“Hysteria” is an ancient word carrying thousands of years of baggage. Though the terminology has changed, hysteria has not gone away, and in its most baffling instances it can even be contagious. The idea of a mass psychogenic illness can be hard to wrap your head around. A group of people begins experiencing physical symptoms, because of something that started in one of their minds? In today’s episode Dan Taberski, the host of Hysterical, a new podcast about mass hysteria, walks us through the past and present of this phenomenon, why it’s so stigmatized, and why it shouldn’t be. This episode was written by Evan Chung and Willa Paskin and produced by Evan. We produce Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman and with help from Sofie Kodner. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Special thanks to Marialexa Kavanaugh and Alexandra Anderson. If you haven’t please yet, subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends. If you’re a fan of the show, we’d love for you to sign up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring and every other Slate podcast without any ads. You also get unlimited access to Slate’s website. Member support is crucial to our work. So please go to slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Before we begin, just a heads up that this episode contains adult language.
The other week, the podcaster Dan Taberski came into our studio and told us a strange story.
It took place in May of 2004 in Vancouver on a city bus.
A man is getting off the bus, and he says to the bus driver, how's your day?
And the bus driver says, good.
And the guy getting off the bus says, not for long.
And he gets off the bus, and the bus driver's like, huh?
Like, super threatening and weird.
And what does that mean?
A few minutes later, the bus driver starts to feel nauseous, and he asks.
If any of the other passengers are feeling sick.
And one of the passengers says, I'm feeling sick.
And so now they're thinking, okay, shit, this guy did something.
The bus driver pulls over and they call the paramedics.
Paramedics get sick.
Many of the people on the bus go to the hospital.
They do tests, they test everything on the bus in and out, and they find nothing.
No toxins, nothing that would have made them sick.
No gas, no chemicals.
In all, 19 people were put into quarantine.