Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. A brain
Speaker 1: stuff is Christian Seger. When the last time you saw
Speaker 1: a clown in person, and did you enjoy the experience.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're one of the people who just doesn't like
Speaker 1: these jokers, or maybe it's more serious than a passing dislike.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have what some call cole rephobia, an intense
Speaker 1: and excessive fear of clowns. But where does it come from?
Speaker 1: Why are people afraid of clowns? There's a lot of
Speaker 1: speculation here, much of which hinges on history and psychology.
Speaker 1: Let's look at the history first. Jesters, clowns and other
Speaker 1: silly entertainers are an ancient tradition. The modern day bozos
Speaker 1: and Joey's are softer, sanitized versions of the ancient trickster.
Speaker 1: Archetype evidence indicates pygmy clowns entertained the Egyptian elite thousands
Speaker 1: of years ago, and these ancestors of clowns were worlds
Speaker 1: away from our modern bufood wounds, but they still had
Speaker 1: the basics down garish clothing and more importantly, the manic
Speaker 1: ability to do or say taboo things without consequence. The
Speaker 1: prototypes of contemporary clowns are generally thought to be Joseph
Speaker 1: Grimaldi and John Gaspard de Bourou, both of whom had
Speaker 1: pretty unpleasant lives off stage. Grimaldi died penniless, and alcoholic
Speaker 1: Deberus killed the boy. It's true this contrast became even
Speaker 1: more pronounced in the modern day. When the notorious serial
Speaker 1: killer John Wayne Gayzey was finely apprehended. The public saw
Speaker 1: numerous photos of his clown persona, and he famously said,
Speaker 1: a clown can get away with anything. Since that time,
Speaker 1: the public perception of clowns has changed. In the West,
Speaker 1: people don't seem to associate clowns with mere tomfoolery anymore. Instead,
Speaker 1: we see a duality, a bland veneer of joviality covering
Speaker 1: something unknown and sinister. Today, some of fiction's greatest villains
Speaker 1: are evil clowns. There's Pennywise from It, the Joker from Batman,
Speaker 1: and of course the Killer Clowns from outer Space. So
Speaker 1: from a folklore or cultural perspective, society has altered our
Speaker 1: perception of clowns. But what about the psychology. Author Linda
Speaker 1: Rodriguez mcrabbie believes people have a fundamental discomfort with clowns
Speaker 1: because their fishal expressions cannot be trusted, and unfaltering painted
Speaker 1: smile breeds distrust in an audience. Psychologists like Dr Brenda
Speaker 1: Widerhold agree. She notes that a fear of clowns or
Speaker 1: other costume strangers begins around the age of two, when
Speaker 1: kids start having anxiety about encountering strangers and are still
Speaker 1: not always able to separate reality and fantasy. And we
Speaker 1: can't talk about this sort of psychology without also mentioning
Speaker 1: Freud's concept of the uncanny valley. The idea uh that
Speaker 1: when something seems simultaneously familiar yet oddly unfamiliar, it produces revulsion.
Speaker 1: This is the same principle people get creeped out by
Speaker 1: by lifelike robots with their ever so slightly off facial expressions.
Speaker 1: Most people grow out of the sphere as they age,
Speaker 1: but a minority of the population carries it into adulthood.
Speaker 1: The concept of scary clowns has picked up steam in
Speaker 1: recent decades, and colophobia itself isn't a term that arrives
Speaker 1: from psychology, while it describes a real phenomenon. It popped
Speaker 1: up on the Internet as early as the two thousands,
Speaker 1: with claims dating back to the nineteen eighties. So, in
Speaker 1: some ways this could just be a fad, but if so,
Speaker 1: it is a fad built on solid psychological and cultural roots.
Speaker 1: The concept of the evil clown exists now and isn't
Speaker 1: going away anytime soon, which is a bit of a shame.
Speaker 1: Clowning has gotten a bad rap, and a largely unfair
Speaker 1: one at that. Check out the brainstuff channel on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and for more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com.