruple makes a very suggestive remark: "What says the Statute Book, Brother Wiseman, in relation to these kind of Enormities ? I am informed that there were Mohocks in Queen Elizabeth's Days. Have you search'd all the Statutes of her Reign for an Act in relation to this Affair ?" To which Mr. Wiseman rather impatiently replies: "What occasion for all these doubts, Mr. Justice Scruple? for where the Law is silent, there our Will is Law-If we have no Precedents of Mohocks . . . yet Mohocks inclusively are comprehended in disorderly Persons" . . .

Now whereas Justice Scruple may have appeared a trifle ridiculous in his insistence on precedent, it must at least be admitted that his information regarding the existence of Elizabethan Mohocks was considerably nearer the truth than Mr. Wiseman-or probably Mr. John Gay-realized; for there is an abundance of evidence to show that organized rowdies very similar to those described by Swift and Steele had been operating in England for at least three generations

Or as Erin Mackie puts it, placing the "rake" into context as a male privilege transformed by modernity, no longer based in feudalism, now more just "we're the guys who do it because we can"

[W]hile society may no longer so overtly defend status and class privilege, the privilege of outlaw masculinities is preserved where gendered exceptionalism cashes in on the prestige value handed down through a history of status elitism. Boys will be boys still; their hijinks and their trespasses against decency and civility, even against the law, countenanced by conventions of (previously aristocratic) masculine privilege established in the early modern period

Perhaps the Mohocks were "boys being boys"-- or perhaps it was just a tale told about random criminals, because at the time it made an appealing story.

Sources:

Newcastle Courant - Saturday 12 April 1712

An argument proving from history, reason, and scripture, that the present Mohocks and Hawkubites are the Gog and Magog mention'd in the Revelations, : and therefore that this vain and transitory world will shortly be brought to its final dissolution., Written by a reverend divine, who took it from the mouth of the spirit of a person, who was lately slain by one of the Mohocks [1712]

-- in Poetry and prose of John Gay (this is satire, Gay plainly thought this was a crock); note this is the John Gay who gives us The Beggars Opera, Polly Peachum and Macheath; characters who return in Berthold Brecht's Threepenny Opera.

Some Pre-Mohock Clansmen

Boys Will Be Boys: Masculinity, Criminality, and the Restoration Rake