The bizarre collapse of a young Los Angeles newscaster on live TV over the weekend has set the internet on fire — just the newest example of a phenomenon that begs the question: Why are people so fascinated by female newscasters collapsing or having other bizarre health episodes live on the air?

On Saturday, a CBS LA meteorologist, Alissa Carlson Schwartz, 46, keeled over live on air, falling out of sight under the news desk, just as she was about to report the coming weekend’s weather forecast.

Ms. Schwartz later let viewers know that she was okay and that the collapse was due to a head injury, adding that she suffered from vasovagal syncope — a condition that can cause sudden fainting.

“Thanks for all the texts, messages, and calls,” Ms. Carlson Schwartz wrote in an Instagram Story that afternoon. “I’m going to be ok.”

Ms. Carlson Schwartz said that the incident was unrelated to a condition that she had known about since 2014, a leaky heart valve that has led to other on-air incidents at previous jobs.

While it was a relief for many viewers to find that Ms. Carlson Schwartz was okay after the on air scare, the incident had racked up tens of millions of views online and articles in publications everywhere from Los Angeles to Mumbai. 

Ms. Carlson Schwartz’s story, however, is far from unique. The internet seems to love when on-air talent, especially newswomen, collapse or encounter other health problems live on air.

Just this past fall, KJRH-Tulsa’s Julie Chin suffered a stroke-like episode live on air, where she lost vision in one eye and suffered numbness in her appendages.

“First, I lost partial vision in one eye,” Ms. Chin said in a Facebook post. “A little bit later my hand and arm went numb. Then, I knew I was in big trouble when my mouth would not speak the words that were right in front of me on the teleprompter.”

Ms. Chin said doctors reported that she was healthy after the accident. Doctors were unable to identify an underlying condition, suggesting it may have been a Transient ischemic attack.

TIAs, sometimes called mini-strokes, are incidents where a temporary blood flow blockage in the brain induces stroke symptoms. They sometimes spontaneously occur in healthy adults and young people.

Perhaps most famously, a CBS2 reporter, Serene Branson, made headlines across the world when she suffered a severe migraine on air while covering the 2011 Grammy Awards.

During her report, she began talking incoherently — almost as if she was speaking in tongues — before the broadcast was cut off. Videos recounting the incident racked up tens of millions of views while armchair doctors speculated about the cause.

The same year as Ms. Branson’s on air migraine, researchers Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman suggested that they may have the answer for why certain content goes viral on the internet.

“Content that evokes high-arousal positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions is more viral,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “Content that evokes low-arousal, or deactivating, emotions (e.g., sadness) is less viral.”

The researchers also found that they controlled for “how surprising, interesting, or practically useful content is.” While not particularly useful, it’s safe to say that watching a medical emergency live on TV elicits a strong emotional response in most people.

Beyond the general psychological and sociological reasons for why certain content goes viral, more recent incidents have another force driving their virality: anti-vaxxers.

Ever since the first vaccines for Covid became available, online skeptics and conspiracy theorists have been eager to attribute any sudden medical emergency to the vaccine, regardless of evidence for or against this claim.

People were quick to suggest that Ms. Carlson Schwartz’s on-air collapse was due to the Covid vaccine, with a self proclaimed “post apocalyptic war lord,” bounty hunter, former rapper, failed actor, and right wing pundit, Stew Peters, leading the charge, saying, “It’s becoming too big to ignore.”

Although incidents like Ms. Carlson Schwartz’s are relatively rare, it looks like people are going to need to get used to any high profile medical incident leading to anti-vax chatter online. 

In one recent example, the collapse of a Buffalo Bills safety, Damar Hamlin, was blamed on the vaccine by many online even though he was struck in the chest on live TV shortly before the incident.