Seriously, y'all. Quit creepy clowning around! In fact, I find it ridiculous that I am even posting an entry to address this recent trend. But here I am, writing about it. I wanna get back to the basics: Grimaldi, sweet, and fun type of clowns.I realize this message will not be read by the very people it's directed to. That much, I get. However, those that are part of the this creepy clown cycle that do read this can break the cycle of negativity. You know, a love-conquers-all type of approach.
As much as I've been able to source out, the first 2016 creepy clown sighting that was documented was in Greenville, South Carolina. The full article was written by Matthew Teague of The Guardian, and be read in detail here.
But here's the introduction:
The first person to spot a clown, the patient zero in the current epidemic of threatening clowns sightings spreading across the US, was a little boy at a low-income apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina.
He ran to his mother, Donna Arnold, and told her what he had seen: two clowns in the woods, both brightly dressed and made up. One with a red fright wig and the other with a black star painted on his face. They whispered something to the boy.
“They were trying to lure him to the house,” his mother told me, pointing toward the woods.
That being said, this isn't the first time someone (male) has tried to lure anyone with a costume (e.g. clown) It's just been brought to society's awareness with the advent of social media and sensational news reports. This has escalated beyond the region of the source, and then quickly fueled to spread across to our friends in the United Kingdom.
In this trigger-happy, gun toting area of the United States, it makes me wonder if these clowns, er men, have a death wish? I realize and understand this is a very copycat type society that's all the more exacerbated by social media. I'm, also, not one to shoot first and ask questions later, mostly because I don't own a gun. This situation makes me re-think I should, though.
Think about it, I've seen postings on my FB Newsfeed, Twitter, Instagram, etc about policemen and criminals in gunfire incidents recently, so why the hell would you even want to tempt Fate? And why is it only males that reportedly dressing up as creepy clowns? Is it the maternal instinct of a female to protect, shield, and comfort children that triggers something in their minds not to do this (see what I did there)?
I've done several searches on Facebook for creepy clown sightings, and not surprisingly I found several of my parent friends in Washington State posting about how ridiculous this is. Save for one posting about a genuinely concerned mother, most were upset that this even is an issue in the first place.
Furthermore, it was only after these parent(s) were prompted by an email, or automated phone call, or some other communication by their children's school(s) administration. And I understand why the schools did that. They were forced into a proactive, "let's get in front of this" approach, versus a reactive, cautious stance.
They were forced to because parents would bemoan the administration for not addressing it - damned if you do, and damned if you don't. A cycle of negativity and blame.
Furthermore, there's a FB page set up specifically for clown sightings. It's mostly satirical in content but there are a few legitimate postings of videos by everyday citizens taking a vigilante style stance regarding creepy clowns.
Let's face it, clowns have caught a bad reputation in American pop culture. And it didn't start off that way, either! I read a fascinating article on The Smithsonian Magazine that I've summarized in a cliff notes style.
There’s a word— albeit one not recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary or any psychology manual— for the excessive fear of clowns: Coulrophobia.
Not a lot of people actually suffer from a debilitating phobia of clowns; a lot more people, however, just don’t like them. Do a Google search for “I hate clowns” and the first hit is ihateclowns.com, a forum for clown-haters that also offers vanity @ihateclowns.com emails. One “I Hate Clowns” Facebook page has just under 480,000 likes...
Clowns had a sort of heyday in America with the television age and children’s entertainers like Clarabell the Clown, Howdy Doody’s silent partner, and Bozo the Clown...
But this heyday also heralded a real change in what a clown was. Before the early 20th century, there was little expectation that clowns had to be an entirely unadulterated symbol of fun, frivolity, and happiness; pantomime clowns, for example, were characters who had more adult-oriented story lines. But clowns were now almost solely children’s entertainment.
Even as Bozo was cavorting on sets across America, a more sinister clown was plying his craft across the Midwest. John Wayne Gacy’s public face was a friendly, hard-working guy; he was also a registered clown who entertained at community events under the name Pogo. But between 1972 and 1978, he sexually assaulted and killed more than 35 young men in the Chicago area. “You know… clowns can get away with murder,” he told investigating officers, before his arrest.
Gacy didn’t get away with it—he was found guilty of 33 counts of murder and was executed in 1994. But he’d become identified as the “Killer Clown,” a handy sobriquet for newspaper reports that hinged on the unexpectedness of his killing.
After a real life killer clown shocked America, representations of clowns took a decidedly terrifying turn.
In 1982, Poltergeist relied on transforming familiar banality—the Californian suburb, a piece of fried chicken, the television—into real terror; but the big moment was when the little boy’s clown doll comes to life and tries to drag him under the bed. In 1986, Stephen King wrote It, in which a terrifying demon attacks children in the guise of Pennywise the Clown; in 1990, the book was made into a TV mini-series. In 1988, B-movie hit Killer Klowns from Outer Space featured alien clowns harboring sharp-toothed grins and murderous intentions. The next year saw Clownhouse, a cult horror film about escaped mental patients masquerading as circus clowns who terrorize a rural town. Between the late 1980s and now – when the Saw franchise’s mascot is a creepy clown-faced puppet -- dozens of films featuring vicious clowns appeared in movie theatres (or, more often, went straight to video), making the clown as reliable a boogeyman as Freddy Kreuger.
So there it is. In the eyes of the American public, creepy clowns seems to have completely eradicated the positive, loving and caring reputation established by legitimate professional clowns. In fact, there's a social movement called, #ClownLivesMatter, started by an Arizona woman. She organized a parade to take place this Saturday, October 15th, to illustrate that not all clowns are 'killers' with the intent to be creepy.
Professional clowns have gone on record to say they are 'fed up' that these other clowns, pardon the pun, that are eroding the reputation that they've worked to regain.
So again, I'm imploring EVERYONE on Spaceship Earth, please quit creepy clowning around, and let's get back to basics: clowns are fun and funny. I'm asking because while I'm no professional clown, I'm a fun and funny guy that was known as the 'class clown'.
I don't want to be shot on the sole premise of a title.
Until next week, please be good like you should, and if you can't be good, be good and what you do.
Mic drop *bOoM*
'los
Furthermore, there's a FB page set up specifically for clown sightings. It's mostly satirical in content but there are a few legitimate postings of videos by everyday citizens taking a vigilante style stance regarding creepy clowns.
Let's face it, clowns have caught a bad reputation in American pop culture. And it didn't start off that way, either! I read a fascinating article on The Smithsonian Magazine that I've summarized in a cliff notes style.
There’s a word— albeit one not recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary or any psychology manual— for the excessive fear of clowns: Coulrophobia.
Not a lot of people actually suffer from a debilitating phobia of clowns; a lot more people, however, just don’t like them. Do a Google search for “I hate clowns” and the first hit is ihateclowns.com, a forum for clown-haters that also offers vanity @ihateclowns.com emails. One “I Hate Clowns” Facebook page has just under 480,000 likes...
Clowns had a sort of heyday in America with the television age and children’s entertainers like Clarabell the Clown, Howdy Doody’s silent partner, and Bozo the Clown...
But this heyday also heralded a real change in what a clown was. Before the early 20th century, there was little expectation that clowns had to be an entirely unadulterated symbol of fun, frivolity, and happiness; pantomime clowns, for example, were characters who had more adult-oriented story lines. But clowns were now almost solely children’s entertainment.
Even as Bozo was cavorting on sets across America, a more sinister clown was plying his craft across the Midwest. John Wayne Gacy’s public face was a friendly, hard-working guy; he was also a registered clown who entertained at community events under the name Pogo. But between 1972 and 1978, he sexually assaulted and killed more than 35 young men in the Chicago area. “You know… clowns can get away with murder,” he told investigating officers, before his arrest.
Gacy didn’t get away with it—he was found guilty of 33 counts of murder and was executed in 1994. But he’d become identified as the “Killer Clown,” a handy sobriquet for newspaper reports that hinged on the unexpectedness of his killing.
After a real life killer clown shocked America, representations of clowns took a decidedly terrifying turn.
In 1982, Poltergeist relied on transforming familiar banality—the Californian suburb, a piece of fried chicken, the television—into real terror; but the big moment was when the little boy’s clown doll comes to life and tries to drag him under the bed. In 1986, Stephen King wrote It, in which a terrifying demon attacks children in the guise of Pennywise the Clown; in 1990, the book was made into a TV mini-series. In 1988, B-movie hit Killer Klowns from Outer Space featured alien clowns harboring sharp-toothed grins and murderous intentions. The next year saw Clownhouse, a cult horror film about escaped mental patients masquerading as circus clowns who terrorize a rural town. Between the late 1980s and now – when the Saw franchise’s mascot is a creepy clown-faced puppet -- dozens of films featuring vicious clowns appeared in movie theatres (or, more often, went straight to video), making the clown as reliable a boogeyman as Freddy Kreuger.
So there it is. In the eyes of the American public, creepy clowns seems to have completely eradicated the positive, loving and caring reputation established by legitimate professional clowns. In fact, there's a social movement called, #ClownLivesMatter, started by an Arizona woman. She organized a parade to take place this Saturday, October 15th, to illustrate that not all clowns are 'killers' with the intent to be creepy.
Professional clowns have gone on record to say they are 'fed up' that these other clowns, pardon the pun, that are eroding the reputation that they've worked to regain.
So again, I'm imploring EVERYONE on Spaceship Earth, please quit creepy clowning around, and let's get back to basics: clowns are fun and funny. I'm asking because while I'm no professional clown, I'm a fun and funny guy that was known as the 'class clown'.
I don't want to be shot on the sole premise of a title.
Until next week, please be good like you should, and if you can't be good, be good and what you do.
Mic drop *bOoM*
'los
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