This isn’t the first time the world has been plagued with severely lost circus acts. CNN recently reminded the general public of the “Phantom Clown Reports” of the 1980’s. The events were similar to the ones the country finds itself facing now. The 21st century plague of clowns started a couple of weeks ago in Greenville, South Carolina. A young boy was approached by two people dressed as clowns. The two posers attempted to lure the young boy to “a house in the woods.” Matthew Teague of the The Guardian wrote “Clown Sightings: The Day It All Began” which gives a detailed account of the first sighting including the area it occurred in and who was a part of the situation. The same clowns had beaten the door of the young boy’s family apartment with chains leaving behind permanent damage. This is where we can trace this recent clown plague back to, but it has by no means stopped there. There have been reports of clowns in at least six states as well as Canada and the UK. While some believe these clowns are solely out to terrify the general public and in worst case scenario create illegal havoc some critics are suggesting that some, if not all, of the clowns are publicity stunts for movies and books. Clarification on the cause of these unwelcome visitors would be much appreciated, but it still won’t stop all the sightings there have already been.
There have been hundreds of alleged sightings in the past few weeks, but these sightings have rarely been supported with any pictures or videos. The few that did supply us with visual evidence have critics saying they were staged. Facebook can supply us with countless alleged sightings of our red-nosed friends but over the last week I have had three personal experiences with clown sightings. Maya Calderwood is a student at Lebanon Valley College where a “clown” was spotted walking along the campus. While it was chilling to students, Maya said that she thought it was just a student being “ironic.” She provided me with a photograph taken by a fellow student, which clearly shows a young adult with nothing more than a clown mask to create his “costume”. Days after the LVC clown sighting the University of Scranton had its own scare.
On October 3, 2016 the University of Scranton campus was approaching the class-free hours of the night. Students were at work, doing homework or out and about with friends. Around 7:30pm though, the peace was disrupted by a sudden spike in the interest of clowns by the Royals. Less than an hour later social media was boiling over with claims of clowns haunting the campus. First on the outskirts at a local pizza place and gas station. Then the clown had made its way to off-campus housing where students began to feed into the hysteria. Team houses began playing circus music and clown laughs to stir up the clown pot. Seeing the hysteria sighting claims continued. It wasn’t long before blurry photographs of essentially nothing began to show up on SnapChat and YikYak claiming to have captured the alleged clown. Upon the arrival of the “pictures” students started to warn friends and family members of the clown epidemic. Reminding them to walk with buddies, stay aware of their surrounding and simply to express fear of the intruder. Campus security and police were made aware of the alleged clown as it made its way onto main campus, creeping along the commons and sneaking around residence halls. It wasn’t until almost midnight when a video surface of the campus clown moseying around a sophomore residence hall. Suddenly the halls of the dorms became frantic with students threatening to chase down the clown and others screaming into their rooms and blocking their doors off with chairs and anything else they could manage to move. Even I found myself nervously reminding friends not to travel alone and staring at my slightly cracked windows wondering if the clown would somehow scale up the side of my building to the top floor and attack me. A few more hours into the night and the hysteria quieted down a bit. Hallways became quiet. Circus music stopped. Hunting groups returned to their designated rooms.
This may seem like a very legitimate sighting. The alleged culprit slowly but surely made his or her way from one of the campus to the other. There were various reported sightings all following the regular flow of traveling down campus. Students claimed to have seen the clown. There were pictures, albeit blurry and indistinguishable, and even a video. Most compelling of all, it was a Monday night. There were very few, if any, parties so the chances of inebriated reports were near impossible. Everything seemed completely real and undeniable until Tuesday morning. Almost immediately rumors about the video began to swirl, but it did not take long for the truth to emerge. The video that original claimed to be taken outside of a sophomore year residence hall at the University of Scranton was soon revealed to be from a clown sighting at Fairfield University. With the strongest piece of evidence debunked and proven to be a hoax to the Royals the hysteria decreased substantially almost instantly. With the threat of a clown in Scranton left undeclared the intentions of the clowns became a question addressed everywhere from breakfast tables to classrooms.
Damaging personal property. Disturbing the peace. Attempted kidnapping. Murder. Just a few of the acts these clowns have been accused of. All of these crimes instill citizens of all ages with different types of feelings. Fear, disgust and paranoia of the next act are just a few of the emotions that come to mind. But with these emotion-invoking actions there is always the question of innocent bystanders’ involvement and encouragement of the situation. Are we aiding it by coining terms like “clown hunting”? By constantly sharing the videos and statuses are we giving these clowns exactly what they need and want to keep terrorizing out towns? I’m not pointing any fingers because I’m just as guilty as anyone else who has shared a conspiracy theory video on the clowns or an update on arrests made, but by doing this we are giving the people who chose to be clowns the leverage they need to maintain the hysteria they have already achieved. The videos of runners being chased by a knife-wielding clown has raised questions of being staged and more importantly the seriousness of other claims. This goes to show that there is a substantial impact being made by social media in this situation. What isn’t clear is whether the social media presence of this frenzy is aiding the general public or the clowns. One thing is for sure, the constant viewing of videos, pictures, articles and messages about the clowns has certainly impacted the way people are behaving these days.
Everyone is going to respond differently to the chance of opening their front door and being greeted by Not-So-Happy the Clown. A mother of three young children might decide that her kids will be staying inside unless she’s with them. A single millennial living in a big city might hit-up their group chats to find some buddies before going out. But what about college students? We are notoriously impulsive and thrill-seeking. So when there’s a chance of bumping into Twisty from American Horror Story are we going to chase him or her down? Or are we going to barricade ourselves into our dorms and wait for sunrise? Sam Schussler, a sophomore at the University of Scranton, opened up about her opinions on the clowns saying, “The clowns are just a bunch of people trying to scare people without any malicious intent. You’d have to be out of your mind to do something on a college campus.” Schussler is a member of various clubs and organizations on her campus, which require her to travel off the beaten-path at all hours of the day and night. When asked why she thought the clowns were beginning to target college campuses she said, “College kids will freak out and post all over social media,” Schussler said. “Weird stuff happens in cities all the time. It’s less likely to see this happen on a college campus.” Unlike Schussler, who says the clowns are just for the fright factor and that we should stop talking about it because we are spreading hysteria, fellow Scranton sophomore Tyler Soto said he would take the chance to follow a clown if given the chance. When asked how he would react if he saw a clown in person he said, “I would point it out and alert the police. If possible, I would follow it.” Soto feels that the constant barrage of clown updates on social media are a good thing. He said that they keep people aware of the danger, and in turn keep people safe.
So maybe my brother’s version of the story wouldn’t be so exact or include so many different cases, in fact, it probably wouldn’t have scared me as much as this frenzy. We’re going on almost a month of reported sightings since Greenville, South Carolina, colleges across the country are being targeted, the unwelcome visitors have infiltrated our Facebook feeds and students are taking this as a serious threat. It is time that we start putting attention on what we can do to stop this instead of acknowledging every person we see with a big red nose. In today’s world we should be using social media to make parents feel safe about letting their children play outside and to guarantee students their safety on their own campus. So stop giving these criminals and jokesters millions of views a day, and start putting a stop to this clowning around.
