The Great Clown Panic of 2016 continued across Pennsylvania, this time roiling Penn State University. This time a clown rumor elicited a bigger crowd:
The rumor mill spread quickly, causing dozens of students searching for a clown to turn into hundreds. Police were inundated by phone calls about students gathering in places across the downtown area and on campus...
Nelson said that there were no real sightings of clowns known to authorities. That didn’t stop at least 500 students — [Penn State police Sgt. Mike] Nelson’s minimum estimate — from latching onto the idea that there was one on the loose in the borough.
Once again, social media gets blamed. And once again, there was no clown that anyone could find: "according to the police at Penn State, no clowns were spotted, but officers were flooded with calls about students anticipating clowns in the downtown area and on the campus." "The only real clown sighting, Nelson said, was a screen shot of a clown projected onto Beaver Hill apartments."
Does anyone have a sense of the clown panic's demographics? Many of these stories seem to involve young people (teens). Could this be one of the first signs of Generation Z's cultural outlines?
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