Coulrophobia is an irrational fear of clowns.
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Updated 1 year ago,January 16, 2024
Coulrophobia is an irrational fear of clowns.
The term coulrophobia is thought be derived from a Greek phrase meaning fear of the man on stilts.
Neither children nor adults seem to be very fond of clowns.
A 2008 study in England found that clowns are universally disliked by children.
Some found them quite frightening and unknowable….
“John Wayne Gacy” by The Orchid Club (Flickr)
Very few children like clowns.
They are unfamiliar and come from a different era.
They dont look funny, they just look odd.
What causes coulrophobia?
The same is true of clowns.
And their clothes and hair are usually exaggerated and cartoonish.
So youre dealing with a human who looks like a cartoon.
In many people, this triggers a deep sense of revulsion.
But you dont expect to see them show up late at night in an urban alleyway.
You dont expect to see them roaming graveyards.
There have been reports of phantom clown appearances going all the way back to the early 1980s in Massachusetts.
Probably a little of each.
Others were the result of pranksters and performance artists.
And many, no doubt, were spurred by the mass hysteria of a classic moral panic.
These hunts proved fruitless and nonviolent.
Three Real-Life Killer Clowns
By definition, a phobia is an irrational fear of something.
Unfortunately, there are a few real-life cases where it was entirely rational to fear clowns.
The most famous European clown of the 1800s was a Frenchman named Jean-Gaspard Deburau, better known as Pierrot.
She died two days later.
He has a scary face, a scary laugh, and he takes great delight in torturing people.
In the filmPoltergeist(1982), a boys clown doll springs to life and attacks him.
Thanks, Stephen King!
Benjamin K
I am 52 years old and have had it since childhood.
Since I have been teased a lot over my fear of clowns, I have actually become less fearful.
Mark
Im a soldier…
Yet CLOWNS give me such bad anxiety!!!
I even got kicked out of a haunted house that had a clown.
To this day I get flashbacks of that face.
Niallermyprince
I am 42.
6 ft 3 240 pounds and I dont remember seeing many clowns as a child.
But at some point my first expose was a dramatic one.
When a clown gets in close proximity of me my whole body will tense up.
My hands shake and sweat.
I relate it to what I image a wild animal feels when cornered.
I have extreme feelings of defending myself or attacking them.
I get anxiety attacks and I just want to run and scream.
I cant sleep or be left alone.
I literally feel as if a clown is going to kill me.
I dont know where this fear came from and none of what I read above makes sense to me.
Halloween is the worst day ever!
!
