Clowns? Clown Masses? What is going on?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Although it is obviously off-topic, I was hoping some of our hipper members could please explain the Creepy Clown situation.

    I feel as though there must be certain kinds of irony involved for which I am too old.

    Any help?
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,944
    I wasn't aware there was any irony or even merely camp sensibility: rather, a viral prank that also provides a pretext for malicious abuse by the sociopathically inclined (as, if memory serves, has also happened with viral pranks in the past).

    http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/8-horror-movie-dolls-that-will-give-you-the-creeps.html/?a=viewall

    (None of the above are clowns per se, but some are clown dolls. Then again, it was that Zuni doll menacing Karen Black that was perhaps the most unnerving because it came of left field. I remember seeing that in its original airing, and it was indelible. Ah, the mid-1970s - an era of dark imagination. The Exorcist is scary because, while it has its prurient moments, it retains a powerful tether to supernatural realities: the scariest line in the screenplay is when Ellen Burstyn bursts out, "You show me Regan's double: same face, same voice, same everything. I'd know it wasn't Regan. I'd know in my gut and I'm telling you that that thing upstairs isn't my daughter!"")

    Arguably, the Joker in Batman is another menacing clown, who became more menacing with the darker movie renditions of more recent years.

  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    I just don't understand. I mean, the tattoo craze scares me more than clowns.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    tattoo craze

    People not liking themselves as they are and trying to change something about themselves to align closer with their idea of Beauty.

    And if you want snarky ... the sign of the beast.
    Thanked by 2Vilyanor PaxMelodious
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    “You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19:28

  • VilyanorVilyanor
    Posts: 388
    Ultimately my problem with tattoos is that God, in Nature is an infinitely better artist than the best of all human artists. Drawing on his masterpiece is like giving a toddler a crayon and telling them to draw something on the Mona Lisa.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Clowns have always been on the edge between funny and being sinister. I have found that many children, who are supposed to be entertained by clowns, actually fear them. This sort of thing tends to show up before Halloween each year.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    It does? Why have I never been alerted before now?
  • VilyanorVilyanor
    Posts: 388
    Yeah, on topic, it's a weird phenomenon. Threats, sightings. Some fabricated. Who knows.

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/10/world/creepy-clown-sightings-global/

    If you want to know about the phenomenon of creepy clowns in general. Here's a list of probably close to every use of creepy clowns in every medium.

    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonsterClown
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    So what it is is, it's not that clowns are creepy so much as people who want to be creepy but not identified wear clown costumes?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Clown makeup functions as a mask. When masked people appear in public (and not in the regulated environment of a performance), people naturally suspect that they are hiding their faces for a nefarious reason.
    Thanked by 1Reval
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,694
    The clown thing also deals with darkness, I believe. The idea of a crazed person at night dressed as a clown is very scary. Some guy walking around dressed as a clown during the day? Not so scary.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Whatever happened to the circus? And the rodeo? Clowns are the people who cheer everybody up between feats of death-defying daring-do.

    Does this have something to do with movies I'm too scared to watch?
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,944
    Coptic Christianity has a long tradition of tattoos.
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood moderntrad
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Tattoos were somewhat rare in the U.S. when I was growing up. I remember my mother telling me they were trashy and low class, which was the prevailing view in her time. The only people who had them were people who had been in the navy. There was some naval rite of passage connected with them, apparently. They have been popularized by rock stars and heavy metal groups among the young. Some of that music is pretty dark, so whether any of it is, as some say, satanic, is anyone's guess. I neither have nor want one.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Does this have something to do with movies I'm too scared to watch?


    Could be. There was a Stephen King novel, "It," about a killer clown in the storm drain. I think it was made into a movie.
    Thanked by 1Spriggo
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    o shoot! and I just had this tatoo made for my arm as a symbol of MJOs movement for "real organs only".
    image.jpeg
    500 x 667 - 124K
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Francis, I just knew you were secretly a heavy metal rock god. LOL
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    yes... I INVENTED the mosh pit!
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    yes... I INVENTED the mosh pit!

    Sorry, Al Gore, er francis....everyone knows the Orthodox invented the mosh.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,371
    Kathy :- FWIW
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    Clowns being creepy is not new.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot_Lunaire
  • Reval
    Posts: 180
    Not to mention Petrushka.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • PaxMelodious
    Posts: 426
    There's a good read about the history of clowns here: http://time.com/4520149/clown-attack-sighting-craze-history/

    If you think that clowns are nice / funny, you've simply fallen into the trap of modernism :-)
    Thanked by 1Kathy
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