When I was little, I remember my mom telling me about the Elvis Presley concerts.
Yep. Sheldon pretty much has the cliffs notes version down. Chicks would faint, scream, and throw panties at the stage, she told me. I didn’t get this. But I figured that it was one of those things that I’d understand when I grew up – especially since I was starting to see the same ish going on at those Michael Jackson concerts on T.V. Also, there was my sister who was starting to show signs of hysterics when New Kids on the Block came on T.V. Her boy band mania – which she’d come to deny altogether just a few years later – ranged from memorizing their names, to forcing me to memorize their names (I only retrospectively remember one was a Wahlberg), to toting one of these along on camping trips…
Which occurred in our living room.
Cause we weren’t allowed to go anywhere.
By the time I was that age, the Backstreet Boys became a thing. And as my few best friends huddled around T.R.L. to watch these child-men parade in matching Hamptons party uniforms, my stupid brain still wouldn’t bite. Alas, I was in love with John Travolta and his capacity to stay cool from Grease to Get Shorty. So the question I asked myself (as I was prescribed a hypothetical Backstreet boyfriend by them for whom I had luke warm feelings and listened to their concert accounts with feigned interest), would I at least catch my own Saturday night fever for the 40 something-year-old celeb I adored… if I ever met him?
Or does this hysteria only happen when you have a herd with whom to share it?
It might be the latter, says science. And it’s not just unique to elite worshipping. Similar events to fangirling have happened not terribly long ago in Mexico and England – difficulty with walking, spasms, shallow breathing, and nausea – with no known cause – with young students. But there was also a period of time between 1017 and 1518 when school kids in countries like Germany, France, and Switzerland were so consumed with the nutty need to dissipate brain energy – that they leaped, hopped, and danced themselves to the point of exhaustion – and even death. Just like the evil stepmom in the original end of Cinderella.
(*To tune of Bowie Ballad: “Dance, Patrick, dance..”)
This isn’t unique to girls though. Boys do it too – just in a different way. Video gaming and sporting events are a couple of excellent examples. And in more extreme scenarios, you get the mob mentality (even though I have indeed heard of football frenzies resulting in deaths – if you went to a football university like mine, this isn’t news, sadly). But the “mass hysteria” tends to happen when you’ve already got a group of stressed folk who get set off by a trigger. With school kids, this is much easier to induce because they’ve got puberty going on and they’re all already a classroom cage of confusion cocktails just waiting to be ignited. Which is why you’ll wanna steal away when Bieber steals the show (by standing around trying to make James Dean eyes at the cameras) before you start setting off a stress reaction of your own.
As for the good old days when there was no Hollywood? The stress was a little more genuine inasmuch as it was more anxiety about survival (call me crazy but “am I gonna eat” kinda trumps “am I gonna meet a superstar?”) Death by way of disease and empty tummies was ever a looming threat. Thus, it was likely famine, not fame, was what triggered those European grim river dances.
On the biological level, this is one of those fascinating conditions ‘cause it acts like a virus, but it’s really just something happening in your brain. The reason it “spreads” is because of the nature of the thing causing your brain to do that. I talk about Oxytocin being the social-moral-cuddle hormone a lot… so why would it cause such adverse side effects as a death-boogie or fangirls fainting? And how can it be contagious? Pretty much, it catches because our brains squirt out a bit like a morphine pump when we start connecting with fellow human folk… and it feels good. So it’s not so much that we’re infecting eachother as its release requires people-proximity first. As for the madness? Well, the morphine metaphor isn’t far off. Oxytocin, while a natural hormone, is indeed like a drug. When we’re part of a herd, our inhibitions get discarded a bit ’cause our desire to be in the clique can be more alluring than even our authentic desires are.
The interesting thing about this is the potential power it holds.
When it was Malcolm X waggling a finger, the police dude said, “That’s too much power for one man.” Funny how they don’t say that when a single Insta-snap from a celeb wearing no-name kicks can skyrocket the stock value on a company that was invisible the day before. It’s not hard to manipulate someone with morals made malleable by money. Whatever your message – the biology behind this is that 5% of the humans in a crowd can direct 90% to move in a single direction (Ah… that’s why they’re called “One Direction”) So, what am I? The unaccounted for 5% missing sufficient Oxytocin reserves so I venerate an actor who satiates my daddy issues in lieu? This would explain a lot. And maybe it also explains my obsesh with Travolta and the social hormones I lack alike.
As for y’all, don’t feel bad. From Black Friday Walmart stampedes to the euphoric feeling you get as you find yourself slowly identifying more and more with the religious cult you “only came to make a documentary about” – don’t blame yourself for falling in line. Acting like a sheep is just part of your bah-ological need to be accepted by others.
As for me? I’ve still got that same time capsuled shrine in my old bedroom for middle aged Danny Zuko, befriended my later celebrity hero instead of fainting like a nice normal lady should, and – yes – my OTC depletion that sets me apart from the herd will likely land me the grand prize of becoming a cat lady (and by “cat” I mean shih-tzu factory owner) far, far sooner than the norm.