You know that old saying: it’s all fun and games until people decide to dress as clowns and lurk about the place scaring the living bejeebus out of people? Well, welcome to 2016, where that bucket of weirdness is our unfortunate reality.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (smart move: the clowns can’t get you there) you will have heard about the ‘clown purge’. It’s such a big thing, that in the US schools have gone into lockdown and at Penn State, 6000 college students charged out of their dorms to HUNT CLOWNS reportedly sighted on campus.

6000.

To. Hunt. Clowns.

You know what that is?

Mass hysteria.

2016 is weird, man.

The craze or whatever you would like to call it has now hit Australia and the police, for presumably the first time ever, are issuing warnings to not dress as clowns:

Who knew clowns would invade before zombies, right? What’s interesting to me about the clown purge is the sheer scale of it. Even Stephen King is weighing in on this one because, let’s face it, he didn’t really help make clowns any less scary by writing It. (Too little too late, Stevo. You brought this on yourself).

Think about it. What was the last thing the general populace en masse freaked out about? Anyone? Because it seems in the age of social media we’re collectively pretty snappy about nipping hoaxes and bullshit in the bud. So why have clowns of all things whipped us all into a terrified frenzy?

There are lots of reasons to be afraid of clowns, as it turns out.

The general theory seems to be communication focused – wearing a mask or grease paint hides facial expressions leaving us with no means to read the facial clues which help us determine whether they come in peace or want to eat us. There’s a disquiet that comes with expressionless beings. It’s sinister. Additionally, context is so important to how we react to things. Sudden, surprise clowns appearing out of nowhere in ordinary settings (as opposed to say, a circus) break an unspoken agreement because they aren’t supposed to be there, and our brains freak. That’s science, man. I’m telling you.

I’ll tell you one other thing. If I see some weirdo dressed as a clown pop up in my rear view mirror I am pretty likely to run them down with my car. I won’t even feel bad about it.

But if nothing else, imagine what it will be like when we are old, reminiscing about that time in 2016 when we all hunted clowns. Oh, how we will laugh. And isn’t that, after all, what clowns are supposed to be about?

‘Til next time,