CREEPY CLOWN CRAZE
WHAT WEIRD GLOBAL TREND SAYS ABOUT MODERN FEARS
CREEPY, sinister, downright weird – and about as 21st century as you can get. The so-called “killer clown” craze, which started in America and is now sweeping the UK, is all down to the fears which dominate our sub-conscious in 2016.
According to psychologists, the clown craze and the resulting panic play to key 21st-century dreads such as: unpredictability in an increasingly unstable world; the absurdity of politics; a narcissistic need for attention; and a blurring between games and reality.
The craze, which is being largely driven by social media, has seen a spate of incidents from Gloucestershire to Dundee in recent days and all across America, in which masked people dressed as clowns, and sometimes wielding knives, have deliberately terrorised and chased members of the public, including children.
Yesterday, officers in Gloucester issued fresh warnings to those wasting police time after it received six reports of people dressed as clowns acting suspiciously. In one case a child was followed. In Scotland, incidents were reported in Dundee and Ayr, where sightings were reported around local secondary, primary and nursery schools.
Police Scotland said no incident involved violence but warned that action would be taken against anyone seeking to cause members of the public distress.
On Friday, a knife-wielding masked man jumped out in front of children on their way to school in Durham.
Clown sightings, which started in the US in August, have also contin- ued in America with two 18-year-old girls arrested in Michigan on Thursday evening after dressing up and chasing other teens.
Dr Cynthia McVey, a psychologist from Glasgow’s Caledonian University, told the Sunday Herald: “This is an unidentifiable person behaving in an unusual and unexpected way and out of the context that you would expect to see them. That makes them deeply unpredictable, which makes people very uncomfortable.
“Many people don’t like clowns for that reason anyway – what you think is a flower will actually squirt you with water ... When you add the horror film element in there, it can become really quite threatening and sinister.”
“In extreme cases there could be those who are using it as a cover to stalk others,” McVey added. “For the most part I think people are doing it to get attention, not only by frightening people but also to talk about and share. And in the same way that people like to say they were at the scene of an accident, they also like to report that they saw a clown. It can make them feel important.”
Benjamin Radford, the author of Bad Clowns, said the recent spate could be divided into those he calls “stalker clowns” who enjoyed terrorising people and recording incidents that go viral on social media and “phantom clowns”, who were reported to menace children.
“My concern is not so much that there are evil and malicious people dressing as clowns but the public’s over-reaction to it, which is making parents and schools concerned when there really is no need for it.”
Social media guru James Shamsi told the Sunday Herald that teenagers saw it as “a real-life online game”.
“People love getting involved in online challenges and trends, this is exactly that plus a little more,” he said. “It’s a way for people to get a buzz with little potential risk. They’ll get some laughs from their friends for it, and on the off-chance they might get written about in the news, and people locally will talk about something they were secretly behind.”
Meanwhile, sociologist Robert Bartholomew at Botany College in New Zealand, an expert in mass hysteria, has claimed that the current clown scare is a result of the rise in social media, as well as a fear of otherness – whether of strangers, terrorists or refugees.
Police Scotland stressed many of the incidents reported were hoaxes. Superintendent David Duncan said: “We have had a few sporadic reports of individuals dressed as clowns in some areas in Scotland. It is assessed that there is a current trend of similar incidents on social media.
“However, any person seeking to cause distress and potential harm to anyone should be aware that police will take action.”
When you add the horror film element in there, it can become really quite threatening and sinister