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It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness
- NaturalPhallacy 4y agoA sub on reddit has been all over this: https://old.reddit.com/r/fakedisordercringe/ https://old.reddit.com/r/fakedisordercringe/
- rocketbop 4y agoLink is 403 Forbidden for me.
- Traubenfuchs 4y agohttps://archive.ph/ZhKaL https://archive.ph/ZhKaL
- pfortuny 4y agoThe exclamation mark after that (!) is very relevant, @dang. Thanks.
- OJFord 4y agoIf you edit it, it will save without modification (auto-stripping of certain things happens only on first save) - though in this case it's probably better just to remove 'stop that' altogether?
- cnity 4y agoIronically categorising this as an outbreak of illness legitimises the attention-seeking behaviour which is firmly predicated on being perceived as a sufferer of illness.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoI don't think it does. I understand the implication here being the people affected are suffering from Tiktokitis, i.e. symptoms of a different disease, but caused by social media exposure. Suffering from that isn't going to earn you much compassion or street cred, particularly when the cure is to spend less time on social media.
- teekert 4y agoIt almost feels like gpt created literature when you start to read it, seemingly linking unrelated issues and concepts. But later in I became convinced it’s real and very interesting. Very meme-like, in the original definition of meme that is. A “virus” of the mind.
- gary_0 4y agoIt read like parody to me at first, but I verified the domain[0] and it's not. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University_Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University_Press
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoThis has been a thing for a while. https://www.reddit.com/r/fakedisordercringe/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fakedisordercringe/ It's status as illness though, let alone mass-illness is dubious at best.
- bowsamic 4y agoIf you can't voluntarily stop it and it's causing negative effects to your quality of life then why can't it be called an illness? These people aren't going to get professional help just for the fun of it
- tedunangst 4y ago> Third, patients often reported to be unable to perform unpleasant tasks because of their symptoms resulting in release from obligations at school and home, while symptoms temporarily completely disappear while conducting favourite activities.
- mrguyorama 4y agoThat makes no comment about whether the symptoms are on purpose, or unconscious. Ask any ADHD or OCD person about "symptoms that arise around unpleasant tasks"
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago> mass sociogenic illness > Over the past 2 years, a remarkably high number of young patients have been referred to our specialized Tourette outpatient clinic > A large number of young people across different countries How many exactly? Without numbers, calling it mass-anything is blowing this way out of proportion. So called fakeDisorderCringe has been a thing for a while, thanks to TikTok. But is there any sign that a) it is seriously widespread and b) doesn't "go away by itself", when the kids get bored of pretending? This appears to be nothing more than a short lived cringy TikTok / YouTube trend that will be over sooner than later, no different from goth culture. God I am glad I will never have children that I need to keep from melting their brains with social media.
- HPsquared 4y agoIf it's an unconscious thing which transfers into "real life", that seems potentially important. It raises the question of what other unconscious behaviours (potentially harmful) are picked up in a similar way? Definitely an interesting starting point for further research.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago> If it's an unconscious thing which transfers into "real life", that seems potentially important. Humans of all ages copy behavior they see in (social) media. Not every unusual behavior should be classified as mental illness. > Definitely an interesting starting point for further research. Maybe, but for psychology and sociology, not psychiatry and brain science.
- AstixAndBelix 4y agoIf social contagion can get people to develop serious ticks imagine how many things we automatically do or feel or think that are a mere result of random social pressures
- dusted 4y agoMy main concern is how to induce specifics in people and start profiting from it :D Wouldn't it just be wonderfully dystopic if we could induce ticks in people that made them clean the streets and do the grunt work? :D
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 4y ago> how to induce specifics in people and start profiting from it Have you heard of "advertising"?
- kneebonian 4y ago"A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY." - A Brave New World
- dusted 4y agoIIRC, in brave new world, they hacked people at the zygote stage, making the workers dumber by adding ethanol or something like that? :)
- winReInstall 4y agoImagine you start the same trend, but everyone tries for once to contribute something science wise original to society, so the problem is real, but the potential is greater. Now comes the part, were advertisers try to create sociogenic illnesses that spread theire product/brands information. We can also skip directly to the part, were we mourn the youtfull ideals of a idea, taken over by scammers.
- secondcoming 4y agoThere was the alcohol drinks company's WASSSUP ad campaign that ruined everyone's life for a while.
- mcphage 4y agoThat still lives rent-free in my head, and comes out every once in a while.
- dejj 4y agoLink this with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and receive prescribed brand candy/placebos for saying “Arr!” too much. Also prosthetics or an assistance bird.
- Sebb767 4y ago> Imagine you start the same trend, but everyone tries for once to contribute something science wise original to society, so the problem is real, but the potential is greater. I know you aren't totally serious, but this won't work, most likely. The "advantage" of having a tick like that is not just that it gives you attention, it's something absolutely low-effort and instant gratification. Contributing to science is anything but. Plus, even if individuals tried to do so, it's quite easy to miss newest research or fall for a fallacy, which will make for a net-negative contribution if you are not careful.
- dpc050505 4y ago>were advertisers try to create sociogenic illnesses that spread theire product/brands information. I can think of a lot of advertising jingles that work this way.
- _nalply 4y agoSomewhere I already read about that. It's a fad. A youtuber shows Tourette's symptoms and people copy them. Perhaps it's like stimming. And you can't stop fads and stimming. We see that some people are annoyed. (shrugs)
- bowsamic 4y agoBut when a fad becomes destructive to someone's life to the point where they can't voluntarily stop it and seek professional treatment for it, it becomes an illness and is worth investigating. > (shrugs) Those affected by it don't seem to be able to shrug it off. It's having a negative effect on their quality of life
- mcv 4y ago> And you can't stop fads and stimming. But if they claim it's a disease, and it's clearly spreading through social media, then the obvious measure to stop it from spreading, is to block the channels through which it's spreading.
- lakomen 4y agoYou copy what's fun to you. That said, POMMES!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nailer 4y agoSimilarly: https://brightonjournal.co.uk/debate-gender-report-brighton-school-highest-number-trans-pupils/ https://brightonjournal.co.uk/debate-gender-report-brighton-...
- frereubu 4y agoFor those who think this is "just" a fad, there are some descriptions of the emotional harm that that it can cause in this article from February: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/social-media-illness-teen-girls/622916/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/social-med... The semantics of "mass sociogenic illness" aside, there do seem to be damaging real-world consequences.
- infradig 4y agoI've read this before on HN, even some comments. Getting a weird deja-vu vibe.
- gadders 4y agoI don't think this is the only mass sociogenic illness affecting young girls currently....
- mathgeek 4y agoCare to elaborate? As written, your comment can come off as rather ageist/sexist, which is a shame if you meant a specific trend.
- Veen 4y agoI imagine many people have a specific phenomenon in mind which they will avoid mentioning because it's considered impolite and impolitic.
- maxbond 4y agoEither it is a real issue, in which case, we should have a discussion about it. Or it is not a real issue, in which case, it is not worth vagueposting about. Taking the most charitable interpretation, this creates cover for dog whistling while not adding to the conversation. The other possibility is that it is dog whistling in order to promote bigotry.
- pessimizer 4y agoSo either discuss it directly and be a bigot, talk around it and be a bigot, or silence all discussion about it and be a hero.
- maxbond 4y agoThere's no heroes and no villains here, but if someone has got something bigoted to say, then they should dispose of their waste or surrender the restroom. It doesn't make it any more or less bigoted to be circumspect, it only makes it difficulty to have a proper discussion. If they believe what they have to say isn't bigoted, they should take courage in their convictions and speak their mind. If they're punished in a way that's unfair, then that's something with bringing to the community's attention. If they don't actually have confidence in their convictions, maybe their ideas need some more time to develop before they're comfortable sharing them (and maybe the reason they're uncomfortable is that there's a problem). I'm not trying to silence anyone, when people vaguepost, clearly there's something on their mind, and I'm inviting them to express it. Do you think that's an unfair position for me to take? What I see is that they did say what was on their mind, we had a substantive discussion, no one got flagged, no one got banned, their comment isn't even gray. The reports of HN being hostile to this discussion are greatly overstated.
- hanoz 4y agoWow. So now that I know that mass sociogenic illness is a thing, where do I draw the line in applying that label?
- lzaaz 4y ago
- maxbond 4y agoIf it's not worth saying, it's not worth vagueposting about either.
- lzaaz 4y agoIt's worth saying but if I say it the comment gets flagged and no one gets to read it.
- maxbond 4y agoI always read flagged comments, and I vouch for them when I feel they've been unfairly flagged (or when they're from banned accounts that are automatically flagged, but the comment is unobjectionable). This is however a tacit admission that what you have to say is against the guidelines of this site and that, were you to let it compete in the market place of ideas, it would be fail completely.
- throwaway27727 4y agoNot all scientific discussion is pleasant to hear, but it would be worth discussing, even if flagged and down voted, rather than "We were always at war with Eurasia".
- lzaaz 4y agoThe fact that an opinion is censored by the means of flagging means that it doesn't have a chance to compete in the "marketplace of ideas".
- ccity88 4y agoWhat's interesting to me is that if we're able to accept the idea that mass social media-induced illness can be developed just by virtue of video watching TikTok or YouTube, then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over represented. This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want to be another gender. But I think there's some interesting parallels to be observed here, and discounting that based on "moral virtue" or "denying hate speech" or whatever i'll be attacked with is just moving the target.
- fredley 4y agoThis reminds me of the virus in _Snow Crash_ which is spread virtually, but affects its victims physically.
- poulpy123 4y agoDidn't a researcher shown that's it was indeed the case ?
- rippercushions 4y agoThat would be the "rapid onset gender dysphoria" controversy, which is so politically charged that lay observers (/me waves) will have a very hard time separating science from ideology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid-onset_gender_dysphoria_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid-onset_gender_dysphoria_c...
- roody15 4y agoIt reminds me of the old saying “Monkey see .. Monkey do”. An over simplification perhaps but there is no question we “mimic” all the time.
- anenefan 4y agoI think similarly. I am wondering how they differentiate this specific extreme behaviour moving "socially," to other subtle behaviours which are copied and mirrored within small tight knit social groups - especially kids / teenagers? I found the 9:1 ratio of girls to boys intriguing, given the same or very similar mechanism might been a huge benefit to females in past ages where they might be married into a strange culture.
- lifeisstillgood 4y agoFrom my reading of the article (which is hard to parse not being an expert) it seems there is a German YouTuber with Tourette's who also on his YouTube shows displays non-tourette's tics. And these tics are being copied by other young people watching his shows, and being presented as Tourette's until they arrive at the clinic where these experts go "hang on this kid does not have Tourette's but does have tics similar to the German youtuber above" So, the weird thing is not they pick up someone else's tics but they cannot get rid of them. Learnt behaviour, copying, or physical tics that once learnt get stuck in the brain?
- indigochill 4y agoThere may be a relation to military conditioning. I spent just a single week at a military academy introductory program in high school and when I returned home I was "uncontrollably" (if I thought about it I could avoid doing it, but if I was on autopilot it happened by itself) squaring my corners and calling my family "sir" and "ma'am". The thing was, those patterns were my entire life for that week, and they were very deliberately drilled into me. Eventually they faded because they weren't reinforced outside of the academy (if anything, they were "deinforced"), but there may be a connection here. If someone spends many hours a day watching someone with particular quirks, it doesn't seem surprising (drawing parallels here to my experience) that those quirks may transfer because their brain starts to make those associations through observation. I would expect that stopping watching that particular person would probably let the transferred tics decay over a period of time (I'd give it a month).
- kuhewa 4y agoThe article says that one thing differentiating these kids from acutal Tourette symptoms is that instead of symptoms waxing and waning, they only deteriorate. So that definitely squares
- albert_e 4y agoI read about "mirror neurons" where humans watching others do physical activity also have some of the same neural pathways fire. (V. S. RAMACHANDRAN) The author/researcher says he believes that is one of the main mechanisms of human learning (babies look at adults and imitate. Adults look at other adults and imitate. Subconsciously) What you are describing sounds very similar.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- poulpy123 4y agoThere is also the same thing with Dissociative identity disorder that had (have ?) a boom after some people from tiktok started to pretend have it
- azangru 4y agoThis passage from the abstract: > Moreover, they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man. is rather peculiar. I didn't expect that this is how neurologists and neuroscientists would speak these days. "Our postmodern society", "permanent identity crisis of the modern man" - these sentiments sound like they've been transplanted from a humanities paper.
- damagednoob 4y agoYes this struck me too. I wouldn't describe the language used as 'neutral'.
- somedude895 4y agoI agree. It is a bit weird to see such subjective takes and cultural pessimism in an article like this. Hadn't noticed it the first time around, probably due to my own biases. So thanks for pointing it out.
- lefrenchy 4y agoIsn’t this kind of a social and cultural phenomenon though? It can’t be explained by means of a physical infection right, so it makes sense they have to reach for potential social or cultural answers?
- CognitiveLens 4y agoThis language style is a bit more common in academic writing outside of the Anglo tradition that is most commonly reported in the English-speaking world. British and American university training emphasises more clinical language, for better and worse.
- quonn 4y agoThis reminds me of analytical (formal) vs continental philosophy which is similar.
- mfrankpb 4y agoPreviously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28302725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28302725 (August 2021)
- dang 4y agoThanks! I missed that. Macroexpanded: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28302725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28302725 - Aug 2021 (80 comments)
- snorkel 4y agoSounds like the mania over Pokemon flashing induced seizures
- mk_stjames 4y agoWe now return to.. Battling Seizure Robots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Eox1ogr3SE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Eox1ogr3SE
- werdnapk 4y agoWhen I was in high school, one of the "popular" kids used to talk a bit odd on purpose and sure, it generated a bit of a chuckle at first, but he kept doing it and a lot of kids also adopted a similar vocal tic to seem like they were part of the cool group as well. Monkey see, monkey do.
- toyg 4y agoStop trying to make tourette happen! It's NOT GONNA HAPPEN!
- adolph 4y agoThe Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a consciously learned accent of English, fashionably used by the late 19th-century and early 20th-century American upper class and entertainment industry, which blended together features regarded as the most prestigious from both American and British English (specifically Received Pronunciation). It is not a native or regional accent; rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that its chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so". The accent was embraced in private independent preparatory schools, especially by members of the American Northeastern upper class, as well as in schools for film and stage acting, with its overall use sharply declining after the Second World War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent
- a9h74j 4y agoNot Mid-Atlantic, but I've heard that one way to acquire a "standard" Mid-Western US accent is to speak along with a trained speaker, such as a particular newscaster. And "You are supposed to stop before sounding just like that person."
- extragood 4y agoFrasier, the TV character played by Kelsey Grammer, uses an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent.
- out-of-ideas 4y ago
- gtirloni 4y ago> with considerable impact on health care systems and society as a whole (X) Doubt
- informalo 4y agoFor anyone looking to be infected by this mass sociogenic illness, here is his most popular video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLhaYHJTXmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLhaYHJTXmI
- lynx23 4y agoSo, these people are trying to convince us that SnowCrash is basically a realistic story, and no, modern society is not fed up with what happened in the recent years. I believe neither. "Outbreak" your a*!
- Ekaros 4y agoIs this what Dawkins originally meant by a meme?
- martyvis 4y agoIs this different from any other learned behaviour? If a baby hangs around English speaking people they are going to learn to speak the language with the same accent. Then you see a group of kids where every sentence is peppered with the F-bomb, it's all the same right?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 4y ago(content warning) It's not commonly discussed, but suicide seems to be a "sociogenic illness" in that reporting on suicides as such can cause more suicides. You may have noticed this in the reporting on celebrity deaths; a young person who "dies suddenly" may be suicide, but news reports will tend to avoid saying that out of concern for the sociogenic effects.
- walkhour 4y agoFor the reason you discuss you should delete your comment. Airplanes crashes rise when the media discusses these topics: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1746810 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1746810.
- civopsec 4y agoCan’t delete something that has been replied to.
- elil17 4y agoIt's not clear to me that discussing the effect causes the effect. It's an effect that's been specifically documented in response to media coverage of suicide. The consensus from suicide prevention orgs seems to be that compassionate, interpersonal discussions about suicide prevention are probably helpful. Not sure if that's backed by research.
- erenyeager 4y agoIt is helpful because discussing a negative thing in society spreads it without need. Like if you find out everyone’s secrets and scandals, you become more uninhibited
- elil17 4y agoSo if I understand what you're saying correctly, you view talking about suicide as something that's going to potentially spread suicide/suicidal ideation and therefor if you're going to talk about it that's got to be balanced by a real need for that discussion?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LeonTheremin 4y ago>Stop that! Send them to a submarine trip undersea. If the symptoms disappear it is because they were the result of outside electromagnetic interference. Not a medical problem, a criminal problem: computer hacking all the way, the human body, a computer, is the victim.
- reilly3000 4y agoThis is alarmist BS. Facebook group fodder. “Humans have working mirror neurons” could have been the headline. All of you futurists who have slipped down the slope are worried about media spreading “sociogenic illness”. Of course media is powerful. It always has been. There has been about 75 years of fears and schemes about using TV to mass hypnotize its watchers. The same with radio before it. What is happening is mass unstructured clustering by social algos, specifically TikTok. Historically content and ad algorithms have focused on contextual relevance with structured categories. Graphs have extended that to included social context. TikTok has novel input parameters about user behavior. There have been many reports that this unstructured clustering is surfacing niche medical diagnoses regularly. A lot of neurodivergent traits have historically been under diagnosed for the same goddamn ignorance as OP’s piece: “it’s just attention seeking”. This type of dismissal by parents, teachers, and doctors alike have lead to millions of people leading shorter, harder lives. ADHD, Autism, Tourette’s, Bipolar, schizophrenia, etc are present in larger numbers than are diagnosed. Often time these lifelong genetic differences lead to 10x+ higher suicide rates, inability to sustain work, and myriad health issues. It’s really common that mental health issues that don’t result in property damage just get ignored, downplayed, or under treated even if acknowledged. I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 29. Having that information combined with medication, therapy, and exercise has changed my life for the better dramatically. If TikTok was the surface where I discovered that, I would have likely been dismissed or even openly mocked by my doctors, and continued with a life of suffering or worse. By the way, it seems people cited in the article are experiencing a form of Tourette’s syndrome that is a typical neurological trait associated with other pathology. Echolalia has far less cultural awareness, but accurate describes the behavior: “Echolalia is not only associated with Autism, but also with several other conditions, including congenital blindness, intellectual disability, developmental delay, language delay, Tourette's syndrome, schizophrenia and others.” it’s not just swear words like on TV. My child does this. What happened to start as a YouTube ad for “Raid Shadow Legends” turned into a joke punchline, turned into a phrase that they cannot stop themselves from saying compulsively at odd times, after multiple years. It’s sub-clinical by itself, but is consistent with the diagnosis they do have. This article is red meat, BS fear bait at best, dangerous at worst. To the extent content like this actually promotes diagnosis denial, it’s complicit in very literal harm of patients and those around them.
- air7 4y agoThis reminded me of the Dancing Plague[0] that happened in medieval Europe. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania
- boringg 4y agoIs this real? That's bananas.
- CadmiumYellow 4y agoWow I thought "choreomania" was just the name of a Florence and the Machine song...this is crazy...
- christkv 4y agoGlitches in the matrix all the NPCs got stuck in a loop.
- theGnuMe 4y agoThere's a new Netflix series called Hot Skull around this theme. I haven't watched it yet but it looks like the premise is that a word virus infects people and they start talking gibberish.
- kridsdale1 4y agoHey Hiro. You want to try some Snow Crash?
- gnu8 4y agoDoes it fuck up your brain, or your computer?
- incomingpain 4y agoThis is the next big area of research in social sciences. You must research this for national security reasons. Early research came in with the idea of mirror neurons but it went further. Statistically you're always going to have 'hot spots' for suicide. # per capita etc. So governments trying to help setup suicide hotlines. Not much uptake on this. So they advertised the suicide hotline and suddenly has mass suicide problems. Been replicated/reported many times, even on Canadian reserves. Cultural, racial doesnt seem to change anything. Then you have the general crisis in mental health where suddenly lots of people think they have some sort of disorder. Lots of OCD, when really they dont have anything. But it came from advertising and awareness campaigns. Do the flipside, how about all the motivational speakers who abuse this same mechanism but in a good way? Same with mentalists. How about people who are being radicalized into violence? How about all the kids suddenly becoming trans? All the same umbrella which social sciences is working on.
- deanCommie 4y ago> How about all the kids suddenly becoming trans? Please do not repeat this right-wing talking point. It is a moral panic, and it causes real harm to kids who need genuine mental health support who are instead being dismissed as being part of a trend. "all the kids" are not suddenly becoming trans - the incident rates in society are still extremely small. All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily explained by a more tolerant society accepting it. The same appeared when we stopped pathologizing left-handedness - all the kids didn't suddenly become left-handed, but the ones that were felt comfortable no longer hiding it. And by and large, with some exceptions that get consistently magnified by those with an agenda, it is not something you can just do on a whim, and generally requires a lot of counselling and a lot of effort to pursue hormonal or surgical changes. There are incidents of detransitioning and those that regret it. Those rates are lower than those that regret knee replacements. Happy to answer any other questions if needed.
- vinegarden 4y ago> All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily explained by a more tolerant society accepting it. This doesn't explain the disproportionate rise in teenage girls seeking treatment at gender clinics though. Here's a fascinating essay by a detransitioner on how she began thinking of herself first as 'non-binary' and later as male, and ended up being prescribed testosterone medication for this: https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name. She goes into quite some detail about how being exposed to gender identity ideology on Tumblr over a period of years was what influenced her to transition. Other detransitioners have described similar online influences. It seems likely that this is at least one of the factors causing such an increase, and may well explain why the rise in referrals to gender clinics are so skewed toward female teenagers, who are the primary demographic of sites like Tumblr, and who are particularly vulnerable to social contagions.
- golemiprague 4y ago
- goda90 4y agoStuff like this makes me wonder if taboo and stigma "evolved" in societies as defense against the spread of behavior that could cause a breakdown of social order. For example, if something like dancing mania[0] got out of hand, then important jobs could be left undone and people starve or whatever. So if the notion that such behavior is bad is drilled into everyone's mind before being exposed, then they are more likely to avoid "catching" it. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania
- polishdude20 4y agoOh yeah definitely. It's easier to just have a general learned feeling of a taboo than to have to explain to everyone the historical and societal consequences of it to every person. It's a learned behavior that helps perpetuate a higher survival rate not because the thing itself is bad if done a handful of times but because it can get out of hand and be done by the whole population.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fncivivue7 4y agoI've been starting to think the bible and other religions have their place due to this. Plot people on a bell curve, that's a lot of people that can't grasp basic nuance and critical reasoning.
- lo_zamoyski 4y agoThere's no need for convoluted explanations. A good taboo, understood as a restriction on certain kinds of behavior or speech at least in certain circumstances, exists to protect some good. It's the same reason (or one of the reasons) we partition our houses into rooms by purpose. Human flourishing requires certain limits, not letting it all hang out. The latter is more akin to the liberal notion of freedom understood as "do what thou wilt" and limitless indulgence of the appetites and desires. The classical understanding of freedom is the ability to do what you ought. Guess which leads to happiness and which leads to misery.
- jlrubin 4y agoanecdotally, i had a professor (if you're reading this, hi) who would wink in conversation at exactly the right point to add a little "isn't the world a funny place" comedy to whatever he was saying... wasn't clear if intentional or a tic for when he thought he had said something clever. I noticed that habit to have transferred to me for a while after, though I think now it's faded.
- leviathant 4y agoAs a presales engineer, I worked with a winky sales rep for a year or two and absolutely picked up this winky habit.
- fullstackchris 4y agoI just experienced this today; I was walking down the street and a teenager walking by himself abruptly made this sharp random shrieking sound to no one in particular and then kept walking along. Could he actually have Tourette's by traditional clinical definition? Certainly. But I'm inclined to beleive that it has much more to do with this article's definition and how f***d the youth are against the whole social media scene today.
- emptysea 4y agoI’m guessing they’re looking for a reaction. Similar to people driving by and yelling out the window
- Centigonal 4y agomaybe he was going through something
- filoleg 4y agoCould be many reasons, who knows. Maybe they were looking at something on their phone that evoked their reaction, maybe they heard something in their earphones, maybe they suddenly saw a bird nearby that scared them, or maybe they just remembered something which ended up causing it. The latter happens to me occasionally, and I am fairly certain it has nothing to do with Tourette's. Usually it is me walking somewhere, then remembering something I forgot that i needed to do or having some realization, and I just end up going "oh fuck" or "ooooh". Not loudly like a yell, but definitely audible to someone within a 5-10 feet range. It could also be what you are suspecting as well, but without actually talking to the person, there is quite literally no way to know. So imo it is a rather pointless exercise.
- screye 4y agoI wonder how similar this is to (sexy baby) valley girl upspeak & vocal fry. Many young women picked this up from the Kardashians/Paris Hilton and now cannot "turn it off". We know this is not their 'natural' voice because if you ask them to make weird sounds and then a normal voice, then their normal voice sounds completely different than the sexy baby voice. The weird thing is that the women themselves are surprised by this sound they're hearing and cannot easily reproduce it because the sexy baby voice is so deeply internalized. Sounds rather similar to these involutory ticks.
- Invictus0 4y agoCurious: What is the sexy baby voice? And where can I see this weird sounds and then normal voice experiment?
- yarg 4y agoThink Marilyn Monroe/Betty Boop.
- screye 4y agoThis is a good place to start - https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/from-inside-voice-lake-bell-and-the-sexy-baby-voic https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/from-inside-voice-... Lake Bell asks the person to speak in their highest note and then their lowest note and then yodel for a couple of times. Then to asks her to just speak, and the voice that comes out much closer to what we associate with a 'normal' woman's voice. I guess having to manually change tone to such extremes resets the body's ability to recover this incredibly specific learnt behavior, and the person momentarily reverts to a clean sample of their own voice.
- badRNG 4y ago> resets the body's ability to recover this incredibly specific learnt behavior, and the person momentarily reverts to a clean sample of their own voice. What is one's "own voice?" Nearly all speech patterns, dialects, accents, patterns and phrasing is learned from one's social circle. Speech itself is "learnt behavior." It makes sense that those engaged in a subculture or online community may take up the way people talk in that sphere of social influence. Before hand, speech patterns evolved apart from one another due to geographic distance. In the modern era, it doesn't seem unreasonable that one would have greater influence from an online community than a local one. I don't see any reason to privilege a specific, arbitrary way of speaking to be "normal" and one's "own voice" and others to be learnt behavior one "recovers" from.
- pessimizer 4y agoThe fact that NXIVM could successfully suppress crippling Tourette's in a number of cases has to at least mean that Tourette's itself (or some subset of what is grouped under Tourette's) isn't strictly biological. It seems this was done through Nancy Salzman's application of the NLP voodoo she had used as a chronic pain therapist, and possibly boosted by immense pressure to not tic or else be seen as both a failure and a PR danger to the cult. However it was done, it was clearly successful. Are there any studies about "actual" (non-internet video related) Tourette's patients transmitting tics to each other? https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/overthinking-tv/202211/did-the-nxivm-cult-actually-help-people https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/overthinking-tv/20...
- monkeydreams 4y agoWhile this article and many like it suggest a sudden rise in cases due to a 2021 Youtube influencer, this was already spreading in 2020. Girls in my daughter's social network were displaying tic behaviour in the months after the first major lockdowns.
- TechBro8615 4y agoIf you delete TikTok does the illness dissipate?
- guywithahat 4y agohot take: the definition of tourette's will soon be changed to include this "sociogenic illness" to avoid offending those who develop tics from watching online videos. Otherwise you'll be implicitly offending those with it as being less legitimate (which they are, but that's besides the point)
- labrador 4y agoI picked up a mental weirdness from the internet and now can't get rid of it: Trypophobia. I never experienced anything like it until Trypophobia was trending a few years back. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21834-trypophobia https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21834-trypoph...
- RankingMember 4y agoIt was that awful seed pod boob photoshop image that did it to you too, wasn't it?
- labrador 4y agoAwful doesn't even begin to describe those images. There's a another phobia transmitted by the internet, but I'm immune to it: Thalassophobia. There's even a reddit group dedicated to it: https://old.reddit.com/r/thalassophobia/ https://old.reddit.com/r/thalassophobia/ There's a group allegedly devoted to trypophobia. I say allegedly because I refuse to click on the link: https://old.reddit.com/r/trypophobia/ https://old.reddit.com/r/trypophobia/
- hoseja 4y agoIt is uncomfortable to swim in deep opaque water.
- _def 4y agoOh my god! Same for me! I didn't know this is a thing that happens!
- boyanlevchev 4y agoA freaky thing that this paper doesn’t mention is that in some cases these tics have gotten so extreme, that one patient began having almost constant seizures and became wheelchair-bound. Imagine being “infected” by watching a video on TikTok! It sounds like a horror movie. From The Guardian: “Over the next few weeks, Wacek noticed that she was having tics. “They were just little noises,” she says. “Nothing to write home about.” She would scrunch up her nose, or huff. The tics escalated from sounds into words and phrases. Then the motor tics kicked in. “I started punching walls and throwing myself at things,” she says. By July, Wacek was having seizures. She had to stop work. “Being a chef with seizures is not safe at all,” she says. Her GP referred her to a neurologist, who diagnosed her with functional neurological syndrome (FND). People with FND have a neurological condition that cannot be medically explained, but can be extremely debilitating. “In a general neurological clinic, around 30% of the conditions we see are not fully explainable,” says Dr Jeremy Stern, a neurologist with the charity Tourettes Action. In Wacek’s case, FND manifested in verbal and motor tics, not dissimilar from how Tourette syndrome appears to lay people, although the two conditions are distinct. Wacek has up to 20 seizures a day and currently has to use a wheelchair.” Source: https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/16/the-unknown-is-scary-why-young-women-on-social-media-are-developing-tourettes-like-tics https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/16/the-unknown-is...
- _aavaa_ 4y ago> It sounds like a horror movie. Might I interest you in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
- Zezima 4y agoSo happy I found this comment! Yes Snow Crash is a mist recommendation and insanely relevant to mass hysteria and "babbling"
- quux 4y agoWow, This reminds me of the virus in Snow Crash
- Spivak 4y ago
- 01100011 4y agoThis sucks as someone who has had movement disorders(essential tremor, tics) for decades. It also sucks because the covid booster, like a flu shot years ago(only one, I get them every year) caused a dramatic worsening of my tics for a few months. I didn't realize the whole 'covid tic hysteria' was even a thing until I googled 'covid vaccine tics' after personally experiencing a dramatic worsening of symptoms.
- boomchinolo78 4y ago
- OhioMan2943 4y agoThis may be speculation but I believe that part of the problem is that TikTok is very good at finding content which entertains you even when you shouldn't be entertained based on your current mental health/emotions. This means it targets more unhealthy pathways in order to elicit an emotional reaction.
- themagician 4y agoThis is South Park: Season 11, Episode 8 (Le Petit Tourette) come to life.
- Fr0styMatt88 4y agoI have to wonder if mirror neurons play a part in this. Perhaps there’s something that’s fundamentally common to both ‘real’ tics and these types of non-Tourette’s tics. A person could already be predisposed to something like Tourette’s and seeing these videos could be the thing that ignites the kindling for them.
- bythreads 4y agoReads like ai
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago"they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man." There is a tendency to reify aberrations and disorders and to identify with them because it gives you another way of attaining a feeling of (false) "uniqueness" and exceptionality, or a way of trying to manipulate people into showing you "compassion" or pity. It's a disease of our age. "The spectrum" seems to be a popular example. These are afflictions, not identities. They're nothing to be proud of when you have them, if you have them, nor are they things to be desired. There may also be passive-aggressive motives. Personal autonomy and the absolute sovereignty of the individual and his desires are a superordinate value today. We chafe under any perceived constraint or restraint on our desires. What do some people do when they don't want to follow some rule they should, but fear opposing that rule overtly? They rebel through small, passive-aggressive ways. Imagine now you are faced with the internalized emotional compulsion or fear to behave or not behave a certain way that you don't want to submit to, but fear opposing or ignoring for whatever reason. Simulating tics could be an interior rebellion against that undesired compulsion. Repeat something often enough, and it becomes a habit. (Curiously, I would attribute the very cause of this inner struggle to our disordered attitude toward desire and appetite in the first place where the tail is essentially wagging the dog. Putting reason before desire and submitting to the truth liberates a person from the capricious tyranny of appetite.)
- LesZedCB 4y agothis reads to me like a typical modern's response to an unfamiliarity with the feeling of actually being one of the alienated people who are attempting with varying degrees of success to find anything of substance. but really I think that alienation is dealt with differently by each subject, with temporally near groups just chosing similar patterns based on environmental and cultural factors. there isn't any "right" way to deal with it, just the ones were currently trying. maybe it's good, maybe it's unhealthy, maybe it's going to cause the death of society. either way, the earth still spins.
- 4y ago
- fleddr 4y agoThe times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still happen but in moderation, for which I'll use the stereotype "village idiot". A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. Now it's as if all the village idiots of the world had a meeting and started to run society, at least culturally. The bad ideas and behaviors are not kept in check, they're rewarded, leading to the normalization of things deeply questionable. Imagine being a youngster right now. You do as your peers do, you live online. Where insanity is your mainstream cultural input. Where mental illness, a very serious issue, is seemingly rewarded for oppression points. Where you might question your gender, where before this very idea didn't even occur to you. Where you're confused between body types, from anorexic to celebrating obesity. The normalization of the hating of the other sex. Or the other political half. Or an entire race. Or an entire class. Or anybody that doesn't agree with you. The normalization of doxxing, snitching, gossiping and cancel culture as "conversation" tools. The sheer volume of it. The pointless status games. Comparing social media to smoking is a comparison that needs re-evaluating. It's frankly shocking how this untold harm goes unchecked. Then again, intervening can lead to creepy authoritarian legislation. As seen in China, but let's at least credit them for recognizing the harm.
- theknocker 4y ago
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoI wonder if this is affecting all of humanity en masse or if this is just another form of infection, mental in this case, that thins the herd and ignores people who can resist its effects and continue living normal lives. Most of us within a healthy community with plenty of opportunity for gaining status, loving family and diverse friends who are willing to call us out on bullshit, purpose in life, and in good physical health are unlikely to get sucked into extreme TERFism, white supremacy, TikTok tics and god knows what else. Those with weaker "immune systems" succumb to the mental viruses and cause themselves possibly irreparable harm by either joining a radical cult of their choosing or falling into some medical pathology rabbit hole.
- throwayyy479087 4y agoI can think of another social contagion that’s exploded in the last 5 years. However, those that have it are above all criticism except in TERF spaces.
- hezralig 4y agoYou are completely right that TERFism is an issue. It certainly has a rapid onset and has been shown to be a pathway to white supremacy. Terfism is a phenomenon where individuals who have previously identified as feminists or LGBT allies to suddenly adopt trans-exclusionary beliefs and begin to oppose the rights and dignity of transgender people. It also describes individuals who have undergone a sudden and dramatic change in their beliefs about transgender people who aren't feminists, often as a result of exposure to extremist or hateful ideas. It certainly has been seen as a manifestation of prejudice and bigotry and is one of the reasons this commenter is using an anonymous account.
- nonrandomstring 4y agoI think this is why Orwell put the "two-minute hate" into Nineteen Eighty Four. Chuck Palahniuk agrees. It is after all a quite strange device within the story. Otherwise Emmanuel Goldstein is a standard "outsider/other" hate figure to focus the alienated minds into war ritual, but the chanting takes on a stronger meaning in Orwell's story akin to something from Conrad's Heart of Darkness (Apocalypse Now). Then there are the outbursts of Howard Beale in Chayefsky's 1976 Network.... "Open the window and scream - I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more". There is a thing, "primal scream therapy" (Arthur Janov) known to have outstanding effects for these kinds of neuroses, but it's somewhat discredited, perhaps because it reveals socially uncomfortable truths. I'm lucky enough to live in a place where one can yomp out a few miles and shout at the hills and the sea. EDIT: Forgot to address the point of how tics astem from blocked affect, but I expect many of you will make that connection naturally.
- Animats 4y agoFeb. 2022. Seen this paper before. See also: speaking in tongues, swooning. This is not new.
- karaterobot 4y agoYes it is. The other examples you list have different etiologies and present differently. The people doing them are different, and so is the medium. The cause may be different, and so may the outcome. Anyway, we don't just stop thinking about new things because they can be analogized to existing things.
- robot 4y agowhat an extremely vague article. after hundreds of words there is still no clear explanation of what it is talking about. very poorly written.
- this_steve_j 4y agoFrom the article: > Functional ‘Tourette-like’ symptoms can be regarded as the ‘modern’ form of the well-known motor variant of mass sociogenic illness. > Moreover, they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man. Whoa! I’m gonna have to let that sink in.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI had a very hard time parsing that sentence. But I know someone who is really good at parsing sentences. https://ibb.co/CsWVc95 https://ibb.co/CsWVc95
- this_steve_j 4y agoAwesome, why didn’t I think of that? Now can you please explain the following sentence to a golden retriever? …
- hedora 4y ago> About half of Generation Z feels stressed or anxious with climate change being the top concern. Eco-anxiety is associated not only with fear, panic attacks, feelings of anger, guilt and helplessness, but also uncontrollability, unpredictability and uncertainty. Yet, the politicians continue to do almost nothing. When does Gen Z start voting?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- k__ 4y agoIs this written by an AI? Is this YouTuber a cognito or information hazard? Am I reading something written by qntm?
- johnea 4y agoThis paper is written by a German psychiatrist, describing the emergence of this phenomenon in Germany, and across the first world. They advocate naming this illness as a new type of "mass sociogenic illness (MSI) (also known as ‘mass psychogenic illness’, MPI) that in contrast to all previously reported episodes of MSI is spread solely via social media and hence is not locally restricted." "...we therefore suggest the more specific term ‘mass social media-induced illness’ (MSMI)" ‘mass social media-induced illness’ (MSMI) I think they could have left the "-induced" part out of this name 8-/ The psychological effects on a person, in their opinions, "happiness", sense of urgency, priority of issues, etc, based on what that person spends their waking hours viewing/reading/listening to, is still a vastly uncharted territory. No doubt the CIA/FBI/Military could shed some light if they would declassify their records of torture and mind control. But likely the worlds wealthiest people, via their corporations based on manipulating peoples mental state for the purpose of maximizing resource extraction, are already breaking new ground well beyond the now primitive efforts of "MK Ultra" etc. The simplest way to minimize the effects of ‘mass social media illness’, is not to participate. Not only in what's typically labeled "social media', but in any form of internet media, especially video formatted, that is allegedly seeking to communicate information, or present an opinion/position. READ if you want to learn, WATCH if you want to be manipulated! With text, information is taken in at the speed and cadence chosen by the reader. When watching, a person is a passive subject to the presenter. Images and especially moving video manipulate each individuals psychology in ways that are largely not well understood, and certainly massively under appreciated by the overwhelming majority of this type of media's viewers. To try to express how broad of a subject this is, one could compare this article on Twerk Tik Tourette's with the mechanizations of "surveillance consumerism", as well as the overwhelming variety of modern neurotic behaviors and anxieties experienced by those in continuous media immersion, thus primarily young people in the first world. The most straight forward "cure"? GO OUTSIDE! Bathe your senses in organic images, sounds, and the ultimate high resolution, 3D integrated sensory experience! In short, get up and walk out! Best of luck in the new year and the ongoing disaster of the new millennium...
- bobcattz 4y agoProprietary software that rewrites brains hum interesting you dont need need science to tell you what going on you only need to meditate and ask the universe.
- btbuildem 4y ago> Third, patients often reported to be unable to perform unpleasant tasks because of their symptoms resulting in release from obligations at school and home, while symptoms temporarily completely disappear while conducting favourite activities. I think this here is enough to explain everything about this "mysterious illness". German teens are trolling HARD.