Do you remember an old photo of a thunderbird/pterodactyl, nailed against a barn wall, with men standing in it for scale? So do many others (including myself). But since that photo has entirely disappeared, are we all victims of a form of mass hysteria? Or victims of a massive reality-altering conspiracy (ctrl-f for 'Birdzilla')?
posted by Kickstart70 on Nov 26, 2007 - 103 comments

Climate change a 'questionable truth'. Margaret Wente looks beyond the hysteria surrounding the climate change debate. Hysteria her own newspaper has been contributing to.
posted by loquax on Jan 31, 2007 - 85 comments

Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, Charles McKay's 1841 classic work on mass hysteria and national crazes, still surprisingly readable and engaging. Among the classic examples in McKay's book are the South Sea Bubble, one of the earliest and largest financial bubbles, and the witch hunts of Europe (related: try the 1628 Witch Hunt simulation). Most people remember him best for his history of Tulipmania, the Dutch flower-speculation explosion of 1647 and 1648... except that it may not have been a delusion at all, but rather a rational response to changes in regulation.
posted by blahblahblah on Apr 23, 2006 - 22 comments

Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News....
Today is the 65th anniversary of the famous Mercury Theatre presentation of War of the Worlds, as adapted for Radio by Orson Welles. The infamous broadcast (listen in Real Audio or RealAudio or TrueSpeech) caused no small amount of uneasyness, and even some outright panic as listeners, already unsettled by coverage of the impending war in Europe, were all to willing to believe that Martians had indeed landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The broadcast led to an FCC investigation and remains a touchstone in the evolution of the American media.
posted by anastasiav on Oct 30, 2003 - 15 comments