Mass Hysteria Through History: Laughter Epidemic, Dancing Plague, and Tik Tok Tics
In 1962, a group of schoolgirls in Tanganyika began laughing and could not stop. The episode spread to multiple schools, eventually forcing closures and affecting hundreds of students.
More than four centuries earlier, in 1518, residents of Strasbourg took to the streets and danced for days at a time. Contemporary accounts describe exhaustion, collapse, and a response from local authorities shaped by the medical beliefs of the time.
During the industrial era in Europe and the United States, physicians documented similar patterns in factories and schools. Groups of workers developed symptoms such as fainting, tremors, and nausea without a clear environmental or biological cause.
In that same year, 1962, a U.S. textile factory experienced what became known as the June Bug Epidemic. Workers reported being bitten by an unseen insect. Investigations found no physical cause, but the symptoms spread through proximity and shared interpretation.
More recently, clinicians have documented a rise in rapid-onset tic-like behaviors in adolescents, many of whom were exposed to similar content online.
This episode looks at these cases side by side, not as isolated events, but as examples of a recurring pattern. Under certain conditions, behavior, emotion, and even physical symptoms can move through groups in ways that feel personal, but are not entirely individual.
Attribution Notes:
* Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.
* If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow
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This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust.
Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic (1962)
Rankin, A. M., and P. J. Philip.
“An Epidemic of Laughing in the Bukoba District of Tanganyika.”
Central African Journal of Medicine, 1963.
https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00089176_6171 [https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00089176_6171?utm_source=chatgpt.com]
Hempelmann, Christian F.
“The Laughter Epidemic of 1962: A Study of Collective Behavior.”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 2007.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/HUMOR.2007.003/html
Dancing Plague of Strasbourg (1518)
A Time to Dance, a Time to Die
Waller, John.
A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518.
Icon Books, 2008.
Waller, John.
“A Forgotten Plague: Making Sense of Dancing Mania.”
The Lancet, 2009.
A forgotten plague: making sense of dancing mania - The Lancet [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960386-X/fulltext]
Backman, E. Louis.
Religious Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine.
Routledge, 1952.
Religious dances : in the Christian church and in popular medicine : Backman, E. Louis (Eugène Louis), 1883-1965, author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/religiousdancesi0000back/page/n5/mode/2up]
Industrial Era / Factory & School Outbreaks
Bartholomew, Robert E., and Simon Wessely.
“Protean Nature of Mass Sociogenic Illness: From Possession to Mass Hysteria.”
British Journal of Psychiatry, 2002.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/protean-nature-of-mass-sociogenic-illness/ [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/protean-nature-of-mass-sociogenic-illness/2BDC2262E104B8A33F3DD49773DA0D8B]
Micale, Mark S.
Approaching Hysteria: Disease and Its Interpretations.
Princeton University Press, 1995.
Robinson, Harriet Hanson.
Loom and Spindle: Or Life Among the Early Mill Girls.
1898.
Loom and Spindle : Harriet H. Robinson : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/loom_and_spindle_2211_librivox]
June Bug Epidemic (1962, United States)
Kerckhoff, Alan C., and Kurt W. Back.
“The June Bug Epidemic: A Study of Hysterical Contagion.”
Journal of Social Psychology, 1968.
(Accessible summary of case)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3588562/ [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3588562/]
Modern Case: Functional Tic-Like Behaviors (COVID Era)
Pringsheim, Tamara, et al.
“Rapid Onset Functional Tic-Like Behaviors in Young Females During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Movement Disorders, 2021.
https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mds.28778 [https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mds.28778]
Müller-Vahl, Kirsten R., et al.
“Increase of Functional Tic-Like Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
European Journal of Neurology, 2022.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ene.15263 [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ene.15263]
Paulus, Walter, et al.
“Functional Movement Disorders: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Journal of Neurology, 2021.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-021-10578-7 [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-021-10578-7]
Tourette Association of America.
“Rising Incidence of Functional Tic-Like Behaviors.”
https://tourette.org/rising-incidence-of-functional-tic-like-behaviors/ [https://tourette.org/rising-incidence-of-functional-tic-like-behaviors/]
Psychology & Mechanism (Supporting Framework)
Hatfield, Elaine, John T. Cacioppo, and Richard L. Rapson.
Emotional Contagion. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Engert, Veronika, et al.
“Stress Contagion in Humans: Empathic Stress Induction.”
The Contagiousness of Stress: How It Affects Our Brains and Bodies - ScienceDirect [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453023007448]
Rizzolatti, Giacomo, and Laila Craighero.
“The Mirror-Neuron System.”
Annual Review of Neuroscience, 2004.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144230 [https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144230]
Provine, Robert R.
“Yawning as a Stereotyped Action Pattern.”
Ethology, 1986.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1986.tb00611.x [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1986.tb00611.x]