Have YOU Ever Been Involved A Mass Hysteria Event?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have.

Back in high school in the late 60’s, it was… yes…

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Anyway. it was a football game, and opposing team was punting to us…

It hadn’t been a good game for the Wildcats so those of us in the band (We
were called “Band Buzzards”, how about you?) began chanting, "Catch it, Catch it, Catch it (which then became) Cat shit, Cat shit, Cat Shit, CAT SHIT, CAT SHIT CAT SHIT and the whole audience in the stands (even the parents) were getting progressively louder and LOUDER going CAT SHIT, CAT SHIT CAT SHIT
until the players couldn’t hear the signals being called, so the referees had to stop the game, and the announcer (who was also going “cat shit” (ape shit and bat shit) was told to create feedback with his microphone till we all got…stopped… and were breathing hard… looked at each other… not believing what had just happened…

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(music)

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Anyway… anything like that happen to y’all?

no?

Oh well. Happened to me.

Lotsa goofy shit happens to me! :slight_smile:

whew

That was a bitch to code…

BUT… I can still CODE!!! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

ahem

Q

2

No–I *know *I saw that flying saucer, no matter what the newspapers and that man from the government said.

3

THERE ya go!!! :slight_smile:

And I think that the History Channel is “teasing” that UFO Hunters program with something like: “more and more people are seeing them more often”…

Aweome
:slight_smile:

4

Not sure if this counts, but about 10 years ago in Tehran I was surrounded by about 7-10 thousand people chanting “Death to America”. It was quite interesting actually. The fellow next to me told me he went to UCLA and that his brother still lived in LA. He also said wanted to be able to take his kids to Disneyland… before continuing to chant with the crowd.

5

No, but it looks like it’d be really cool to experience.

6

In my Junior year of high school, Coca-Cola came out with that neon green stuff called Surge (I think it was Coca-cola). Anyway, they came to our school and were giving Surge to everyone, I think it was a fake Mountain Dew, double caffeine. Anyway, it wasn’t THAT strong, but people started acting really hyper and the next thing you know, the whole school was running out of the classrooms, spraying Surge all over each other, screaming and acting like a bunch of monkeys. It was insane, and they ended up not putting Surge in the Coke machines or something and the teachers had no idea what to do. What a fun day.

7

That for sure qualifies, mariposala (hope I got that right - pretty name!), and you know? I think something like that would be more apt with kids, and quicker, too. I wonder if some of our docs might wanna chime in on this, because I have another mass hysteria episode to tell about and it could use a medical/pyschological (Good God, me talking about “psych” stuff - how very appropriate!) opinion.

Q

8

I attended a massive youth rally for young Christians when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, and it resulted in my complete conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. I also began attending a pentecostal church.

There is something very weird that happens when you get a lot of Pentecostals together… I guess you might call it mass hysteria. There were about 10,000 kids at this Youth Rally I attended, and it was set up to be as much like a rock concert as possible. The kids get ridiculously jubilant and then usually break down and sob hysterically. It’s one thing to witness it in films like Jesus Camp and a whole other thing to actually be a part of it and experience it for yourself. For the first hour you’re like, ‘‘hmm, this is odd, what the hell’s going on here?’’ and then you become a part of it, and you are nothing but intense emotion and even more intense physical sensation and you suddenly, with no apparent explanation, share the convictions of the masses surrounding you.

I’ve talked before about my inexplicable experiences with Pentecostal religion. I’ve witnessed a so-called ‘‘demon possession’’ and actually was the one to cast the fucker out. I’ve spoken in tongues myself (even as an atheist now, whenever I remember speaking in tongues, I get that physical sensation again could start doing it again at any second. And to some extent you don’t have control over it… you make the choice to open your mouth, but you don’t choose what comes out. Glossolalia is a language-based phenomenon, however, a seemingly random reorganization of phonemes and manifests itself differently from language to language.) I believe there’s a legitimate psychological explanation for this shit, I just don’t know what it is. You get 10,000 people speaking in tongues and some freaky shit starts to happen. I don’t know that I would call it mass hallucination, because everyone experiences something different, but it’s mass something.

I eventually left the pentecostal church because I had trouble sleeping at night.

9

When I was about 16. It was at a party where everyone was totally drunk, stoned, or both. About 6 or 8 of us wound up sitting on the floor listening to a portable record player. Yes I’m that old. All of a sudden and with no prompting from anyone else, we just attacked this record player and tore it to bits. Mass hysteria on a small scale perhaps.

10

I was part of a large group of people (I’ve seen estimates as high as 12 million) who all thought their cable had gone out on the evening of June 10, 2007.

:slight_smile:

11

Mardi Gras in New Orleans is kinda like that. It’s more premeditated than the OP, but not necessarily less hysterical.

12

Maybe he was thinking of the music band America.

Just for the Horse with no name song they deserve a very painful one… ;):smiley:

13

Yeah, the whole time I was in southern Iran, I could not remember who I was. ;):smiley:

14

Uh, I was going to say that my dad bought beans, canned food and guns for Y2K.

Since that doesn’t seem to be going with the flow of the thread, I’ll add that I attended fundy churches as a kid and saw people being “slain in the spirit,” speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor with hysterical laughter. (Yes, I sadly occassionally participated in the former two.)

15

Hell!

I was kinda hopin’ SOMEONE might notice the AURAL creativity of that whole thing. It took me 32 minutes!:smiley:

Also, I was trying to paint a “word and rhythm picture” for y’all!

If you let yourself get into it , and “chant” along with the “crowd”, I thought* I wrote it* so you coud “see” it in your minds!

Y’all don’t appreciate nuthin’!

:frowning:

:wink:

:smiley:

Q

16

I’ve been to 3 anime conventions in 2 years. Both times I have gone to Anime Expo, something like this happened. The first one reminds me of the situation the OP recounts. In 2007 (Long Beach Convention Center), I was in the exhibit room when I saw a group of Super Mario Bros. cosplayers marching around. Some people began chanting “Mario! Mario!” Soon, a group of Naruto cosplayers joined in and the chant morphed into “Naruto! Naruto!” The group of marchers wound around the exhibit hall and was eventually broken up, but the Naruto cosplayers soon turned it into an impromptu group photo session. The last I saw of that group, a 13-year-old boy in Naruto costume was riding a paddle boat with 4 Sakuras in the lagoon behind the convention center. :smiley:
The next year (LA Convention Center) I was in the north entryway on Saturday taking pictures when a group ran by dancing “Caramelldansen”, led by a girl in an Edward Elric costume with a CD player playing that song full blast. I joined in, for lack of anything better to do. The line of dancers made its way around the convention center, to the amusement of attendees, some of which were recording us as we ran by. (If this is on Youtube, I’m the catgirl in a black tank top near the end.) I finally gave up when we walked into the Artists’ Alley, and waved goodbye to the Caramelldansers while gasping for breath. Man, that was fun. Not very dignified for a woman my age, but fun.

17

Yes, yes, yes!

It wasn’t fun.

My group at camp was hiking the Appalachian trail. Five day back-packing trip. Forth night, we get to the top of this mountain, and start to set up camp.

My mememory gets a little hazy here, so I’m not sure exactly what order the following things happend.

Two boys were setting up a ring of rocks for the campfire, and one boy dropped a rock on his foot. It was bleeding heavily, and he had to be carried down the mountain to the hospital. This is not directly related to the story, but it was one of the things that convinced us something evil was on the loose.

Meanwhile, a group of kids were excitingly telling a counseler about this really creepy place they’d found. One of the kids, who I’ll call Bill, was going on about how they found this trail, and it led to this spooky place, and it felt really evil, man, and the counselor had to go see it.

I overheard the conversation, and decided to tag along.

We went down a small sidetrail, and sure enough, it felt creepy. I know it must have just have been the power of suggestion, but we were all throughly spooked by the time we reached the end. There was a cliff, a small gnarled tree, and a feeling of intense… I dunno, evil. We all agreed that, yes, this was A Very Bad Place.

Then one of the girls (I’ll call her Erin) disappeared.

That was about the time we really started panicking. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on but some of the other kids said she’d gone down a side trail to the side trail, and she hadn’t come back.

We went down that side trail, and if the first trip was creepy-in-a-sort-of-cool-way, this was a sheer, intense, malevolence. Again, I know it must have been the power of suggestion, but we all honestly felt that there was capital D Doom waiting for us at the end. We eventually got to the point where even the counselor said we’d have to turn around.

Whatever nasty force was after us didn’t seem to want to let us go so easily. As soon as we turned around, we stepped into a hornet’s nest. I myself got at least six stings. We got the heck out of there, screaming and crying.

When we got back up to the camp, Erin was waiting for us, sobbing. She’d been chased by a strange red-headed man, and was now in shock.

Soon there were three of, sitting on the steps of the wooden shelter and sobbing: Erin, because of the man. Me, because of the bee stings. And Bill, who had somehow convinced himself that he had psychic powers or something, and had caused the whole traumatic afternoon. He was really in a state- literally scratching his skin off.

Our being there tipped the whole camp over into mass hysteria. Everyone was crying. They refused to sleep in their tents, insisting that we all stay together in the wodden shelter. Sometime during our misadventures, night had fallen, and I swear, the moon was blood-red. Naturally, the kids took this as an omen.

Once inside the shelter, things didn’t get much better. Bill was shakily insisting that he was using his powers to protect us. It didn’t reassure us all that much. We were all sure that something was out there, just waiting for us. I broke out in hives and fell asleep crying and itching.

We didn’t get eaten by the Things, of course, When we woke up the next morning, everything was better. We went on with our hike. But I’m not going to easily forget that night. Even if it was just mass hysteria.

18

Mass hysteria brought on by very painful events to children, who, even at a very young age, run to each other for protection.

This is that time I need to remember to say IANAD! :slight_smile:

So here’s the second instance of mass hysteria (for want of a better word) in which I was involved. And no, it wadn’t ME;) who caused it!

The reason I wrote for want.…, is because there may be another word which describes it better, and that’s why I wanted our MD(eities ----- KIDDING, I’m KIDDDING:))'s to participate.

Okay, back in 1967 or 68 in Villa Rica, Georgia, there was an “outbreak” of appendicitis. I forget just how many of us kids had appendectomies, but trust me, it was a lot of us, and all of us during same week! It was unusual enough to cause a former classmate of mine to actually use the word in the subject line when we discussed it many years later.

My short-term memory’s going, but not the long-term, because I can still remember one of the doctors saying “Well he/she’s hurting in the right place, let’s get him/her into the OR!”

I was 17 or 18 at the time (depending on the year of the occurence).

And that’s all I know except that appendicitis isn’t contagious!

No one EVER (to my knowledge) determined why (I’m gonna say at least 15) we all got it, unless we all had “imaginary” pain?

I am in the process of writing my mems (I hope I just “coined” a phrase: I’m writin’ my mems, y’all!"), and will be doing some research, so I will add what I can to this thread.

Thanks for any opinions

Bill

19

I was at the July 4 fireworks in DC 20 some years ago, and they let the crowd, including me and my friends, too close to the show. Or the wind changed or something.

Anyway, one of the rockets misfired and landed in the crowd maybe 20 feet behind me, and then exploded. And then thousands of small, still burning embers started to float down from the sky onto the crowd. People were freaking out and running, and others were pairing off and swatting out each other burning embers as they landed on heads or clothing. It was pretty chaotic for a while.

Then there was a riot in my neighborhood that me and my apartment neighbors watched from the front stoop of the building. Not so much hysteria as circus atmosphere, though.

20

Yeah, reading these posts makes me realize that my experiences were not really mass hysteria per se, just a bunch of kids getting overexcited by being in a fun place away from parents and going batshit in a lighthearted way, and me getting caught up in the silliness of the group. But it was still fun.