Is it all a hoax? it seems to be the question on everyones mind. Over the past month, the mainstream media has been fixated on the clown purge trend which seems to be storming the world, online and offline. For what little explanation has been given the mass hysteria and fear seems to be getting out of control. although many people are turning this into a joke, we at activist-news wanted to investigate the origins and motivations behind these clown sightings. For those of you who don’t know, dangerous and scary encounters with clowns have been recorded and reported all over the world in an increasingly growing number. Not just any clowns, but scary and anti-social clowns, some incidents have resulted in violence, kidnappings, attempted murder and policy change in certain cities throughout the world. Some claim its a hoax and other maintain that the threat of purging and escalated violence is very real.
Clowns can be read as monstrous as easily as they can be read as comical.The significant aberrations in a clown’s face may alter a person’s appearance so much that children can carry a phobia throughout their adult life. The fear of clowns (Coulrophobia) is one of the most common phobias in the world and for this reason, it is easy to understand why people are taking this threat seriously, like Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate who claims “I just throw it out there, anyone you see as a clown that is trying to be smart, don’t hold back, I won’t.” Although to be fair, there are plenty of things the Gold Coast Mayor is scared of, like Ben and Jerries ice cream and having to answer questions about environmental destruction, but that’s a topic for another day. So what is the truth behind this mass clown trend hysteria? Lets start by looking at how it all started, where it all began and what explanations have been given thus far.
What seems to have started in South Carolina has spread as far as The Gold Coast, Australia. Schools in the city’s north will be on alert and extra staff posted to drop-off areas after online threats were made to terrorise students. #IfISeeAClown
The Origins of the evil clown
Up until the second half of the 20th century, clowns were more often associated with entertainment and making kids laugh. However the original clown figure, as found in mythological archives, is portrayed as a deceiver and a trickster, this type of clown is also commonly associated with the devil in mythology. The fact is, clowns have been around for hundreds of years and the “sinister clown image” – popularaized and influenced by ‘the Joker’ from the batman franchise, Stephen King’s ‘It’ book (and movie remake – set to be released next year), the notorious “killer clown” John Wayne Gacy, etc – which was well known back in the 80’s and 90’s, has only started to resurface in August of 2016, when several cities throughout the united states experienced sightings, scares and sometimes even violent altercations with scary looking clowns. An increase in hostile clown encounters, mainstream media madness and a bit of social media trending seem to have contributed largely to this trend finding its way overseas.
The recent trend seems to have spawned from Greenville, South Carolina, where it was widely believed that clowns were attempting to lure children into the woods with money and candy. Some of the reports suggested that the potential predator clowns were hiding out near an apartment complex, near a school in the Greenville area. This news went viral around the world, the apartment complex issued safety warnings to all of its residents and police presence was dramatically increased in the area. The hype started causing widespread fear in the community, but on September the 7th, the Cleveland county sheriff’s office issued a statement claiming all the reports regarding this event were false. The widespread misreporting seems to have not been properly updated as yet by many reputable sources. Although many articles have been updated to reflect these findings.
Ben Radford, author of Bad Clowns, says that clown sightings are more common during periods of social anxiety and can be related to the psychological effect of priming. Priming is an implicit memory effect, priming can occur following perceptual, semantic, or conceptual stimulus repetition. For example, if a person reads a list of words including the word table, and is later asked to complete a word starting with tab, the probability that he or she will answer table is greater than if they are not primed.
After the Mainstream media reports, sightings of suspicious and hostile clowns had been sighted and recorded more than a hundred times throughout the United States in various locations. Plenty of videos on youtube can be seen in which violent and non violent clown confrontations have been made. On September 23rd, the first known clown capturing by police had occured in Kentucky, USA, When 20 year old Johnathon Martin was arrested by the state police and faces charges of disorderly conduct, wearing a hood or mask in a public place, as well as two outstanding warrants for non-payment of fines and failure to appear in court. This story started gaining a lot of attention by the public and no explanation by Johnathon Martin has been given.
20 year old man in clown suit arrested in Kentucky
Theories getting out there
Just a fad.
Following yet another barrage of media reports on hostile clown sightings, what is now known as ‘Clown Purging’ has found its way to the Gold Coast and Sydney area of Australia. Gold Coasters reported seeing clowns at Main Beach, Tweed Heads, Varsity Lakes, Coomera and Surfers Paradise over the last few weeks. The fact that clown purging has made it to Australia without a proper explanation indicates that this is a viral trend and not something that is orchestrated as a plot to cause harm. The Australian clown purging Facebook page seems to be motivated by fear and for attention seeking purposes. One of the reasons for this theory is that many of the threats and appearances made on their Facebook pages has not been followed through with. We managed to fetch the page authors IP address, which revealed they were operating from the Brisbane area, using a mobile device. This appears to be a prank which has gained a bit of a following, it could be the new ‘planking perhaps’. lol.
The clown Purging pages claim that they will stop harming people when people stop harming them, instilling fear seems to be the biggest motivation for their presence online and their efforts offline have not fully be recognised as a serious threat by police. The hysteria has spread so much that clown hunting and rioting has actually occurred in Pennsylvania in hopes of ending the clown occurrences. The #IfISeeAClown trend which started around the 2nd of October has grown into a huge campaign on Twitter and Facebook, mostly consisting of more pranks and jokes, some of which were met with violence. Some people also seem to be using the trend as a cover to obscure illegal activities, like robberies and kidnappings, although the vast majority of sightings appear to be harmless.
Clown Purging, whether or not it is a serious threat, its definitely appearing to be more of a comical prank then anything else.
Stephen King movie release publicity stunt.
New Adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘It’
Another widely accepted theory is, the mainstream media hysteria, the #IfISeeAClown campaign and numerous of the “staged sightings” are all a part of a genius marketing campaign and social experiment to promote the upcoming release of Stephen Kings film ‘IT’, which is a remake of the classic film, based on a novel. With all the trending and public attention that these clown sightings have been given, many people are jumping on the bandwagon regardless of the reason and indirectly contributing toward the publicity of the movie. The public perception of clowns and the fear that many project will contribute largely to how well the film does in cinemas. One of the clowns arrested in Philadelphia claims that it was all an idea to “promote an upcoming horror film coming out next year” and that it had gotten widely out of control and become a viral following. One of the biggest factors against this theory is that the film wont actually be released for a whole year yet, another factor is Warner Brother Studios recently wrapped production of the film remake days after the 30th anniversary of the King novel it’s based on, but denies involvement in the rash of clown sightings in multiple states. Media manipulation and sensationalist reporting is nothing new after all, but I guess we will have to wait until Halloween, the end of October, before we can shed anymore light on this theory, as some suggest revelations will be made on this day.
In conclusion.
Nobody knows the entire truth behind the motivations of clown purging, but one thing is for sure, its happening for more than one reason. Some people are using this as an excuse to commit crimes, while others are clearly just following suit in what looks to be another fad. Whether this poses as a threat to you this coming Halloween or not, you can be 100% certain that the media is sensationalising this, it isn’t clear whether this is a part of a Hollywood promotion, but it wouldn’t be the first time a group of misfit clowns caused public mayhem (i.e the insane clown posse, online hacking group known as ClownSec which thrives on stalking and harassment, etc). It always pays to be careful but I would be more focused on what stories the mainstream media isn’t telling, like the revelation that the Pentagon was Caught Paying PR Firm $540 Million to Make Fake ISIS Terrorist Videos, or that Israel is conducting more attacks across Palestine. The mainstream media has never failed to sensationalise bullshit when Zionist inspired corruption may be at risk of exposure.
The U.S.A currently invest millions of dollars into developing propaganda as a part of their homeland defense strategy and have been doing so – with military support – since the 1950’s. Operation Mockingbird is a secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media. Begun in the 1950s, it was initially organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles, and was later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA. The organization recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network to help present the CIA’s views.
If I were you, I wouldn’t be overly worried about a clown epidemic, in time the media focus will likely shift back to Syria, Iran, Russia, North Korea or one of the other media boogie men.
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