The Killer Clown Trend Is Back, According to Mainstream Media

In Kent, United Kingdom, two boys recently said to police that they were aggressively chased by a man in a clown costume, who was shouting “run or die,” while armed with a knife. It’s an odd reaction to such news, but some articles are subtly promoting hysteria about some resurgence of people threatening violence who are dressed as clowns.

While out riding bicycles near Dartford in Kent, in Joyden’s Wood, the boys report that they stumbled upon a man who quickly became violent, shouting “run or die.” The reason for such unspecific language is unknown, but it was reported that the boys said the man held something that “looked like a knife.”

The kids returned home and told their parents. Instead of thinking about defense, the parents called the police and they sent a car to the area, and found nobody.

(Image credit: horrorpedia)

A Kent Police spokesperson said to the Mirror: “We were called at 6.46pm on September 14 to a report of a person dressed as a clown in Tile Kiln Lane.

“Patrols in the area were advised of the incident but no person matching the description was seen.”

According to Lad Bible, “The incident has sparked fears there could be a repeat of the bizarre clown trend that hit the UK back in 2016 and then again last autumn.

A number of reports of clowns, often carrying knives or other weapons, were reported back in 2016, prompting police in Manchester to release a statement warning people what to do if they should see one.”

(Image credit: abc7chicago)

Realistically though, who “sparked” the fears? Was it this incident as it happened, or did the tabloid news articles that picked up this story start generating the hysteria by making that suggestion in the first place?

It seems that media hysteria just like this, is a huge factor when it comes to fueling some kind of social trend, anything ranging from the tide pod challenge to this clown thing.

Catherine Hankinson, Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police said to the Sun Online “It’s important to stress that no-one has been physically harmed and I want to reassure people that we take reports of this nature extremely seriously.

“But if you do see any individuals dressed as clowns, you should try and keep calm and report the incident to authorities.”

So the Sun Online thought the best thing they could do is quote a cop, who says you should call the police, when the police did nothing in this situation and caught nobody.

Truthfully, depending on outside authorities for protection is inherently insufficient for defense, almost every single time. If you trust the legal system to make sure armed clowns don’t scare your children, you’re putting all your eggs in the wrong basket.

Tools like pepper spray help the seemingly defenseless, defend themselves. In some places, pepper spray is banned for civilian ownership, however.

The legal system only issues £90 fines to people who get caught dressing up as clowns and scaring kids: that’s an actual story of an adult man, dressing up and scaring children.

(Image credit: screenrant)

So the legal system has no sense for what is mentally deranged and worthy of punishment, who should be capable of defending themselves, or anything relevant to this issue. The tabloid mainstream news articles are also encouraging people who linger on the fringes of insanity to go out and do this type of thing, because they prove every day that this type of behavior attracts attention.

Ultimately, there are worse threats out there than armed clowns. People shouldn’t stress this type of thing for certain.

Similar Posts