I should start off by saying content warning for like everything. This is not safe for work,

not safe for life or the human psyche, and certainly not safe for me, I am permanently changed.

I will be describing children's videos that have been manipulated to show everything from sexuality to violence

and pretty much every strange, gross, and unnerving thing you can think of. So if that does not

sound good to you, I totally understand, and I hope you have a great week. For the rest of you, I wish so much that I could show you

the things that I'm telling you about today. So if you'd like to see the visual representations,

please go to our social media. But today, I'm going to try to use my patented poetry degree

the way it was meant to be used to try to

paint you a picture of this Elsa Gate Hellscape. May God have mercy on our souls.

On this podcast, we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, conspiracy theories, and urban legends, examine the forces that shape our culture, and tell the stories that create the realities

we share, and sometimes the realities we don't.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American hysteria.

One click, and it's down the rabbit hole, video suggestions growing more and more deranged.

Peppa pig eats her father, drinks, bleach.

Just be careful if you have any concern about mind control triggers.

I thought YouTube kids were safe.

This is scary.

So did I. YouTube Kids launched in 2015 to the joy of overworked parents everywhere,

something they could sit their kids in front of for sacred chunks of time, the way many of us were

placed in front of television cartoons, ones regulated by trusted standards of suitability.

For the next generation, YouTube kids and the child-approved channels on YouTube proper

promised a safe, clean, and even educational experience.

...