A great example of a mass hysteria
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Science Based Medicine says what?
Remember back in 1997, the Pokemon seizure episode? Hundreds of children reported symptoms, including seizures, after watching a specific episode of the Pokemon cartoon that includes a sequence of flashing alternating red and blue lights. The press reported the episode at face value, attributing the reaction to a known phenomenon of photosensitive epilepsy. However, later reviews found that the majority of cases were not seizures, and in fact occurred during later viewings of the episode, after the story was widely reported.
Widely reported, eh? So we’re talking suggestibility here? Social contagion?
The episode is a great example of a mass hysteria – a story spreading widely in the public that triggers some form of psychological reaction. This could involve a report of a UFO sighting leading to many further reported sightings, or the belief that something toxic is making people in a building sick leading to many people reporting symptoms, even if ultimately there is no underlying cause.
Or………………………….
Indeed. Funny, isn’t it, that perfect examples of mass delusions don’t get labelled as such, provided that powerful people are making a massive profit out of them.
“…Yeah but not my beliefs.”
Not quite the same thing, because it’s about misattributing the cause of illness rather than inducing symptoms, but this reminds me of all the people in 2020 who insisted that they must have had COVID that time in 2019 when they had the flu.
I’m not even talking about someone who could maybe plausibly think that because they visited China then; I mean people who believed that COVID was spreading through their workplace or their kids’ school in 2019 yet somehow hospitals weren’t getting inundated with patients on respirators until March 2020.
These weren’t even people trying to argue that masking or quarantine rules shouldn’t apply to them; it was just this weird need to feel “special” that they had the Big New Virus before everyone else, like it was a hip new musical act or something.
FONBOF – fear of not being on first. FOMO is for losers.