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Which is interesting because the "stranger danger" panic was basically fueled by the media itself, as it sold well.

They could have been doing research into all the actual non-stranger cases of abuse that were going on but secret, but no, that doesn't sell as well.

The part I don't understand is, where did the stranger-danger thing come from? Was it an early reaction to institutional sexual abuse that was just becoming well-known? Was it a culture-war thing where racism was socially unacceptable, so we had to fear everyone? Was it just that TV became ingrained enough that everybody lived in fiction more than real life?

I don’t think that’s an irrational take it all.