You don’t hear about mass hysteria often these days, but most of us know the term and have a general sense of the meaning. In very simple terms most of us would probably describe it as a condition where everyone goes a little crazy at the same time. There have been cases in the past of outbreaks of dancing sickness, for instance.
Every year in the modern world at Halloween we trot out the myth of tampered Halloween candy. It has almost no basis in fact whatsoever but causes extreme paranoia among parents and a deluge of articles from the media about this thing which isn’t real and is arguably another example of annual mass hysteria.
How is it that whole groups of people can go a little loopy in the same way at the same time? There can’t be no cause at all, right? Something has to cause it and damn it, we are here to get to the bottom of it. Let’s find out just how mass hysteria happens in the first place.
What is Mass Hysteria?
Mass hysteria is a condition characterized by a group of people all feeling sick or exhibiting similar symptoms when there is no physical or environmental reason or cause for the sickness. The word hysteria comes from the Greek word for womb and speaks to how, for generations, this was considered a condition that only affected women. It’s also where the word hysterical comes from, as in “stop being hysterical!”
The fact is that it can affect both men and women but women and girls do seem more susceptible to it. For as yet unexplained reasons, cheerleaders are especially susceptible. The reasons for that are still unclear but it may be due to the fact that women are more conditioned to suppress stress than men, to not act out or be aggressive. That can potentially make it manifest in other ways, such as what has been called mass hysteria.
Because of that ingrained sexism, the term is more properly known these days as mass psychogenic illness. That’s defined as “a social phenomenon, that consists of collective anxiety due to a perceived threat and can culminate in a cascade of symptoms suggestive of organic disease without an identifiable cause.”
In simple terms, psychogenic illness happens when you think something has happened. You may think you are exposed to an illness or a toxin, or that an event has occurred even though it has not. We’ll cover some examples that have nothing to do with sickness at all, but rather things groups of people believe they were seeing or experiencing that just didn’t happen.
One of the key components of a psychogenic illness and how it plays out is that the people involved would not normally behave that way. In psychological terms, it’s similar to how mob mentality works. In large groups, people can act contrary to how they would as individuals. Part of this is because, when you’re part of a group, you do lose touch with your individuality to a degree. There is also a loss of self-awareness and a heightening of emotions. In crowds, these are usually intense emotions. You’re going to be excited, maybe even angry, or fearful. The emotions of a crowd tend to feed the crowd and that can lead to negative consequences.
There are examples of mass hysteria dating back hundreds of years. They occur all over the world and there don’t seem to be any barriers to cultures or groups which are going to be susceptible to it.
What Causes a Mass Psychogenic Illness?
One of the hardest things to do when it comes to explaining a mass psychogenic illness is to account for what caused it in the first place. Because a mass psychogenic illness can take the form of people thinking they’re sick with a disease to thinking that there’s a monkey man loose in town, killing people, it’s hard to say there’s one specific trigger.
For instance, a group of people could be exposed to an unusual smell and think they are now infected by some kind of toxin as happened at a Tennessee school in 1998. As we mentioned in the earlier definition, a perceived threat can be all that it is. So that could be thinking that a virus has been released or even that aliens are loose, a monster is in town, or the government is being illegally overthrown.
In 2014 in Colombia, there was an epidemic among pre-teen and teen girls that lasted for months. 240 girls were hospitalized with symptoms that ranged from nausea to dizziness to fainting and convulsions. The locals decided it must be a side effect of the Gardasil vaccine and protested. But the President assured the people it was not because that has literally happened nowhere else. The real culprit? Mass psychogenic illness.
These girls had an honest belief that they were sick, it’s not fakery or deception in any way. Their symptoms are real but the illness is entirely psychological and transmitted through psychological means.
Victims are usually near one another – schools, workplaces, and things that force you to be together with others. Physical symptoms usually involve fainting or seizures but also nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath, headaches, and so on.
Data suggests a psychogenic illness will start with one person and then is most likely to spread to people who see them afflicted and know them well. If the first person is considered high status, such as a very popular student at school, it will affect even more people.
That school in Tennessee was thoroughly investigated as were the people who fell ill. No toxic agent was ever identified, but the investigation showed that most victims saw another person get sick and then began to feel sick themselves.
In May 2006, a group of hundreds of teens in Portugal all reported illness including a rash, dizziness, and breathing difficulties. The cause was determined to be “Strawberries with Sugar,” a popular teen drama TV series in which the same thing had just happened as a storyline.
Anxiety seems to be a major trigger for mass psychogenic disorder. The more stress you’re under, the more things around you that cause worry, the more susceptible you’ll be. In fact, the condition is sometimes called “conversion disorder” as stress or trauma are converted into physical symptoms. If you see other people falling ill, if you or your world is in a time of great upheaval or stress like the end of the school year and exams for those kids in Portugal, it can exacerbate the situation and allow it to take hold more easily.
The cause of the anxiety can also be very culturally significant. For instance, in African nations, you’re more likely to see a fear of the devil or evil spirits being behind what causes it. In the West, it can be a fear of chemical spills, toxic fumes, and other more tangible things of that nature.
Mass Hysteria, Mass Suggestion, and Bad Media
In the modern world, mass suggestion and mass hysteria are spread more easily than they were in the past. Where many instances back throughout history had to take place out of school, convent, or something like that, now we can all be linked by the media so the spread of an illness that may not be real can happen that much more easily.
In 2021, German researchers discovered that social media was actually helping to spread a mass psychogenic outbreak of Tourette’s Syndrome, or at least what sufferers thought was Tourettes. Videos from Instagram, TikTok, and other social media sites began to spread after one initial video of a person who seemed to exaggerate their symptoms, intentionally or otherwise, went viral. That happened in Germany but another outbreak was linked to a Canadian TikToker with Tourette’s, as well.
After that first video, there was a sharp rise in people going to see doctors with concerns about Tourettes but many of them displayed identical tics to the viral video, including the same vocal tics which were all unusual like “fries” and “Heil Hitler.” The tics only displayed when the afflicted were being asked to do things they didn’t want to do. Since none of the symptoms matched how Tourette’s actually manifests, it was soon ruled out and a new diagnosis was made – mass social media-induced illness.
Other conditions, like dissociative identity disorder, have also seen an increase in self-diagnosis thanks to TikTok trends that draw in billions of views. Teens see these videos, identify something they can relate to, and then may begin to manifest more symptoms based on what they’ve seen. Bipolar disorder and various autism spectrum disorders also can manifest in this way.
In 2016, the media helped spread the story of a woman hallucinating people trying to take the roof off of her car. They reported that the responding officer as well as others who had contact with the woman all began to hallucinate as well. People were hospitalized and the local ER was put under quarantine. One story told of doctors baffled by the mystery illness spread by touch. Another headline said doctors confirmed the spread by touch but the article never says that at all.
In reality, there had been no quarantine at all. Anyone who went into the ER was released soon after. There were not five people having hallucinations at all, just one. Others had vaguely flu-like symptoms including someone who recently was exposed to the flu. But the story spread quickly and was reported as far away as the Philippines. Most of the information came from the first article to report on it as breaking news with no actual quotes from involved sources and much of the info seems to have been exaggerated or just made up.
Examples of Mass Hysteria in History
In recent history, one of the most well-known cases of psychogenic illness seems to be Havana Syndrome. Dozens of people, usually employees of the US Government stationed at embassies around the world, reported similar symptoms after the first outbreak in 2017. Dizziness, ringing in the ears, confusion, fatigue, etc. No physical cause has ever been found.
In 2016 parts of America and even beyond were gripped by a clown panic, a belief that sinister clowns were trying to lure children into the woods. Nothing was ever confirmed but soon there were sightings of clowns in multiple states. This was exacerbated by people dressing up as clowns to just stand around in cities. They didn’t do anything, but it fueled the fire that clowns were doing dangerous things.
In 1999, mass hysteria over tainted Coca-Cola in Belgium caused the company to dump hundreds of millions of dollars in product even though nothing was wrong with it. The problem with a psychogenic illness is that the symptoms are real, the people are very sane, and it is hard to convince a person that they are not sick when they are literally sick. Tell someone that they’re imagining things they know to be real and they just won’t believe you.
The Satanic Panic of the ’80s was a widespread case of mass hysteria that became so pervasive it’s still part of pop culture and influences movies and shows like Stranger Things. People were convinced Satan worship was everywhere and there were cases of serious abuse accusations and ruined lives and innocent people were convicted of horrible crimes that never happened at all, they were only imagined.
Back in 1837, London saw the rise of Spring-Heeled Jack, which still exists as a cryptid to this day. Stories of a sinister being with fierce claws who could leap across rooftops spread across the city. Women claim to have been attacked, and a man was even arrested but ultimately not convicted because the victim claimed he could breathe fire when the man in custody could not.
America had its Salem witch trials which were also the result of mass hysteria, religious fewer, and probably a bit of good, old-fashioned hatefulness. The end result was the same, however. Innocent people being accused of horrible crimes and even being executed for them.
Anytime you have a group of people together during a stressful situation, which can be as simple as the stress of school to as complex as the stress of a pandemic, religious oppression, or some other societal ills, you have a prime breeding ground for a potential mass psychogenic illness. If you’re keeping track, that means anytime, anywhere. And the fact is, these do happen frequently, all over the world. Often they’re small and isolated and we don’t hear about them, but if you ever come across a situation where a mystery illness is spreading and there doesn’t seem to be any cause, keep in mind that things may not be any more complicated than that.