Panic buying toilet paper isn’t anything new, as this story from Japan in 1973 demonstrates:

This quote is taken from Jayson Makoto Chun’s social history of Japanese television. As he goes on to point out, this was a case where television did not simply report on reality but in doing so created a new reality. Helmar Krupp in his book on energy politics, it is worth noting, has a slightly different explanation of the start of the crisis: in this case, a price-cutting sale of toilet paper produced a surge in buying, toilet paper selling out and resulting media reports of big purchases and empty shelves.

Whatever the origin, it’s a case of reporting on reality then changing reality. Reporting on toilet-related activity altered toilet-related activity.

A journalist equivalent of Schrodinger’s Cat. Schrodinger’s Litter Tray, perhaps.