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…by spending an afternoon trapped in a room with a clown. From The Guardian:

In Blackpool, the organisers of the Showzam circus festival have decided the phenomenon of coulrophobia — fear of clowns — warrants some investigation. With the festival due to get under way tomorrow, they’re planning a workshop designed to help members of the public overcome their terrors…Showzam’s director, Claire Turner, [says] that it often seems to be the barrier created by the facepaint that’s the problem, so the workshop will start with participants meeting the man behind Mooky, the festival’s star clown, without his make up on, in his normal clothes.

Of course, some people—like Lindy West—argue that no one is really scared of clowns.

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To such people, I present this Guardian paragraph:

Coulrophobia is one of the top 10 most common phobias. It even has celebrity sufferers: Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, Johnny Depp, and even rap star P. Diddy are all said to have the fear, so much so in Diddy’s case that he is reported to have once demanded a “no clowns” clause in a contract.

Never have I wanted more to dress up like a clown and stalk P. Diddy.

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...

22 replies on “Conquer Your Fear of Clowns”

  1. Tim Curry as a clown that enjoys dragging children into the sewer was perhaps one of the most terrifying memories of my youth. I avoided storm drains habitually after that.

  2. Yeah, I bet It was the source of many a clown phobia. But, I tend to agree with Lindy that there are more people who say they are afraid of clowns than actually are.

  4. I’m not afraid of clowns, I’m afraid of people who dress up like them. WTF? Why would you dress like that? Something is obviously wrong with you. Get away from me.

  7. As a clown who performs at bars and clubs all over Seattle I can tell from across a room when someone has a legit clown phobia as opposed to when thy are just attention whores trying to be cute.The cutesy full of shit ones are way more common.I’m nice and avoid the legit ones that follow my every move out of the corner of their frightened eyes all night from the corner of the room.

  11. I have a _real_ phobia (which shall remain nameless), and I think the posers get their ideas of what a phobia is from Hollywood, who itself doesn’t get it (except for Hitchcock.) They ape what the media has fed them, and then apply it to something cool-ly scary, like say, clowns, a convenient scapegoat that Hollywood has _also_ fed them.

    I’m old enough now to stop rolling my eyes at these ludicrous affectations that people take on in an effort to be “unique.”

  13. You know, I actually did fall down the stairs a while back (embarrassingly, I was sober). It was way, way worse than a clown.

    And really, what’s not to like about someone who dresses up to entertain and amuse children? Oh, come on, people! I’m serious! We don’t have enough innocent fun in this culture.

  14. I agree that “It” probably spawned a good number of cases of “coulrophobia” which didn’t exist previously. However, the book was SO much scarier than the movie, it’s not even a comparison. While Tim Curry deserves proper credit, it just doesn’t translate that well onto the screen. It’s so much scarier left to your imagination.

  15. I have an ex who had a real phobia of clowns. You could see all the physical manifestations whenever a clown was anywhere near. She would laugh about it with friends, but they truly terrified her.

    She, unfortunately, worked at a children’s hospital. All the clowns visiting knew to give her a wide berth. One smart ass decided to sneak up behind her and touch her one day. You would have thought she was shot. The clown had a serious phobia of her after that.

  16. @10 The music industry, much like society at large, prefers to pretend that ICP does not exist. Thus, the threat of them presenting an award (much less receiving one, *shudder*) is negligible.

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