So last week, there was a scare on my college campus of a clown. Terrifying right? Right.
For those of you who don't know, clowns have become the newest craze to hit America. It had started back in August with reports of clowns lurking in the woods outside of a South Carolina town. I believe this new "clown culture" has been perpetuated in part by the "Purge" movies that have been a recent craze. The purgers (I've never actually seen the movies, so I don't know what the participants are called) generally wear masks, which makes for some creepy footage. I think many people have picked up on that, and are now going for more of these clown scares.
Now back to my college campus. A tweet from a clown sightings account tweeted about there being a clown on the bike path behind Keene State. Campus safety and the Police Department both were quickly brought onto campus to look for this clown, but to make matters worse, so did a large portion of the student population. It quickly became a joke to join the "clown hunting parties".
These clown hunting parties had kids with weapons ranging from Swiffers to tazers.
Looking back on it now that I know the clown wasn't actually there, it's kind of comical; however, in the moment I was so worried. As an RA, I didn't know what exactly was happening, and the idea of having a clown that could possibly have been armed on our campus terrified me for not only myself, but also for my residents, and the residents across campus as well. If it was an armed clown (weirdest thing to say-or type...), then I don't know who would've been dead first: the kids or the clown. I also don't know what would have happened for the rest of us, because all the kids who went outside during it potentially could have endangered a lot of the residents who stayed indoors. We didn't know what was happening, and if opening the doors and god forbid that clown was right there and got into a building, we would have a whole other issue.
At the same time we had our clown-scare on our campus, my friend at Merrimack College was in lockdown for an armed clown on her campus. If we had undergone lockdown, the entire circumstances of what happened would have changed. I'm not sure if the other students would have mobilized as much as they did, but it still would've changed the way I had to respond, and the way a lot of other students would've responded.
I guess the main point of my writing this is that I really want everyone to be safe when something like this happens, even if it is just fake.
