You can say this whole thing is ridiculous and overblown. At what point, however, are you going to accept that there is fundamentally something far more psychologically dangerous? At what point is childhood obliterated and adolescence equated with full adulthood?

There is a qualitative difference not because of the subject material per se, but rather the APPROACH to the subject material. I think that's what you're missing and what the article is trying to say. I'm well familiar with the silly arguments that comic books were dangerous, and that D&D was devil worship, etc.

In this case, the issue isn't that drug use or vampires or whatever is the subject matter is inappropriate. That's been around for decades. Look at The Outsiders or many of the books cited in the article itself. The key difference is that these books are bereft of any hope. It is precisely the hopelessness and the sense of powerlessness that pervades these books that I worry about. If you read my original post, that should have been clear.