Is Playing an Evil Clown Harmful to Your Mental Health?

With their fanciful costumes and comedic personas, clowns seem like the epitome of joy. But these figures of fun also provoke a horrified response and have even inspired their own phobia. Although it’s not officially recognized in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 categorization of disorders, coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, is one of the most commonly known phobias in the public perception. It’s easy to see why clowns are sometimes viewed as icons of fear. Permanent, frozen smiles and uncanny, mask-like makeup inspire nightmarish visions. Popular culture helped catapult the clown to a titan of terror. Stephen King’s 1986 book It, and the movie remake opening September 8th, follows seven childhood friends as they are terrorized by the evil clown Pennywise who preys on their deepest fears and insecurities. The evil clown had already leaped from the pages of fiction into reality in the late 1970s when real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy was dubbed “Killer Clown” after it was discovered he dressed as “Pogo” performing at fundraisers and children’s birthday parties. In 2016, an evil clown craze seemed to spread across the world with reports of menacing clown sightings. Benjamin Radford, author of Bad Clown, has stated that the… Read full this story

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