Stranger Danger: Who Really Sold Us the Fear

For a generation of kids, stranger danger was the first safety rule we ever learned. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t take the candy. Don’t get in the van. But the panic behind it was built on statistics that didn’t hold up, and the people who spread them had more than safety on the line.

In this episode, I follow stranger danger from 1950s classroom films to the milk carton kids of the 1980s, the reporting that exposed the numbers, the tracking apps that turned the fear into a business, and the true story of one boy who did everything he was taught. It’s a story about grief, media, and how a slogan can outlive the facts it was built on.

Content warning: This episode discusses child abduction, the deaths of children, and child abuse.

If you have information about a missing or exploited child, contact the CyberTipline at 1-800-843-5678 or report.cybertip.org.

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