Only a little less than 10 years ago now was the summer of 2016. All of the current high school students were in elementary school; Captain America: Civil War, Finding Dory, and Jason Bourne were released into theaters; Pokemon Go took the world by storm; and the Olympics took to Rio. Despite being a summer remembered so fondly, there was a sinister shift once it ended.
On August 1, 2016, a young filmmaker named Adam Krause executed an advertising stunt for his new indie film, Gags. He took a variety of pictures of his clown character, Gags, in creepy and dark settings around the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Though it just seemed like a unique marketing tactic for a small film, it would become so much more. The movie itself brought mediocre reviews and only made about $20,000 from domestic video sales.
The start of the true scare started in Greenville, South Carolina with sightings of a clown in late August. It spread to another sighting in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Sightings like this continued throughout the months of September and October across every U.S. state and into other countries around the world. Most people that dressed up as these clowns were just doing it for harmless pranks that were just a bit of a nuisance. Across the country there were only 12 arrests which may seem like a lot, but for the scale of the sightings, frequency, and nature of them likely trespassing, that was not too high of a number. There was one major event in Reading, Pennsylvania where a 16 year old boy was stabbed to death by someone who was reportedly wearing a clown mask. This is where a line was crossed and authorities really started to crack down on these pranksters. Luckily the trend died out and there were almost no people doing it by 2017.
Because of the nature of the sightings, a lot of actions were taken to stop the clowns. Many stores like Target took any clown costumes out of their stores, school districts in California banned the costumes from schools, and people that worked at theme parks had to remove all of their makeup and costumes before leaving. With rumors of clown attacks all over the country, people continued to get more and more afraid. One family in Florida was threatened and scared by 20 people in clown costumes on Halloween. After some sightings were reported on the campuses of Pennsylvania and Michigan State Universities, mobs of students went on “clown hunts” and searched for the individuals.
Clowns have a long history for their development. The roots of clowns can be traced to jesters in medieval times and even as far back as Ancient Egypt. There were Roman mimics who did similar things as well as Shakespearean clowns. In the 1800s Joseph Grimaldi became the first modern clown. Bozo and Clarabelle Clown were introduced in the 1900s and directed clowns to children through television. Circuses adopted clowns as comedic acts that were quite widespread. Clowns became an integral part of American culture, so where did it go wrong?
The earlier clowns were quite wholesome but Joseph Grimaldi, though a kind clown, is believed to have been a clown to handle some personal tragedies and injuries that would make any other person feel bleak. John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who killed 33 young women. He was a performer that went by the name “Pogo the Clown”. This is the earliest need for fear of clowns. Then came It.
In 1981, revered horror writer Stephen King started working on another horror book that would be released in 1986. It follows a cosmic entity that takes the shape of a clown who wants to eat children from a town. He would eat children every 27 years by disguising himself as the children’s greatest fears. He only has power when the children are afraid of him. At the end of the book the children do manage to defeat Pennywise, at least for the time being. This novel would get a TV miniseries in 1990 starring Tim Curry as Pennywise which keeps to the basic story and has all of the aspects of a 90s horror film. There was another adaptation with Bill Skarsgard as the clown in 2017, 27 years later, which was chapter 1 and would also get a chapter 2 in 2019 and a prequel TV show in 2025. This is the most mainstream series of clowns on film which could have been a bit of an influence to the 2016 events.
