A bull runs amok at Boone County Fair rodeo in Belvidere, Ill., on Aug. 9

Two 4-H members show off their baby goats at the Boone County Fair in Belvidere, Ill., on Aug. 8

Entries in the zucchini contest are on display at the Boone County Fair in Belvidere, Ill., on Aug. 8.

Like a lot of folks who live in rural America, my extended family considers the local county fair in their corner of Illinois the biggest event of the summer. All year, they fantasize about the rides, the charcoal-kissed meat skewers and the stall that churns out fried cheese curds, those little molten pebbles enrobed in crisp chambers of light-as-air batter. They circle that curd stand like a menacing school of sharks as they take in the surrounding attractions, stopping over every so often to re-up on greasy, cheesy fuel. In recent years, they’ve even taken to entering the fair’s contests — the Olympics of Boone County. And they’ve since collected plenty of award ribbons for photography, cookies, crafts and giant garden-grown vegetables.

If this all sounds like a wholesome bit of Americana, I once thought so, too.

I used to go to the fair with them when I was a kid, back when I had to beg an adult to buy me yet another butter-slicked cob of roasted corn. Eventually, I grew up, moved to the other side of the country, and started skipping the fair for other summer plans.

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This month, I went back after two decades away to see what I’d been missing.

Everything was basically the same, from the cheese curds to the moaning herds of wooly sheep — except this time, the fair was feeling a little … weird.

Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every........

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