The great clown panic so far: a New York Times summary

As the Great Clown Panic of '16 spreads across the United States, the New York Times offers a handy summary of events up to Thursday.

Nice opening:

They just kept coming, and coming, and coming, across multiple states. Clowns in vans. Clowns in the woods. Clowns lurking in the shadows. Clowns chasing people or doing crimes.

One good anecdote:

The drumbeat of negative publicity even prompted the Ali Ghan Shriners Club’s clown unit in Maryland to withdraw from a parade planned for October in Hagerstown, said Tom Holland, a member of the group, in an interview with The Cumberland Times-News on Wednesday.

One possible fatality:

at least one death has been linked to an apparent clown hoax. In Reading, Pa., a 16-year-old boy was fatally stabbed on Sunday after a confrontation that may have been provoked by prowler wearing a clown mask, The Associated Press reported.

(An actual fatality; it's not clear of the importance of the clown mask, which may have been a Purge movie reference)

And this interesting, media-centric theory:

Jason D. Seacat, an associate professor of psychology at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass., suggested another motive for the outbreak: a need for people to feel connected to a news event that had garnered national headlines.

The panic seems to be continuing.  When will it peak?

(thanks to Brad Zebal!)

Comments

[Edwebb]

Our local public radio station, WITF, devoted about a third of its daily hour-long current affairs talk show to clown sightings one day last week: http://www.witf.org/smart-talk/2016/09/smart-talk-solitary-confinement-clown-sightings.php

[Bryan Alexander]

Sounds quite comprehensive.

The first part of that show is also, sadly, Gothic.