It all started at a small housing complex in Greenville, South Carolina, with a group of children reporting a sinister clown in white face paint trying to lure them into the woods.
Two months later, creepy clown sightings have spread to , Canada and . Just yesterday, there were reports of a apparently keeping commuters from leaving the New York City subway.
So what鈥檚 going on? The 鈥渒iller clown鈥� craze is spreading like a disease, says at Yale University, who researches social contagion. 鈥淭here鈥檚 an epidemic of sightings, and an epidemic of fear.鈥�
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This kind of mass hysteria has always been with us. In the Middle Ages, people famously , sometimes thousands at a time, literally until they collapsed. In 1938, Orson Welles鈥檚 notorious radio version of The War of the Worlds ended in a mass panic of people hysterically reporting alien sightings. This isn鈥檛 even the first clown panic: they have been surfacing periodically in the US .
The phenomenon taps into a variety of fundamentals in the human psyche. 鈥淲e鈥檙e social animals, and we copy others and learn from them,鈥� says Christakis. 鈥淲e also have this emotional contagion that is a fundamental part of human experience.鈥�
In other words, people start suddenly seeing things because others around them are seeing them. 鈥淥nce someone introduces the idea that they have 鈥榮een鈥� something 鈥� like Bigfoot or Sasquatch 鈥� this creates a power of suggestibility to others,鈥� says at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts.
It is unclear whether the initial South Carolina clown ever existed 鈥� like many panics, this one started with children, who are prone to making things up 鈥� but sightings snowballed for a number of reasons.
鈥淐lowns occupy contested territory in our society,鈥� says Christakis. They鈥檙e supposed to be cheerful but many people find them menacing. There鈥檚 even a name for fear of clowns: coulrophobia. Once the seed was planted, even benign encounters took on a sinister edge, with people calling the police, for example, after 鈥渟eeing a clown driving a white van鈥�.
Then the behavioural contagion started. Social media accounts started making threats. An unnamed teenage girl behind one called 鈥淜roacky Klown鈥� has since been arrested and will for terrorising Hopkins, Minnesota.
Vicious circle
The authorities are trying to rein the panic in 鈥� one US district even warned that 鈥� but they might be making things worse.
It鈥檚 a vicious circle 鈥� the more incidents and sightings surface via traditional and social media, the more dread this phenomenon evokes, and the more people feel the need to participate. One worry is that someone will use the panic to do genuine harm. The other is of retaliation. That may be starting already 鈥� as a recent report of a massive 鈥溾�� suggests.
But why has this spread so widely, even crossing national borders? Mass hysterias traditionally haven鈥檛: Christakis says such contagion is normally limited to a particular school, workplace or village. at the University of Washington in Seattle thinks this is an example of a global meme creeping into the physical world. 鈥淭he internet is very good at facilitating the development and spread of memes.鈥�
Mass hysterias also tend to emerge in times of uncertainty, says Christakis. 鈥淗istorically these kinds of delusions happen when there is a lack of stability.鈥� For example, the War of the Worlds delusion happened during a time of high anxiety about Nazi Germany 鈥� and many became convinced that the invaders were Germans, not aliens. 鈥淚 suppose you could say that both in the UK and US right now there鈥檚 a lot of political uncertainty and instability.鈥�
鈥淚n uncertain times, we rely on the judgements and observations of others to inform our own,鈥� says Seacat. 鈥淧eople know the storyline 鈥� and now they鈥檙e primed to see clowns.鈥�
