The hysteria of the internet

After we killed the wolf spider -- first attacking it with spray until it was white and then flattening it under a brick (since I had read on a website that it could kill a dog in three hours) -- I learned from the Australian Museum that the symptoms of their bite are usually minor, restricted to local pain or itchiness, and so lay awake for a while, thousands of kilometres south of the cyclone, pondering the hysteria of the internet and other related subjects.