And the Satanic Panic of the 80s.

As one of said children in the 80's that stuff freaked me out. Riding bikes at night with friends and hearing weird noises in the woods would get the ol' heart (and legs) pumping.

I was just the opposite. It just sounded so bizarre to me, that when the rumors started flying in my area of certain group's activities at certain locations, my friends and I would sneak off to investigate. It wasn't that we were interested in said activities, or that we were necessarily investigating the validity of the rumors. We were just curious. It turns out, it was all false and made up. Put serious doubts in my mind at an early age about "believing everything you hear", but also seriously lowered the credibility of the people repeating the information in my mind. Had it not been for my interest in computers, I might have turned into some sort of investigator.

And the Communists of the 50s.

And the prohibitionists of the 1890's.

Good point, let me rephrase it to "reductio ad hitlerum du jour". If we're scoring the internet points, we might as well be a bit pretentious.