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Ransom Riggs
Can laughter become an epidemic?
by Ransom Riggs - February 2, 2007 - 3:10 PM

It’s an open question. There are, in fact, rumors of such things happening in the world. They are little more than that, but like many urban legends, what’s most interesting about them is that they could be true. Take, for instance, the so-called “Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic,” which (supposedly) occurred in a small village in Tanzania in 1962. Here’s the legend (thanks, Wikipedia):

The epidemic seems to have started within a small group of students in a boarding school, possibly triggered by a joke. Laughter, as is commonly known, is in some sense contagious, and for whatever reason in this case the laughter perpetuated itself, far transcending its original cause. Since it is physiologically impossible to laugh for much more than a few minutes at a time, the laughter must have made itself known sporadically, though reportedly it was incapacitating when it struck. The school from which the epidemic sprang was shut down; the children and parents transmitted it to the surrounding area. Other schools, Kashasha itself, and another village, comprising thousands of people, were all affected to some degree. Six to eighteen months after it started, the phenomenon died off.

But is such a thing even possible? On a much smaller scale, it’s a phenomenon all of us have witnessed; with a little extrapolation, it’s not tough to imagine a 6-month bout of infectious laughter. In case any of you don’t know what we’re talking about, here’s a great example from YouTube, of an otherwise lame comedy routine made great by infectious, incapacitating laughter:

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Comments (7)

  1. Wow. I have never heard anyone actually say, “nyuk” when they laughed before.

    My boyfriend and I have competitions where we try to laugh in hilarious ways to see who can get the other person to laugh for real. This guy would win, hands down, every time!

    posted by Molly on 2-2-2007 at 3:33 pm

  2. Holy crap. I couldn’t stop laughing for the whole nine minutes! My stomach now has cramps. I don’t think I have EVER laughed this hard before… all from a guy who makes a “nyuk” sound… Wow, just wow.

    posted by Lindsay on 2-2-2007 at 4:14 pm

  3. Oh my goodness. I’ve never heard an actual “nyuk” either, but this made me laugh until I cried! This is fantastic, thank you so much for posting!

    posted by Rachel on 2-2-2007 at 10:24 pm

  4. Hmm… I think it would be possible that a laughing epidemic might come about… After all, I did laugh for 20 minutes straight in class for no reason.

    …Should I go see a psychiatrist?

    posted by Wernie on 2-2-2007 at 11:01 pm

  5. This immediately makes me think of Monty Python’s skit about the world’s funniest joke. I can’t post a link in the text, but go to youtube & search for: python funniest joke.

    Enjoy!

    posted by Egg Syntax on 2-3-2007 at 12:31 am

  6. I laughed and then had to show my husband. Then laughed again. I heard that laughing is sign of being scared, especially when babies laugh. I have notice this when I introduced my babies to new people, sometimes they would smile and laugh.

    posted by Grace on 2-4-2007 at 7:21 am

  7. This reminds me of the Monty Python skit about the joke that won world war II for the allies.

    posted by Fotis on 2-5-2007 at 6:48 am

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