I am creating a paper for the Allied Masonic Degrees about the "mysterious goat", and how young, new-to-Freemasonry Masons, or just the average person on the street hear about this goat or other negative stereotypes within Masonic rituals.

Specifically, I am interested if any Masons 40 or under have even heard of such an initiation component. I was warned of two things when I first became a Mason, 1) Stay away from the internet!!!! and 2) Ignore any statements about goats that you hear. Coming into Freemasonry with no prior connections, and being the Millennial I am, I just googled Freemasonry and up pops the Wikipedia page (of which there is no negative media).

My question is this- did you have negative preconceived notions of Freemasonry before you joined, and if so, how did you learn of these negative things?

It is my hypothesis that Freemasons are now perpetuating these stereotypes by word of mouth themselves, and that the average person under 40 could care less or is not even aware of the existence of Freemasons (except for maybe the movie National Treasure). Please help me explore this topic by sharing your experiences. Thanks in advance.