Last week, the world collectively lost their shit over the first trailer to the remake of Stephen King’s It, due for release September 8. It scored a record 197 million views in 24 hours, confirming that everyone was excited to see the original terrifying clown return to the big screen.
Well, almost everyone. An article in Mel Magazine talks to the one group decidedly not stoked to see an evil clown once again crawl out of a sewer to terrorize New England kids: actual clowns. Now, while your response to this news might be, “Good, fuck clowns,” reading the actual piece is sort of heartbreaking, in that the clowns interviewed know how little clowns are liked these days and seem genuinely crestfallen on the future of clowning. “It’s a dying profession. And the people who do it and scrape together a living have to grapple with the fact that it’s cool and hip not to like clowns,” one tells Mel before going on to decry the Kardashians and Minecraft. That is one truly sad clown.
The full article goes into detail on the history of terrifying clowns in the media, including last year’s sudden uptick in purported real-life scary clown sightings, which the real-life clowns interviewed look at as a scare they had sort of just gotten over. But with membership in clowning trade organizations plummeting, they see a bleak future for their craft.
All of which is sort of depressing, unless you are one of the many people who hate clowns, in which case the article is rife with reasons to remain afraid. There is one in the article named “Humpy Pumpy,” for example. A little “disruption” may be just what the clowning industry needs.