The clowns werent fooling around in 2016.
Indeed, creepy versions of the flop-footed foils caused a minor global hysteria in the summer and fall, with sightings of Bozos acting badly reported from Alberta to Australia.
It seemingly began Aug. 1 in Green Bay, when a clown was spotted walking around the Wisconsin city with a bulbous mitt full of black balloons. It was later revealed that this clown, named Gags, was promoting a coming short horror film.
And the Green Bay police told local news outlets that as creepy as some people found him Gags was doing nothing that could warrant arrest.
But in quick succession, creepy clowns began appearing in cities across the U.S.
It got to the point where response to their creepy counterparts, some professional horn tooters launched a Clown Lives Matter movement.
The painted faces that have brought laughter and cheer to countless birthday parties have long masked a fearful aspect of clowns that lay a seltzer spray beneath the pancake makeup, says Martin Antony, a psychology professor at Ryerson University.
Indeed, the clown cosmetics alone can cause an innate fear response in many people, especially children, says Antony, author of The Anti-Anxiety Workbook.
Its not unusual for kids to be afraid of Santa Claus or
afraid of clowns, and for kids who go to Disney World to be afraid of giant Mickey Mouses, he says.
And part of that may be just evolutionary, that they are just kind of programmed to be cautious around things that are unfamiliar (that) violate our expectations about how the world should be.
A list by the New York-based International Business Times gives a sense of the phenomenon.
On Aug. 29, the sightings made national news south of the border when
reports surfaced in Greenville County, S.C., of clowns trying to lure children into a bush.
Similar bush-luring reports surfaced in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Sept. 4.
Sept. 14 had stories out of McDuffie County, Ga., that clown-costumed men had chased after a 12-year-old boy and his younger brother.
Continuing their tour of the American South, schools in Flomaton, Ala., were locked down Sept. 15 when a clown later arrested wrote threatening social media posts. Clowns were also reported around two local secondary schools.
Related:Real clowns reaction
Clown scares continued through September in Annapolis, Md., (a hoax), Athens, Ga., Pottsville, Pa., Palm Bay, Fla., and Houston, where a threatening Facebook post Sept. 30 put several schools on alert.
The clowns came to the Commonwealth Oct. 7, with the Edmonton and Melbourne sightings and Oct. 9 brought clown reports to Jolly Old England.
Southern Ontario and GTA centres had their own October brushes with evil Emmett Kellys, the Star reported.
The OPP investigated scares in Orillia, Penetanguishene and Brighton, while here in Toronto students at the downtown Pope Francis Catholic School faced a teenager in clown costume lunging at them in a threatening manner.
Theyre popping up all over the place, and the problem is, with social media, kids are seeing them and going Yeah, Ill do that, without thinking of the consequences, OPP Sgt. Paul Nancekivell, told the Stars Peter Goffin.
Ryersons Antony points out that clowns have been portrayed for decades in many movies and television shows as evil, influencing the perceptions of them.
These Stephen King associations would most influence the views of young teens who seemed particularly attuned to this years invasions. Teenagers are more likely to watch horror movies where evil clowns might appear, Antony says.
Teens are also far more likely to be influenced by the fears of their peers amped up powerfully by social media making them more susceptible to any outlandish concerns that crop up.
And when people are afraid of something they seek out evidence that confirms their belief, Antony says. The person that is afraid of flying pays much more attention to the one plane that crashes than the 10 million flights that take off and land safely.
Yet Antony says the creepy-clown commotion might have been almost entirely a creation of the media focus that fed it.
Its possible that there were more clowns out there, he says. And its also possible that people were just more vigilant for people dressed up as clowns than they may have been in the past.
