Why Are Some People Afraid of Clowns?

Clowns are usually brightly-colored, goofy, raucous characters designed to be the life of any party. However, it’s no secret that they’re not universally adored. In fact, some people find clowns downright frightening. But why?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. A brain
stuff is Christian Seger. When the last time you saw
a clown in person, and did you enjoy the experience.
Maybe you're one of the people who just doesn't like
these jokers, or maybe it's more serious than a passing dislike.
Perhaps you have what some call cole rephobia, an intense

(00:25):
and excessive fear of clowns. But where does it come from?
Why are people afraid of clowns? There's a lot of
speculation here, much of which hinges on history and psychology.
Let's look at the history first. Jesters, clowns and other
silly entertainers are an ancient tradition. The modern day bozos
and Joey's are softer, sanitized versions of the ancient trickster.

(00:48):
Archetype evidence indicates pygmy clowns entertained the Egyptian elite thousands
of years ago, and these ancestors of clowns were worlds
away from our modern bufood wounds, but they still had
the basics down garish clothing and more importantly, the manic
ability to do or say taboo things without consequence. The

(01:11):
prototypes of contemporary clowns are generally thought to be Joseph
Grimaldi and John Gaspard de Bourou, both of whom had
pretty unpleasant lives off stage. Grimaldi died penniless, and alcoholic
Deberus killed the boy. It's true this contrast became even
more pronounced in the modern day. When the notorious serial

(01:32):
killer John Wayne Gayzey was finely apprehended. The public saw
numerous photos of his clown persona, and he famously said,
a clown can get away with anything. Since that time,
the public perception of clowns has changed. In the West,
people don't seem to associate clowns with mere tomfoolery anymore. Instead,

(01:53):
we see a duality, a bland veneer of joviality covering
something unknown and sinister. Today, some of fiction's greatest villains
are evil clowns. There's Pennywise from It, the Joker from Batman,
and of course the Killer Clowns from outer Space. So
from a folklore or cultural perspective, society has altered our

(02:16):
perception of clowns. But what about the psychology. Author Linda
Rodriguez mcrabbie believes people have a fundamental discomfort with clowns
because their fishal expressions cannot be trusted, and unfaltering painted
smile breeds distrust in an audience. Psychologists like Dr Brenda

(02:36):
Widerhold agree. She notes that a fear of clowns or
other costume strangers begins around the age of two, when
kids start having anxiety about encountering strangers and are still
not always able to separate reality and fantasy. And we
can't talk about this sort of psychology without also mentioning
Freud's concept of the uncanny valley. The idea uh that

(03:00):
when something seems simultaneously familiar yet oddly unfamiliar, it produces revulsion.
This is the same principle people get creeped out by
by lifelike robots with their ever so slightly off facial expressions.
Most people grow out of the sphere as they age,
but a minority of the population carries it into adulthood.

(03:23):
The concept of scary clowns has picked up steam in
recent decades, and colophobia itself isn't a term that arrives
from psychology, while it describes a real phenomenon. It popped
up on the Internet as early as the two thousands,
with claims dating back to the nineteen eighties. So, in
some ways this could just be a fad, but if so,

(03:45):
it is a fad built on solid psychological and cultural roots.
The concept of the evil clown exists now and isn't
going away anytime soon, which is a bit of a shame.
Clowning has gotten a bad rap, and a largely unfair
one at that. Check out the brainstuff channel on YouTube,

(04:08):
and for more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com.