[ SECRET POST #3491 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3491 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02. [repeat]


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03.
[A Game of Thrones, Lyanna Mormont]


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04.
[Taylor Swift]


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05.
[Spongebob Squarepants]


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06.
[old French politics, RPS]


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07.
[Sherlock Holmes, "The Final Problem”]


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08.
(Camille Bordey and Richard Poole, Death in Paradise)


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09.
[Futurama]


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10.
[Bill Skarsgård at Pennywise in the new remake of It]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #499.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[diet_poison]

Honest question: why are so many people afraid of clowns? Is it because of It?

[(Anonymous)]

yes.

[(Anonymous)]

I was scared of clowns way before It. Clowns are just fucking creepy, I don't understand how anybody can NOT be scared of them.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's the way the clown makeup hides the performer's face. There's a dichotomy between the grinning (or frowning) clown and the performer's actual expression that is unsettling for a lot of people.

At least that's my theory. I'm not afraid of clowns.

[kaijinscendre]

Here is an article on it. Though I think it can be summed up that the modern fear of clowns as murdering psychos stems from John Wayne Gacy. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-and-psychology-of-clowns-being-scary-20394516/

[kallanda_lee]

No, I'm not scared of them, but I don't like them. For me it's because they tended to make loud noises at at the circus when I was a kid, and are sort of unpredictable.

[sarillia]

I probably wouldn't like them either if that's what they made me think of. But my experience of clowns has been mostly face painting and balloon animals. Plus one who visited me when I got my tonsils out when I was a kid, but I was asleep and was told about her later.

[kallanda_lee]

I guess enough people have experiences that are not so great?

[sarillia]

Yeah, it seems like I'm in the minority.

[(Anonymous)]

Nope, definitely not 'It'. For me it was the damn clown doll in Poltergeist.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. Yeesh. IT only reinforced the Poltergeist.

[thistlechaser]

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I read your comment. I'm a middleaged adult, and that damned clown doll still scares me.

[otakugal15]

Hahaha, my husband refuses to watch that film because of the clown doll. And the fact that he wishes the Ghostbusters could just come in an nip all that shit in the bud. He's a HUGE GB fanboy, so...

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's older than that. I suspect many stages of toddler development have a moment where we become attuned to wrongness in faces, and some clowns are just wrong. On top of that, some of them have a bit of a pushy, "you're going to have fun now" thing about them.

I have a long-standing problem with Santas because my uncle did it one year and apparently I lost my shit over the fake beard.

[dancing_clown]

See also: Killer Klowns from Outer Space and that one episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

[diet_poison]

Now I'm really curious about your username! Is it connected to any of these clowns?

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly as a kid I was scared off all strangers, especially the ones that acted like they knew me and invaded my personal space. Add a weird costume on top of that and I was done. I cried when my parents tried to put me on Santa's lap too.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not generally afraid of clowns, but I don't particularly like them. If I had to pin it on a movie, I'd blame Dumbo, but it's probably more to do with the fact that typical clown schtick is more obnoxious than funny to me. Clowns can be made creepy pretty easily though. I think it's the same "uncanny valley" fixed expression thing that makes porcelain dolls such good horror movie props.

[(Anonymous)]

I've never seen the movie, but for me, it was a combo of strange people who looked weird getting too close and making weird noises and trying too hard to get me to play with them (when I was younger), which also applied to Santa and people in mascot/character suits. Every kid can have this problem, but I think it was worse in my case because I grew up in the middle of nowhere with no one around but my parents and a bunch of animals until I was three. And it was not helped by the kind of chirpy obnoxious "now we'll all have fun! *bounce bounce* bullshit that got on my nerves as I got older.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it depends on the type of clown. As a little kid, before seeing IT (which I avoided like the plague) I had two clown experiences:

a) a harlequin doll that was creepy and I felt like it was watching me. // the lady in the carousel in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. There was something unsettling there.

however, b) I used to watch The Big Comfy Couch, and I loved all the clowns on that show--perhaps because their faces weren't completely obscured

[diet_poison]

Oh man The Big Comfy Couch was the cutest show!

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

It's probably related to the Uncanny Valley. We know they're human, but the makeup makes them look Not Human Enough.

I know Mum has a dislike of clowns due to country rodeos, where the clowns were specifically meant to keep the audience distracted while injured people were carried off the field.

[(Anonymous)]

I was afraid of clowns when I was a little kid, before that book was written, but then I got over it.

I guess horror movies with clowns can bring back that fear in some people and give it new associations.

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of people discover their fear of clowns as children. Children, especially very young ones depend on tone of voice, body language and facial expressions to understand (as best they can) the people around them.
A clown's face paint conceals facial expressions and is often misleading. Some children are more sensitive to this than others.
When I was a kid I was terrified of the Easter Bunny at the mall as well as Disney character actors. Their mouths didn't move when they spoke and that just freaked me out. Basically the same thing as clowns. The fixed smile doesn't always match the tone of voice or body language.

[lb_lee]

We weren't bothered by them when little, but as we got older, we grew increasingly uncomfortable around them. (And generally people in costumes at theme parks and stuff.)

I think for us, it was just that we were growing increasingly uncomfortable with anyone getting too close to us or touching us, and those performers could be harder to read due to masks and make-up, so we'd nervously kinda edge back from them.