mass hysteria theme
Allusions of a threat spread through a group causing panic, each person's fear reinforcing that of the next and in a vicious circle.
Examples
The people of Maple Street gradually transform into an hysterical mob when they thought an alien monster was masquerading amongst them in "The Twilight Zone" (1959) story "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" (tz1959e1x22).
43 total · 2 choice · 6 major · 35 minor
| Story | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| tz1959e1x22 | choice | The people of Maple Street gradually transformed into an hysterical mob when they thought an alien monster was masquerading amongst them. |
| tz2002e1x31 | choice | The people of Maple Street gradually transformed into an hysterical mob when they thought a terrorist was masquerading amongst them. |
| ahh2x03 | major | There was a whiff of hysteria all about the town of Northfield as people began falling victim to a mysterious murderer. People locked themselves in and were afraid to walk alone at night. People called for armed untrained men to form a guard, even though this would likely as not lead to all sorts of accidents. |
| movie: A Fire in the Sky (1978) | major | The government emergency planners were making an evacuation plan for Phoenix that would result in a minimum of chaos and mass panic. In the end a mass panic and looting broke out across the city. |
| movie: Panic in Year Zero (1962) | major | There was panic and social breakdown in the aftermath of Los Angeles being hit by an atomic bomb. |
| movie: Superman and the Mole-Men (1951) | major | The townspeople became hysterical over the presence of mole men, formed a lynch mob and tried to string the beings up without ever trying to understand them. |
| movie: The End of the World (1931) | major | a mass panic descends upon the people of the Earth as news spreads of an impending cometary collision |
| tz1959e3x03 | major | We saw the people in a suburban neighborhood act hysterically, and irrationally in the lead up to a presumed nuclear strike. |
| ahh1x22 | minor | Daniel's boss explained that telling people about the imminent outbreak would cause a deadly mass outbreak of the disease "panic". Among other things people would be panic buying penicillin and there wouldn't be enough to go around. |
| movie: Armageddon (1998) | minor | Dan Truman explained that knowledge of a gigantic asteroid being on a collision course with Earth was classified to prevent rioting in the streets and "total chaos", among other things. |