Creepy clowns are everywhere. Rumors of clowns are causing hysteria. There are legends of clowns getting shot. Law enforcement has had it.

It’s October in United States, so a clown panic isn’t all that odd, really; this feels sort of normal.

When I was a kid, there were other scares, such as the legendary razor blades in Halloween apples. Certain rock songs, when played backward on a turntable, were said to pay tribute to the devil. Dungeons and Dragons, a game only responsible for massive Cheeto and Mountain Dew consumption by boys in basements, was chock full of evil. Strangers roamed the suburbs in vans, looking for children to snatch.

Clown sightings: the day it all began Read more

The “killer clown” thing has been around for a while, too. Stephen King, who has spoken out against the clown panic, contributed a lot to the lore with his 1986 novel It. There was the menacing clown doll in Poltergeist, Heath Ledger’s scary Joker, Juggalos and so much more. Put all of this together, add the internet and voila! A clown panic that is causing school closings and letters from principals and cops and the banning of clownwear. It has apparently even spread to a few other nations.

I have no doubt that if I were walking down the street and noticed a clown in my peripheral vision, then confirmed it with a turn of my head, I would scream. Because the clown doesn’t belong there. Because the clown is out of context. Because there’s a clown panic going on and the clown’s only reason for existing is spreading fear and dread.

But what do the creepy clowns mean, wring a million hands. Perhaps it’s just for fun. Perhaps it’s anxiety over … the economy? Global warming? Social media?

Bear with me – this is kind of a stretch – but could it be that a very big creepy clown is actually showing up and menacing us in our streets, woods and schools? That the fear he inspires is spreading, and it’s unclear what is true and what is not? This clown’s mask is a horror show in itself, he wears a terrible wig and, although it is said that he kids a lot, is never funny.

One of the reasons that people cite for disliking clowns is the notion of the “nearly human” or uncanny valley, where you will find chill-inducing things like clowns, marionettes, monkeys, masks, mannequins, certain robots, scarecrows. In the 1980s, a time when nuclear war was very much on the minds of the people, we had a president who was uncanny, too. I remember getting a bag of Republican jellybeans with an elephant on the package when trick-or-treating on 31 October 1980. Reagan was famously fond of them. And holding the bag and thinking “this elephant is cute but I heard someone say he didn’t want to die if Reagan was elected, because Reagan was going to start a nuclear war.”

Ronald Reagan, with his strange, molded, too-dark hair and rouged cheeks and permanent smile, was everything horrifying about the phrase “All-American”. So twinkly and grandfatherly he was, but he also scared the hell out of many children who feared that nuking the Russians was going to happen if you said the wrong thing in front of Grandpa. And then the Russians would nuke back and next thing you know the skies are gray with fallout.

Americans bought Reagan’s act, though he was as creepy as they come, a poor simulation of humanity, a bona fide authoritarian wrapped in the cozy trappings of grandpa, sort of like the sadistic child-stalking Santa Claus.

Of course, Reagan is the very soul of humanity compared with Great Killer Clown Donald J Trump, but most people are. I’ve heard a few people say, “He makes me nostalgic for George Bush.”

I think this “clown epidemic” is a form of real-time trauma play. Right now, in this nation, on this planet, a bona fide human-like sociopath is very close to grabbing the One Ring of Power. Or the Former One Ring of Power that is Still Pretty Powerful.

China may be the Coke of today and we may just be the Pepsi, which may partially explain the second-rate, rinky-dink two-bit hustler who has fooled millions of people into thinking he somehow cares about them, courting steelworkers as he loads his buildings with Chinese steel, pretending to care about small business owners while notoriously stiffing them for decades.

Somewhere in their heads they must understand that they are not acting in their best interest, and this gigantic killer clown is using their despair and hopelessness against them by masterfully pulling their anger strings, turning them, too into ugly, disjointed residents of his angry uncanny valley.

And Trump’s dark undertow is pulling other killer clowns out of the shadows. Emboldened, they walk the streets, bearing the possibility that we, as a nation, may be stepping off a cliff of denial into a valley of hatred, fear and fascism.

Obviously, it’s time to panic over imaginary clowns.