Today in coulrophobia...

Above: the thing people are getting
scared out of them by clowns.

Holyshitwhatthefuck!? Are you afraid of clowns? Yeah, I wasn't either but now I'm starting to think we should be, because apparently dressing up as clowns and scaring the utter bejesus out of everyone is the hip new thing to do in the south. Police in McDuffie County Georgia were called in after some kids waiting for the school bus were approached by clowns. Fucking clowns. In the morning. That tingly feeling you're getting right now? That's Coulrophobia-the fear of clowns. At least that's what everybody thinks.

This nightmare shaped like a sex-toy
is what comes up when I google
Greek clown. Thanks internet.

Let's go on a tangent, shall we? According to my exhaustive research of three entire websites, the word coulrophobia is like totally made up. Which, yes, all words are made up, but this was something some anonymous word-smith came up with back in the 80's. It's a mash-up of coulro-a Greek word meaning stilt-walker which I guess is sort of like a clown and phobia which means, you know, phobia. It probably should be Kloonophobia because klóon is 'clown' in Greek, but whatever. The Online Etymology Dictionary says "[t]he whole creation looks suspiciously like the sort of thing idle pseudo-intellectuals invent on the Internet and which every smarty-pants takes up thereafter."

It's profiling, but I'm
kind of ok with it...

And while they're not wrong, it's a bit sassy for an etymology dictionary, don't you think? But back to the scary clowns. They've been popping up for a while in Ohio, North and South Carolina, Wisconsin and California and it's freaking everyone the fuck out. It doesn't sound like the clowns have actually done anything illegal, I mean, being a clown isn't in and of itself a crime, but they are goddamn creepy. So creepy in fact that the McDuffie County police are thinking about pressing charges which I am fine with. Totally fine with.

Is that wrong? I'm a little ambivalent on this. Yeah, sure the obvious question here is what are they doing dressing up like clowns and scaring children in the first place, but that aside, is it a crime to be a clown? If they haven't broken any laws, what exactly will the McDuffie police be charging them with? And who's to say what's a creepy clown and what's just a regular clown? And why is-wait, you know what? Never mind. Look at the clown below and try and tell me you don't want to see every last one of them in prison. Clown prison.

Oh for fuck's sake, this, this, is very essence of creepy
and yes, it should absolutely be a crime to be this clown.