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Logan Kusky
Dr. McLaughlin
Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric
9 December 2016
Its Just Some Clowns: Looking into the Hysteria Caused by the Recent Clown Sightings
If you havent already heard, over the past six months or so there has been several reports
about clowns attacking or threatening people. This fad has received national attention along with
concerns from many Americans about their safety and the safety of their children. Ashley May, a
journalist for USA today, discusses how this phenomenon has even managed to get the attention
of White House. In her article, May included a statement from the Press Secretary, Josh
Earnest, on the severity of the issue: this is a situation that local law enforcement authorities
take quite seriously and they should carefully and thoroughly review. May goes on to provide
several examples of the clown attacks. One that stood out took place in California, where
police are searching for a man accused of trying to snatch a 1-year-old girl out of her mothers
arms (May). Apparently, the woman was simply waiting at a bus stop when [t]he clown
pulled her babys arm (May). May describes another story in Tennessee where two suspects,
one wearing a clown mask, carried explosives into a Memphis bank and stole an unknown
amount of money. May provides dozens of other instances of clown attacks, often just threats
resulting in a school closing or people feeling threatened.
Although at first sight this trend appears to be very violent with ill intentions, in most
instances there are very minor threats and no one is ever harmed. One way to look at this
phenomenon is simply why people would behave like this in the first place. One could consider

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the exact thought process and perhaps the environmental conditions that typically exist when a
person decides to act in a way like this. However, these ideas dive deep into mental health and
can looked at more intensively through a more prominent issue, such as terrorism.
Even though many factors contribute to this fad, in this paper I will look at how peoples
social anxieties and the hysteria of masses of people leads to a perception of a threat that is
greater than the actual one. To prove this idea, I will analyze the way people react to potentially
hostile situations along with how hysteria spreads throughout masses of people, specifically
through the recent clown epidemic. Several factors that contribute to this include how people
overreact to situations, how people respond to the threat of the unknown, how current anxieties
contribute to the inflation of anxiety towards new situations, and how media pushes stories that
increase our anxiety even though they may not be that important. Overall, I hope that by proving
these ideas with research and analysis will lead more attention to how society reacts to instances
like the these, in hope that we can having a better understanding of our fears and reactions.
First, the initial reactions of people must be looked at. When a threat is first heard or
received, what do people immediately do? Journalist Stacy Lu discusses these reactions in an
article for the American Psychological Association. According to Lu, the main difference
between an average threat and a threat like the clowns is the exoticness of that threat. The
novel, exotic threats are shown to raise anxiety levels higher than familiar threats do (Lu).
Lu discusses how threats such as Ebola or the avian flu prompt very high reactions in people due
to their unfamiliarity. On the other hand, Lu points out how people often under-react to familiar
threats. Influenza is an example of this, where even though the flu kills thousands of people a
year, most people have had the flu and survived, and therefore are not as worried (Lu). This
provides a stark contrast to the clown epidemic, where many people are very worried or

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concerned about the threat of a clown attack, but yet they are very rare and almost always result
in no harm.
Jesse J. Prinz, author of Beyond Human Nature, discusses this anxiety even more. Prinz
discusses how anxiety today is often triggered by things that are either benign or totally unlike
the physical threats for which the anxiety machinery in our brains was evolved (277). Prinz
uses the examples of taking exams or bidding on items on eBay, which both trigger anxiety
reactions such as perspiration or a racing heart, but in reality pose no threat to the person
(277). This conclusion might lead to much broader one: that people typically overreact to threats
in general. Therefore, when considering the threat clowns can pose on people, they are much
more real and physically threatening. People will consider this, and most likely overreact even
more than they would for a non-threatening situation.
Prinz also considers the next step after the initial response of anxiety, which is panic.
Prinz defines panic as a physiological response that arises when a bad outcome looks
inevitable (265). Two examples are compared: in one instance, fleeing in a game of tag
results in no panic because there is no real threat, in the other, feeling from a stranger who is
chasing you is terrifying because the intentions of the attacker are unknown (265). This sort of
feeling is what causes fear towards the clown trend. The thing that is worrisome is what the
clown intends to do, not just the clown itself. If a friend dressed up as a clown, you would feel
no fear, but if you saw a random person dressed as a clown, you could potentially be fearing for
your life. The fear of the unknown is something that we have always have and will continue to
have.
When discussing all these terms of fear and anxiety, the obvious question is what is the
difference. Prinz describes fear as something that warns us about dangers and helps us prepare

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for them (274). Furthermore, Mary Lamia, a professor at the Wright Institute and clinical
psychologist and psychoanalyst, defines fear as a reaction to something immediate that
threatens your security or safety. Overall, fear is viewed as our mental and physical response
when we sense a threat. On the other hand, both Lamia and Prinz state that anxiety is a fear
about the future, which is longer lasting (274). With respect to clowns, both of these emotions
are present, but anxiety is the more common one among most people. For example, fear alerts us
that we may be harmed in a particular situation (Lamia). Therefore, clowns will only cause fear
if they are directly threatening you, which is extremely rare at this point in time. Anxiety
presents itself as the primary emotion in this clown epidemic, because of how it alerts you to a
future threat (Lamia). Most people will never have a true encounter with a clown; however,
since a few people have had those encounters, it causes the rest of us to feel anxiety towards the
possibility of an encounter. Although we have received no direct threats from clowns, our
anxiety makes us consider the possibility of one and therefore puts us on alert.
AJ Willingham, a journalist for CNN, discusses how anxiety may play another role in the
occurrence of the clown attacks. Willingham considers the possibility that clowns are
encouraged by an increase in human anxiety. Willingham provides some insight from Benjamin
Radford, who is a folklorist and author of Bad Clowns. Radford discusses then anxiety
causing events of the recent past such as school shootings, terrorist attacks, and even the election.
With these events in the back of peoples minds, it causes even more concern and anxiety when
they hear about clowns. Furthermore, Radford points out how clown sightings in the 1980s
came in a similar time of distress where people were concerned with satanic panic, the hysteria
over Dungeons and Dragons, and sensationalized media reports of Satanists trying to abduct

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children. When people are in these states of worry and concern seems to be when clowns come
out to worry us even more.
Perhaps one of the greatest anxiety causing systems of this time is mass media. Media
often keeps us up to date on current issues and events. However, providing this information can
have negative effects. Lisa Blackman, a professor in Media and Communications at the
University of London, and Valerie Walkerdine, a professor at Cardiff University, present some of
these effects in their book: Mass Hysteria. Blackman and Walkerdine discuss how media is an
area of concern among many experts and even the general public (13). Overall, mass media has
been held responsible for escalating aggression and violence in society (Blackman and
Walkerdine 13). Media outlets make their profit from receiving views and attention. Therefore,
whenever a media outlet can write a story that will grab attention, they will always pursue it,
even if it is not of great concern. For example, one headline by NBC News stated America
Under Siege? 'Creepy' Clown Reports and Hoaxes Keep Coming. This makes it sound as
though America is under direct attack by clowns, which is far from the truth.
Social media also plays a role in this aspect because of the quick access to information.
Anyone can make a false claim about seeing a clown, and the media can still report on it. AJ
Willingham mentions all the recently-created "clown sighting" Twitter accounts and how
because of the reactions people have, others are likely going to attempt to get that same reaction,
which just makes the fad appear even more popular. All of the social media claims and videos
are perfect ammunition for the mass media sources to use in order to catch the attention of the
average viewer.
When people access the mass media, the first thing they see are the main, attention
grabbing stories. However, these are typically the stories that create the most fear and anxiety in

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people. In the example of clowns, although the true attacks were rare and it did not appear to be
a great concern, the media still emphasized it as an important story. Furthermore, as the media
started to report on the issue, the sightings and threats appeared to increase. Blackman and
Walkerdine also look into how people are easily swayed, influenced, and made suggestible by
external forces, such as the media (13). Gustave La Bon, a French Royalist, wrote a book titled
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (Blackman and Walkerdine 31). Le Bon refers to the
masses as a collective mind and a single being, and talks about people in a way they makes
them appear uncivilized because of how easily swayed they are (Blackman and Walkerdine 32).
Because of how anxiety spreads through masses of people through the media, and because the
media choses to report on the stories that will receive the most attention, we are left with a
combination that will surely lead to an increase in anxiety of people.
Based on all the evidence of how people react to potentially threatening situations such as
clowns, the greatest fear we as people should have is of ourselves. Stacy Lu points out how
misplaced reactions can lead to the stigmatization of people ushering in a new set of
problems rather than the having us as people focus on real problems at hand. When we focus
on the problems that are not directly present in our life, we begin to gain anxiety from them. We
are constantly focused on the what ifs rather than the what now. Furthermore, as we focus on
these issues, they begin to weigh down on us and make us even more worried about the next
threat that may arise. We constantly hear about these threats through to media, regardless if we
want to or not, and therefore they will always be present in our life.
As we connect the clown epidemic to these problems we face, the solution appears to be
simple, but will be very tough to put into action. We do not need to go clown hunting or
barricade ourselves in for protection, but rather fight back with the attention and reactions we

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give to the clowns. If we do not let ourselves overreact or gain a great sense of anxiety from
news like the clown attacks, we will discourage the attacks and make it seem less of a threat to
those around us, which is critical with how information spreads today. Together, we can
continue to study these exotic situations and attack them with reasoning and science that will
suppress the anxieties and fears that too often exist.

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Works Cited
Blackman, Lisa, and Valerie Walkerdine. Mass Hysteria. Houndmills, PALGRAVE, 2001.
Johnson, Alex. America Under Siege? 'Creepy' Clown Reports and Hoaxes Keep
Coming. NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 10 Oct. 2016,
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/america-under-siege-creepy-clown-reports-hoaxeskeep-coming-n664021. Accessed 2 Nov 2016.
Lamia, Mary C. The Complexity of Fear. Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 15 Dec. 2011,
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201112/thecomplexity-fear. Accessed 2 Nov 2016.
Lu, Stacy. An Epidemic of Fear. American Psychological Association, APA, Mar. 2015,
www.apa.org/monitor/2015/03/fear.aspx. Accessed 2 Nov 2016.
May, Ashley. Serious or Just a Sick Joke? What We Know about Creepy Clown Reports. USA
Today, Gannett, 7 Oct. 2016, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation
now/2016/09/28/what-we-know-creepy-clown-reports-across-nation/91171858/.
Accessed 23 Oct 2016.
Prinz, Jesse J. Beyond Human Nature. New York, W.W. Norton, 2012.
Willingham, AJ. What's with All the Clowns Everywhere? 6 Legit Possibilities. CNN, Cable
News Network, 10 Oct. 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/05/health/creepy-clownsrumors-trnd/. Accessed 23 Oct 2016.