NEWS: Breaking News: Clowns are Fucking Terrifying

CULTURE: Breaking News: Clowns are Fucking Terrifying

Loathe as I am to use use gratuitous expletives[1], sometimes I find them necessary to fully convey the magnitude of joy or horror or whatever it is pertaining to what we're discussing. This is one of those times.

Who loves a clown? No one. It's not like writers just pull the stuff of absolute horror out of thin air -- they usually draw from subjects they find a bit horrifying in real life. In fact, nothing can turn a fun movie into an eye-covering terror-fest as fast as the simple addition of some sinister circus affiliates.

Now: one might think it really wouldn't take a brain surgeon to understand that to the average person (and in particular, the average child), clowns are the stuff of nightmares. On the contrary, however, not only is it beyond an entire hospital staff's immediate comprehension, but it apparently takes a team of researchers and a university-funded study to retroactively discover what I could have told you when I was three years old and screaming my head off in McDonald's.

Oh, for real? Children and teenagers alike found the prospect of rooms adorned with dead eyes and false rictus-grins to be a little bit frightening? Is that what you're telling me? Excuse me if I'm squinting, but my monocle just blasted off and I'm finding it a bit difficult to see.

Meanwhile, the highly-influential clown lobby is crying in protest, spewing forth hateful propaganda of those who would speak out against them -- unsurprising, really, for hate is the only language in which a clown knows how to speak.

Okay, Patch Adams: first of all, that you started your "programme" the same year Stephen King's It was published definitely raises some red flags. Diversion, anyone? Anyway, I'm sure you've been gainfully employed by many a hospital director who finds clowns to be just the ginchiest. Just because some kids are too weakened from aggressive chemotherapy to scream when you honk your dumb nose at them, it doesn't make it any less true that no child of the eighties or later finds your schtick even remotely amusing.

You see, I initially assumed the revulsion of clowns to be pretty much universal in this modern age, but according to the initial article there exists a bit of a generation gap.

So supposedly clowns were believed to be conduits of delight at one point in time, as opposed to the pure evil they actually are? It seems apocryphal, but I do recall my parents speaking rather fondly of Hobo Kelly. I personally find her cruel-eyed visage tear-inducing, so I consulted a co-worker a couple decades my elder, who reminisced of the sheer fun brought by the most horrible and undead of menaces. So then, the generation gap most certainly exists -- perhaps not between "children" and "adults" as the writings so concretely suggest, but certainly between certain eras. More innocent times, when spindly marionettes on television were normal and clowns were not mass murderers.

A related article suggests fear and reviling of clowns as having to do with things like "fear of the mask" and a vilifying push from pop culture, or -- in the case of the children at the hospital -- just a general fear of the unknown, but it has to be more than that. It isn't a learned revulsion, it is wholly intuitive and most gut-wrenching. So forgive us, oh hospital designers and bankrupt clown schools, if kids today (and young adults, for that matter) aren't buying what you're selling. In a threatening and unknown world, we'll take something with a little more comfort and a little less menace, thank you very much.

Give us robots.




[1] In writing, anyway. In speech, however, I'm like a longshoreman on helium.

Hat tip to uncognitive and thefreak. Sorry I claimed this story and then took forever writing it. Such a passionate subject takes a lot out of you, I suppose.

I've always been terrified of clowns.

My mom had two clown statues that I purposely broke as a kid, because they freaked me out to the point of nightmares.

And this was well before I read It.

fuck clowns

I remember as a kid, my little sister was absolutely freaked out by clowns at the local circus. I guess the delight goes out of it when you get up close and realise behidn that smiling mask there's a sweaty, overweight carny - who I personally wouldn't let within 100 feet of my sister.

Clown-beating is a legal right in Massachusetts. Those Puritans weren't wrong about everything.

all I can think of is this rather creepy training video


I believe it was Mr Satan who pointed it out to me quite a while back. back before there was a Mrs. Satan, I think.


gotta love them religious clowns!

Am I the only one who saw Dr. Penny Curtis & thought subliminally Dr Pennywise Curtis ? Now I am scared

I love the way you write, DG. Lots and lots.

Bahahahahahaha!

Coulrophobia now! Coulrophobia forever!

I've never had a problem with clowns. I used to watch Bozo every day, maybe that insulated me.

apparently, according to my mother, the Bozo show was playing in the hospital as i was exiting her vagina at 8:17AM CST.

I want robots too, but I still love clowns, even if they are evil.
I just don't know what's wrong with kids these days. When I was a kid, we loved clowns. When any other kid started to freak out and cry in a clown's presence, it gave the rest of us a chance to point and laugh at the crybaby. The clown would laugh too. So, ultimately, clowns were always a source of humor.

I think robots scare me more than clowns do...Terminator is what I grew up with..."IT" didn't come along till I was a teenager
(and teenagers aren't scared of anything)
I could seriously see clowns all over the walls freaking people out...it doesn't take a lot for a clown face to just look evil...
and we have clown a clown lobbyist's now? isn't that somehow, well, very fitting?????

I was never afraid of clowns. I just thought they were stupid.

Okay, so it's not a real clown, but still ...

^^^That made me terrified of dolls when I was a child. Clowns, not so much. But clown dolls? Holeeee shit.

I have to agree with the sentiment on Bozo. IT certainly freaks me out, but the lovable (and possibly alcoholic) Bozo? Certainly not. Nor his poor overworked assistant Cookie. Harmless fun.

/Hijack

Something I find creepier than clowns, truly, is "grey" aliens.

Which is strange, because I can watch any movie involving a "Giger" or a Predator, and I'm not phased. Never was. Which isn't to say that they're kinda scary; I'm sure if one of them popped out of a ceiling at me, I'd be screaming bloody murder for the half second it would take to disembowel me. But I'm not really freaked out by them.

Put ET on? I leave the room. Or Close Encounters, which I basically watch until the end. God forbid one of the informational channels put on a "documentary" about aliens at night. I'll never get to fucking sleep.

I have no explanation for this.

bring on the robot clowns!!

Let's not forget the effect that Santa Clause has on most small children. I would think that would be enough evidence right there to keep loud costumed grownups out of children's hospitals. I think the kids would rather see a puppy.

Not to put down people who volunteer their time to visit children in the hospital. We should all care that much. Maybe just leave the costumes behind.

Most terrifying clown of them all?

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Fucking John Wayne Gacy

This article is just hilarious.


I had recurring nightmares in preschool and kindergarten about Bozo jumping out from behind our console TV and chasing me. So yeah, not a big fan of clowns.

IT severely scarred my childhood