Clowns... Why did it have to be clowns?
If you're not aware yet, it seems the United States is suffering from a clown epidemic. The clowns are on the news and blowing up on social media. I just have one question: Why the hell does the United States have to be the country that has problems with clowns? What did we do to deserve this?
I can't honestly tell you where this clown epidemic fully started, because multiple sources point to different areas. Some people say it started in New York and others say it started in South Carolina or Alabama. There really is no way to fully say where it originated, but that's unimportant. What's really important is the fact we have a clown problem.
I was never a person who liked clowns, but I simply ignored them. Now with them going around scaring and killing people my Coulrophobia is through the roof and I imagine other people are feeling the same way. My phobia of clowns is one thing, but let's stop and think about Halloween. What are we going to do? Ban clown costumes and those wearing them will be prosecuted? It doesn't seem very American like to do something like that, but can we really risk people dressing up like clowns?
What about the children? Halloween can be a fantastic time to dress up like your favorite princess or superhero and go door to door for candy, but with the recent events will Halloween get canceled? Will the parents be told to keep their kids inside this Halloween?
It's one thing that this clown epidemic is happening, but at the same time it's impacting a lot of people especially around Halloween. If everyone is worried about clowns you can't have any fun and the murders are slowly growing with these clown sightings. Don't believe me? Allow me to shed some light on the subject.
I found this particular article called "Police: Someone In Clown Mask Involved In Reading Teen's Killing". I found this article on ABC and it hit close to home. This town is only an hour away from mine and it's one thing to hear about a murder, unfortunately, murders happen every day, but it's another to hear about the murder involving someone in a clown mask. Especially when these clown sightings were meant to be a "prank". It's become serious and people near and far are dying from it. These pranks turned into murders and my condolences go out to the Torress family and I hope Christian can rest in peace.
After looking into the article about Christian. I started to do some digging. This can't be the first time in history where clowns have randomly started appearing right? Well you're correct. In the 1980's there was an event going around called "Phantom Clowns". Essentially these clowns would try to lure children into vans with candy. These clowns would appear periodically in different locations, but as far as we know none were successful in kidnapping. The year continued on and more sightings started to appear. It wasn't long after that the appearances of these clowns simply vanished. They no longer showed up and that was the last people heard of them. During this time no clowns were ever arrested, because the police simply could not find them.
It's odd that the clown sightings are starting to appear more and more now, but is it really unexpected? After educating myself on the 1980's Phantom Clowns, I can only assume some people got ahold of these stories and wanted to recreate them. It could be as simple as a copy cat case. However, during this time no one was murdered that we know about and no one was kidnapped to our knowledge. If it was a copy cat case, did someone simply go too far?
In the end, clowns will freak people out and the people who say they have seen them, might have a simple case of mass hysteria. It is the media and were not sure what is real and what is fabricated at this point. Either way this whole clown thing needs to stop and I hope no one ends up dead to these "pranks".
Rather or not these clown sightings are something to worry about. Just remember to stay safe this Halloween and be aware of your surroundings.
