It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

For those who don&#x27;t have time to read, this article presents finding and evidence that mass sociogenic illness can spread online without physical interaction, and proposes a name for this phenomenon &quot;mass social media-induced illness&quot;.<p>The article also provides an analysis of the current outbreak of Tourette&#x27;s like syndrome in teenagers in Germany following the rise of a specific Youtuber.

Can&#x27;t this kind of focus get really dangerous towards those who actually suffer from these challenges? I&#x27;ve already been accused of faking various illnesses&#x2F;psych symptoms that I&#x27;ve been diagnosed with so this is a bit scary to me, that it&#x27;s already a problem that providers dismiss symptoms, and when they read something like this they&#x27;re going to be more likely to. There is supposedly a way to differentiate but I guarantee no GP is going to be doing that, and with doctors visits now 15 mins in the us (with as little as 5-8 being just for the patient) it&#x27;s very difficult to get anything done.

Social contagion can result in surprisingly self destructive behavior.<p>&gt; For the first time that I am aware of, we are seeing clusters of people seeking voluntary amputations of healthy limbs and performing amputations on themselves.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2000&#x2F;12&#x2F;a-new-way-to-be-mad&#x2F;304671&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2000&#x2F;12&#x2F;a-new-w...</a><p>That was in 2000 and since then it&#x27;s only increased in scale. Tumblr alone saw widespread suicidal ideation, depression, self-harm and a host of identity crises.<p>Now the question is, what&#x27;s the solution?

A friend of a friend is currently pretending to have Tourettes on TikTok and amassed quite a following. This person seems to have shown attention seeking behavior in the past. I&#x27;m not sure one would call this an illness, but it depends on your definition.

Seems like some heavy editorializing for a research paper:<p>&quot;Moreover, they can be viewed as the 21th 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.&quot;

This kind of emergent behavior reminds me of my time in high school. My friends and I eventually developed a small patois through tons of inside jokes that fed on themselves and morphed into inside jokes of their own. None of this was intentional—it was just copying things that were funny and changing them slightly in more hilarious ways. We could basically freely utter nonsense that would otherwise get us detention.<p>I feel like this is similar, where one behavior is seen, then altered by someone else, etc. It’s like an in-group signifier that you understand it, and that you can modify it in a meaningful way.

<i>In Germany, current outbreak of MSMI is initiated by a “virtual” index case, who is the second most successful YouTube creator in Germany and enjoys enormous popularity among young people.</i><p>Will Google turn off his monetization for this?

Mass sociogenic illness:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mass_psychogenic_illness" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mass_psychogenic_illness</a><p>e.g., dancing plague

Can anyone link to a video of the influencer displaying the symptoms? Im curious to see the source

Kubernetes did it first.

I&#x27;m sure this is a controversial thing to say but I think the same thing is happening with all the transgender people on social media.

Snowcrash is becoming real

&quot;All your Base&quot; was the first instance of this, no?

So stupid trends are now an illness? Shall we hospitalise people who repeat things they see online?