The emotion of fear demands a target, so when some scary phenomenon is too big or abstract for us to grasp, it’s a big help psychologically for us to condense it into something that helps us explain why bad things are happening. This isn’t new – people have been making up bogeymen since long before the Internet (hello, Dungeons & Dragons) – but rumors are now able to fly across continents in seconds, and the Internet itself is a massive ocean of abstract unknowns and possible dangers, which makes it even more fertile ground for fears. Mix natural parental concern with the Internet and our… Read more