Remember that one moment in October of 2016 in which there were people dressing up in spooky clown costumes and standing near empty spaces to scare people? It was on the news in the United States because it caused panic for people, a case of mass hysteria due to fear. It is quite odd as to how this fear became a common one.

Clowns didn’t start off as scary as they were entertainers doing silly stuff, it was more so a line of events that made them scary. During the 1980’s events occurred that made our society rethink about how they feel about clowns. There was a crime committed and the person who was found guilty used the persona of a clown to help cover up his actions, this created a shift in how citizens viewed clowns. That event inspired  writers to make fiction stories with a spooky clown. Author Stephen King also happened to release a novel about clowns in 1986 which also brought on more fear. 

Now, clowns are not scary but they do have certain features that would probably scare some children. The face might contribute to it as they are very over exaggerated with the paint, maybe hiding something beneath that but like that’s probably what a child would think. Also, let’s take a closer look at that event in 2016. This event could have come from a clown sighting in August 2016 in Green Bay Wisconsin. This would then spawn more clown sightings around the United States and also rumors which would then cause a mass hysteria. People were worried about being hurt and such so some schools banned clown costumes and some cops were worried about the intentions of these people. Then the event ended quickly after October due to Halloween passing and/or not wanting to get into trouble.

Overall, this was certainly an interesting event that happened in 2016. It was certainly a scare for October but looking back on it, it is a bit silly that people were really scared of this and it caused mass hysteria but a bit understandable for the time as it was quite odd to see the amount of clowns. Maybe this event could happen again this October? Who really knows? But Most Likely Never.