The Killer Clown Mass Hysteria Event Of 2016
FacebookGags, the fictional killer clown spotted across Green Bay, Wisconsin.
In August 2016, reports of a creepy clown said to be roaming Green Bay, Wisconsin began to make local headlines. A fan page for the clown, dubbed “Gags,” popped up on Facebook, compiling what appeared to be security images of the costumed figure prowling the streets at night, holding a bouquet of dark balloons.
Things got stranger still when, later that month, several children in Greenville County, South Carolina reported that people dressed as clowns had tried to lure them into the woods.
As news of these incidents spread online, people across the United States began to report sightings of “killer clowns,” many of which appeared to be preying on children.
In early September, police attempted to arrest a clown accused of bribing children with candy in North Carolina, but he fled before they arrived. Another man was arrested for dressing up like a clown and prowling the woods near an apartment complex in Kentucky. And an 11-year-old girl in Georgia was arrested for bringing a knife to school because she was terrified by the recent reports of clowns attacking children.
The panic over killer clowns was such that companies decided to pull clown costumes from their shelves, cities warned their residents not to dress up as clowns for Halloween, and neighborhood watch groups formed to protect their communities. Some media outlets even reported that a clown “purge” was rumored to occur on Halloween Eve that year. Evidently, this did not happen, but it did not stop people from forming “clown hunting” mobs across the United States.
Ultimately, around a dozen people were arrested for clown-related activity during this period, and a 16-year-old boy in Pennsylvania was fatally stabbed during an altercation with someone in a clown mask.
However, most of these reports turned out to be a hoax. In fact, it was revealed that Gags, the clown who started it all, had been a publicity stunt staged to promote a new horror movie.
In short, the killer clown scare proved to be little more than an example of mass hysteria.
“The media has an interest in reporting clowns; we the public like hearing scary stories about clowns; certain individuals pick up on the idea of being clowns,” David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, told The Guardian in 2016. “It will die out. It’s a phobia du jour.”
And die out it did. After Halloween 2016, reports of creepy clowns sharply declined across the globe. Now, they are nothing more than a memory.
