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The USA, Canada, Great Britain and Sweden were seized by a panic. People dressed as clowns with guns walk the streets. They look into the windows of houses, suddenly jump out of the bushes in front of passers-by, scare children. Hundreds of videos of cruel clown “pranks” have appeared on the Web. Adults are afraid to leave the house, and children are afraid to go to school. What is it – a new social phenomenon or viral advertising? And why are we so afraid of these harmless circus characters?
In August of this year, a boy called the police in the US state of South Carolina. The child said that on the way from school he saw a clown who offered sweets to the children and called them to the forest with him. The next day, a similar message came from another boy. And more, and more. The police were sure: stories about clowns were a hoax or a childish fantasy. But soon a woman turned to the station, she also saw a clown walking near the forest in the evening. What kind of people they were (according to various sources, there were several of them), the police did not manage to find out.
Жалобы на странных клоунов began to appear from other cities in the United States. At first they were observed only near schools. But soon they were already seen everywhere. Instead of sweets, they had sticks, bloody chainsaws or bats in their hands. Blood and weapons were fake. But people were really scared.
The newspapers began to write about people in clown costumes jumping out of bushes, walking around houses at night, looking in windows, trying to break into cars. One of the versions of the appearance of the mummers was called an advertisement for a new film – a remake of the famous thriller based on the killer clown “It”. It’s still a year away from the movie’s release. Is it too early for an advertising campaign? But when in one of the states a clown tried to kidnap a child, and in Pennsylvania he killed a 16-year-old schoolboy, it became clear that this was not a joke or a PR campaign.
Hundreds of messages about criminals in suits began to come to the police. The internet has been flooded with viral videos of clowns scaring people. Hundreds of accounts of “evil clowns” were registered in social networks, in which anonymous authors wrote about impending attacks on schools, campuses, hospitals.
Sinister fashion was picked up by residents of other countries. In September, “evil clowns” appeared in Canada, Sweden, Great Britain. The Britons suffer the most from buffoons. According to the newspaper The Guardian, only within three days the Kent County police received 59 reports of incidents. People dressed as clowns, armed with knives, jump out of the bushes, scare children, wait for motorists on the roads.
In October, the media reported on the incident in Leicestershire. A woman gave birth prematurely after being scared by a man dressed as a clown and carrying a chainsaw.
batman vs clown
Дети в Лондоне сегодня боятся go to school. Teenagers and parents are being instructed on how to behave when encountering a person wearing a mask, and newspapers publish maps of areas in which disguised hooligans have been found. It is forbidden to sell clown masks and clothes in shops selling carnival costumes. The British police warn that anyone who goes out in a buffoon costume during the celebration of Halloween (it is celebrated on October 31) will be arrested.
London clinics I had to abandon the services of clown doctors, who used to entertain sick children in the wards. Professional clowns are also forced to cancel their performances. Now, seeing a red nose and a red wig, the children begin to cry from fright.
“Children in general are often frightened by this image – too bright make-up, disproportionate facial features (which is only one unnaturally huge smile frozen on the face). Even the smallest ones understand that no one can smile for so long, that emotions must change. All this causes distrust, fear, – says psychologist-consultant Arina Lipkina. – Fear of clowns most often appears at the age of 2-3 years. A clown is something different from most: a big nose, huge lips, hypertrophied shoes, bright strange clothes, facial expressions – it all looks like pressure (especially if the child is not at all fun at this moment). A phobia can also form if a child who had a positive attitude towards the circus image suddenly sees the genuine horror of another kid, this can be frightening.
The London authorities came up with a way reassure the students. Batman came to their aid. British TV channels showed a story about a boy who was afraid of clowns. The Man-Bat came to his house and promised to deal with the evil pranksters. Articles appeared in the local media with the headline: “Clowns, beware, Batman has come” and a photo with mummers running away from Superman.
The reception worked, children are no longer afraid.
Where did they come from?
“The world is in chaos today. many are frightened by global changes – terrorist attacks, mass migration. Those who scare others, hiding under someone else’s mask, are themselves very scared and in this way express their fear, – says psychoanalytic psychotherapist Irina Gerchikova. – Why is clowning so widespread in the USA and Great Britain? And before that, in France? Because there are a lot of immigrants in these countries. They bring chaos to their usual lives, and people try to take control of their fear by scaring others. Does the media influence it? When people are already scared, the media will certainly increase their fear and anxiety. Why do pranksters hide behind a clown mask? This is a character that connects our two selves, who can speak the truth through laughter. This is a hidden dualism. And people unconsciously choose the mask of a jester to talk about their fears.”
Scary clown game – a way to entertain yourself, – says psychologist Evgeny Osin. – Nowadays, residents of big cities have little personal communication – most social contacts are becoming virtual. Dressing up, creating communities can make up for this lack of interaction with real people or recognition. Still, clowns more often only scare, but do not attack – this is a classic carnival, but the border between carnival reality and everyday reality turns out to be erased.
Why are we afraid of clowns?
In 2014 year The Wilkinson Humanities College of Social Sciences (USA) found that one of the most common obsessive fears of Americans is coulrophobia, or fear of clowns.1. The term “coulrophobia” itself appeared in the early 1980s, when a maniac killer John Gacy, who wore a clown mask, was operating in the United States. But the phobia was most widespread in the New World after the release of the thriller It. The success of the picture caused a flurry of similar films about killers who choose the image of a clown for their atrocities.
Professor of Psychology at the University of California Joseph Durwin first studied the formation of this phobia in children and found out that the reason that newborns are afraid of clowns is face recognition feature. The child perceives the bright appearance of the mime as something unusual and is frightened.
Repetition traversed
This is not the first clown terror. Two years ago, the French suffered from robbery attacks by unknown criminals in clown costumes. They robbed passers-by or scared them with baseball bats. Most of the detainees were teenagers from dysfunctional families. In the press, this phenomenon was then associated with the new season of American Horror Story. According to the plot of one of the episodes of the series, during the celebration of Halloween, the killer clown Twisty went hunting on the streets of the city in broad daylight.
But why do some adults, not only in the US, but also overseas, experience horror at the sight of such a seemingly harmless circus character?
1. Uncertainty. “It’s not the clowns themselves that scare us, but the unknown: we don’t know who or what is hidden from us,” explains Evgeny Osin. – We can predict the behavior of a clown within his role, but we cannot predict the behavior of a person who puts on a clown costume, because we do not know him at all. Unlike theatrical actors, where the artist’s personality is woven into the role, in the case of a clown there is a clear boundary “external – internal”.
2. Dualism. Первым, кто изобрел клоунский костюм, был Джозеф Гримальди (grim – «мрачный»), достигший огромной популярности в Англии в начале XIX века. Однако в реальной жизни он страдал от депрессии и алкоголизма, а также от физической боли, которую причиняли ему клоунские трюки, и умер в нищете. Гримальди говорил: «Я мрачен весь день, но ночью заставляю вас смеяться»2. This duality takes place not only among clowns, but also within each of us. This was written by Carl Gustav Jung, according to whom our psyche always strives for balance.
“It”
The image of the killer clown first appeared in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe in 1849. Following Ruggero Leoncavallo composed the opera “Pagliacci”, where the main character was a make-up comedian who killed his wife and her lover. And in 1986, the legendary novel by Stephen King “It” was released, which was filmed in 1990.
The more we consciously strive to accept the one-sided attitude that society requires of us (to be cheerful, friendly, successful, etc.), the more our unconscious tends to compensate for this with the help of opposing impulses and images. Therefore, the fear of clowns is also the fear of what is hidden under the social mask in ourselves. The only way out, according to Jung, is to accept your personality, which has not only good, but also dark sides.
3. Cinematography. “Hollywood films have also contributed to people’s perception of the image of a clown as a symbol of sudden danger,” I am sure. psychotherapist Olga Kononenko. “While watching a horror movie, we get such strong emotions that the negative image immediately penetrates deep into our consciousness and is fixed in it.”
What to do about a phobia?
Many psychologists believe – Russia is not threatened by the attack of clowns. “Firstly, we have much more real problems, and people just don’t care about it. Secondly, the level of aggression in society is much higher, and the joker risks much more than those he scares, ”says Evgeny Osin.
“In our culture, the image of a mime is not as popular as in the West, so the fashion for clown trolling is impossible for us,” agrees Irina Gerchikova.
But still, if you encounter a similar phenomenon in Russia or another country, remember the advice of psychologists.
“It is important to remember that under the clown mask there is a person just like you., while probably not the happiest and most prosperous, – says Evgeny Osin. “Playing scary clowns is a way he can make his problem known, make himself visible and popular, exploiting the fear of other people. Judging by the fact that this game has suddenly become popular in many countries, it helps people who dress up as clowns to satisfy their real need for fame, albeit anonymous, and in a game – real, not virtual.
Personal experience
Xenia Dyakova-Tinoku
“Mom, have you heard about killer clowns? Do you know they have real knives and even a chainsaw? Mom, can they kill us?” my son Nikolai asked me in fear when I was picking him up from school. He added resolutely: “I won’t go to school tomorrow.” We have been living in London for several years now. Nick is 9, he is a cheerful boy with a choleric temperament and a rich imagination and reacts violently to everything. If he is happy, then this is a carnival, if he is afraid – a little thriller. His emotions are very vivid and quickly replace each other. And now I need to quickly come up with something that will switch his interest from the exciting horror story. Yes, I heard about “evil clowns”, or rather, I read about them in the community of parents in our district on the social network. One outraged mom shared information from a “clown account” where bullies posted a list of local schools they plan to attack before Halloween.
Actually in London so far, only one case of activity of “killer clowns” has been recorded (there are much more of them in other counties of Great Britain). But “fear has big eyes,” and children pass on more and more urban legends about creepy clowns who climb over school fences and kidnap children, look through windows at night, jump under cars and, in general, behave like demonic Halloween characters. I explain to Nick that killer clowns are teenagers in disguise not much older than him, and their weapons are fake. And it is unlikely that they will appear near his school during the daytime, because they study themselves. By the way, the administration of Nick’s school is in a hurry to assure me that they are not at all worried about this – there were no killer clowns in our area. The serious tone of the letter, which the London police have already sent to schools in south London, confirms that there is a problem: “These clowns are bullies. By scaring people, they are committing a criminal offense, which means they will be arrested and brought to justice.”
The police even published a list of recommendations on what to do for schoolchildren when they meet killer clowns. Namely:
Be carefull. If you do not feel safe, leave this place immediately.
Explore your area: pay attention to the names of nearby streets so that you can immediately inform the police about your location.
Try not to walk in poorly lit places and alone.
When meeting with killer clown do not try to see them and do not come closer. Call the police immediately. But pay attention to what they have in their hands and where they are going. Write down their car number.
But this does not convince Nick. Until late at night, no matter what the conversation is about, he again repeats about terrible clowns who can “jump” on us at any moment, and tossing and turning in bed for a long time. In the morning I manage to convince him to go to school. The sun is out, and gloomy tales seem unconvincing to him. And after the lessons, I already have a solution to the clown question. If the mass media stirred up schoolchildren by replicating information on the clown theme, then from them I draw a story about a certain Batman who is ready to kick their asses in the literal and figurative sense. Nikolay is delighted with photos of a man in a Bat costume and crowds of fleeing clowns on the website of one of the newspapers. “Don’t you think the world has gone crazy? Batmans, clowns! he adds skeptically. It worked!
1 «What Americans Fear the Most», Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, October 21, 2014.
2 D. Sangiorgi, R. Flangini «Clown intervention to reduce preoperative anxiety in children and parents: a randomized controlled trial» (University of Macerata, 2014).