Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/29/americas-war-on-creepy-clown.html
…
2 Likes
Like my mom always said: Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it!
15 Likes
Before you call police to report something, read the statutes of your area! Know whether or not there are laws about what you are seeing. Police have very low standards because they are getting paid to go check anyway - even if it is not a legitimate law enforcement issue.
6 Likes
Although it gets complicated with clowns - after all, just being a clown is an arrestable offense in some areas, apparently (given that they have been arresting clowns in response to this hysteria). So you might get cited for calling in reports of clowns - but only because there were no clowns there.
4 Likes
He just writes books. I don’t think he’s like some tough guy or anything.
3 Likes
The post last week involved somebody wearing a clown mask, in an area where there apparently are statutes which forbid wearing masks. But most clowns I have seen do not wear masks, and most municipalities apparently don’t outlaw makeup - or legally define what clowns even are.
3 Likes
I like to think this is all viral marketing for the It reboot
9 Likes
Exactly! Sometimes writers write about their fears. Kind of like Batman choosing his own phobia for his costume, except not as cool.
5 Likes
Clowning around is a crime.
4 Likes
I have a client, a salesperson who drives around an area of a few hundred miles. This week, they got a message from their kid’s school that the school was on lock-down because of a creepy clown.
Man, the world is increasingly weird.
11 Likes
I expect this year’s Halloween will be zany!
4 Likes
Cooler than if Mr. King had decided to become a vigilante crimefighter by dressing up as a possessed car.
5 Likes
This actually sounds less like hysteria to me and more like just a push for social orthodoxy.
Which is frightening, more so than clowns even.
5 Likes
Or maybe they’ve found a way to successfully clown humans.
19 Likes
the clown epidemic is a publicity stunt for his next book.
1 Like
America has a war on creepy clowns?
I thought they had one running for President!
BOOM!
14 Likes
this is how the clownpocalypse starts…
hurray…another clown day!
6 Likes
It sounds like even in cases where the “clowns” were wearing make-up, the police were still treating it as a crime*. (Though I’d be interested to see what the charges were, had they managed to catch any. Something vague like “disorderly conduct” I’d imagine.)
*E.g. the police chief: “It’s illegal. It’s dangerous. It’s inappropriate, and it’s creating community concern so it needs to stop.”
3 Likes
I have to wonder: would wearing white clown makeup make a black guy more likely or less likely to get pulled over?
7 Likes
