The Social Hysteria Bug

Social Hysteria:  When many people in a community behave or react in such an extreme and uncontrollable way due to fear, anger, and/or other emotional states.

Social hysteria, or otherwise commonly known as mass hysteria, group hysteria or collective obsessional behavior, has been around since the beginning of human history.  As long as fear has been a part of our human nature, the spread of that fear has been intentionally used for political and military advantage, or unintentionally has wreaked havoc on whole communities and societies with breaking news, a simple rumor, or coincidental happenstance that spirals out of control with dangerous, devastating, and deadly results.

Adolescent girls have notably been the main culprits of documented incidents of mass hysteria manifesting itself physically in the form of strange unexplainable medical ailments.  The most common manifestation of social hysteria in young girls is when a group of pubescent girls, usually in a school setting, all claim to be afflicted by a mysterious group illness. The latest major documented incident of this type manifested itself in the town of LeRoy, New York in 2012.  Twelve high school girls developed Tourette’s like symptoms that were rumored to be transferred to other potential victims simply by texting one another. The school was immediately tested for toxins and none were found, the strange affliction was deemed to be the work of conversion disorder, otherwise known as mass hysteria.

Early recorded incidences of mass hysteria have affected whole towns in the past, along with people of all ages and walks of life.  Adolescent girls have also and unfortunately in the past, brought upon far darker miseries on their communities with their outbreaks of mass hysteria. The most famous American incident of documented social hysteria is of course, The Salem Witch Trials of Massachusetts.  In 1692 four adolescent girls began to have uncontrollable fits that were blamed on witchcraft, and after the mass hysteria cleared finally, 25 citizens of Salem and its surrounding communities were put to death for being witches or witch sympathizers.

Pubescent girls can’t be entirely blamed for mass hysteria and conversion disorder though, one of the earliest and most famous incidents of mass social hysteria happened in Strasbourg, Alsace in 1588 while it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. A  portion of the town’s residence decided to go outside and dance in the streets for hours uncontrollably, then after days of no rest the towns people literally started to fall dead where they danced  due to heart attacks, fatigue, and exhaustion after days of pure unstoppable human social hysteria.

Mass hysteria has been a driving force in the old world’s public, political and societal history, and with today’s lightning quick social media entity driving our future it  will certainly continue to rear its dangerous ugly head  even in these modern “enlightened” times. One may not be able to always control human nature nor mass hysteria, but being aware of its impact on your community, country, or world is a positive step towards finding immunity from catching the affliction yourself.