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Pokemon epilepsy = mass hysteria?

grant

12:53 / 20.12.01

http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/149_pokemon.shtml
quote:
Although widely regarded as a simple case of mass epileptic seizures, the 1997 Pokémon panic is clearly much more complex. With very few exceptions, much of the media overlooked the possibility of mass hysteria, even though so many possibly contributing factors were visible. Several researchers have noted that episodes of mass hysteria are probably far more common than we currently think.

Lionheart

20:16 / 20.12.01

If i remember correctly the author of this piece writes for sceptical enquierer(sp?).

but he also is a lazy bastard who claims things without doing any real research. somewhere in the "Breaking News" part of the fortean times website there is a link to an artice about how scientists found a new type of epilepsy which explained the pokemon seizures.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:51 / 21.12.01

Why does it have to be a new kind of epilepsy? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Pokemon cartoon featured flashing lights (from Pikachu's eyeballs) and it's well-known that flickering images and stroboscopic lights can cause epileptic seziures in a certain percentage of sufferers (they can also bring on migranes in some people). Flicker-sensitive epileptics are a small group, but little kids are much more susceptible to fits generally and flicker-induced fits in particular (so I am told by a nurse and an EEG technician), so why does this have to be mass-hysteria or anything, indeed, other than a long-established medical phenomenon?

Except that would be too boring, wouldn't it?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

05:50 / 22.12.01

I remember this being on the news, back when I hadn't a clue what Pokemon was 'cos it hadn't got here yet...
...then it did, and I realised...
THEY'RE EVIL.
Seriously, though, the basic epilepsy thing seemed more likely than mass hysteria... as I recall, the flashing lights scene involved was edited before being shown anywhere else. And there's a lot of people in Japan... and a lot of kids watch Pokemon... even proportionally speaking, that's gotta mean a lot of epilepsy-susceptible kids watching it.

MJ-12

05:50 / 22.12.01

quote: so why does this have to be mass-hysteria or anything, indeed, other than a long-established medical phenomenon?

The article suggests a combination of a few legit cases, followed by several thousand after the media reported on the originals. So, both.

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