Maybe because of ‘IT’ .. maybe just because starting around this time of year we begin to witness odd clowns stories from around the world..
In the news today: My state’s police force is warning about a return of the clown.
“The creepy clown craze in September 2016 resulted in at least a dozen people arrested in Georgia, Alabama, and Virginia for either taking part in the menacing stunt or for making false reports,” read a bulletin this week from the Pennsylvania State Police.
“With the fall of 2017 upon us, it is anticipated that similar ‘creepy clown’ sightings could be reported starting as soon as September, in part due to the fact that the movie ‘It’ will be released in theaters on 9/8/2017. The movie, which is adapted from a Stephen King novel by the same name, portrays an evil demon who takes on the shape of a clown named Pennywise, ‘that stalks kids from within the sewers and killing them when they least expect it.'”
Good to see the State Police up on newest box office schedules. I’d suspect there is a horror movie fan within the organization.
I have tried to extensively report about creepy clowns in the past. The entire notion fascinates me: The idea that people are scared of clowns to begin with, to the point last year where my own local school district banned my son and all others from wearing clown costumes for Halloween. B
Back in 2014, I wrote an article about the small town clown panic of ’14.. Back then WASCO become famous.
In 2014, the DAILY BEAST had a great piece about the fall fad:
But there could be another issue in play. The DAILY BEAST is running an interesting article concerning the clown sightings.. Oliver Jones quotes Andrew McDonnell Stott, an English professor at the University of Buffalo. Oliver writes,
Stott argues that they were somewhat questionable figures to begin with. “Really, it existed since middle ages,” he says. “There was the sense of the clown being embodiment of frailty and the absurdity life. The subtext of the clown is that life is a joke and can be snatched away at any moment.” The concept of the bifurcated clown was solidified with Joseph Grimaldi, the celebrity clown from the early 1800s who was also well known for his depression, alcoholism, sacrificing his body for comedy, and dying in penniless obscurity.
“Clown sightings are cyclical,” says Stott, who says that urban legend of creepy clowns in ice cream trucks ran rampant during the economic downturn of the 1980s. “They tend to be recessionary. It is not surprising that these images should be showing up during a time of unraveling of job security. They go back to clowns being at the bottom of the economic and social ladder, and to them being tied to the unreliability of work and the fragility of the structures that used to be counted on, like having a single job for your entire career. They are a reminder that human endeavor can be reduced to ashes in a blink of an eye.”
AND… they are back again. Or at least feared to be coming.
