Birthday Parties Come and Go But Therapy is Forever
Posted on April 15, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 57 Comments
Arguably the single worst child’s birthday party idea in the history of man.
Warning: Not Safe For Coulrophobics. Or pretty much anyone else. But especially them.
Oh, Google it, people. On the other hand, if you are Coulrophobic, you probably already know what it means. All too well.
(Hat tip: Heather McLane)
Yes, I’m SURE this will bring “fun and laughter” into your child’s life….for years and years and years to come.
“You’ll laugh yourself to sleep!”
Society is doomed. DOOMED, I tells ya!
Uh-huh. And what textbook on child psychology did they get that fact from?
Isn’t it funny how BS looks the same in any country?
Two to the chest
One to the head
Is really best
Makes a clown dead
That is not cool, man. Not at all.
OMG really, parents actually hire this guy for children??? um…yeah… I’m not coulrophobic but freaking would be if I had this guy after me!!
How would Athena react if you hired this guy (not that you would… would you?)
I don’t think I’m Coulrophobic but clowns have always creeped me out a little bit, mostly due to the almost painful level of physical humor involved.
This takes creepy to a whole new level and I’m thinking that a clown like this could easily find himself the recipient of a very painful shot in the jewels from a “not taking any crap from Dominic” 12 year old using his new fat body skate board.
That’s what I would have done…
No thanks. I saw IT when I was in high school. Tim Curry’s all the evil clown I’ll ever need.
This sounds like a good way to *make* people into coulrophobics.
Um, yeah..
He would want to catch me on a day I’m unarmed…
That’s just really freaking disturbing.
There’s a good psychological reason that kids are scared of clowns— they’re learning facial recognition and the face paint screws with that. In other words, more kids are scared of clowns than like them, and for good reason.
You may find this link interesting for future snarky use:
http://www.lmgtfy.com/
I’ll have to remember this when I have kids. Though I don’t live in Switzerland. Perhaps it will have made its way here.
LMGTFY: http://tinyurl.com/y4gsdzv
Well hello insomnia!
Fit the category…had no idea there was an official name for it!
I got over clowns age 6 after a visit to a circus – people need to get over it.
I just sent this as a bit.ly’d link to a coworker who’s coulrophobic. I expect she’l come out and kill me any second now.
Well, if they probably don’t do adults because it’s easier for adults to get concealed weapon permits.
Though as a teen age kid, I knew both where and how to use my fathers pistol and rifle. The trick is tricking them into getting close enough that you can’t miss, even when your shaking from nerves.
I’m not afraid of clowns, but I do not like them. I would have no issues shooting a clown (or anyone else) in self defense.
“I thought he was going to kill me! Look at all these text messages he was sending saying he was going to get me!”
Just sounds like a bad idea all around.
B. Durbin at 12:
That sounds very plausible…but is there any evidence it’s true?
I did find this, though
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1582409620080116
Always aim for the nose.
Screw the clown thing. I mean, even without that, the fear of being stalked or being attacked, even with a birthday cake, isn’t something to joke about for some people. Undermining your child’s sense of security for a JOKE? Meh.
As a child, the well-meaning efforts of the Officer Friendly, McGruff, and Fireman Bill crowd left me running from McGruff house to McGruff house, praying to God that our house wouldn’t burn down, and breaking out in hives everytime a van without windows (see, electricians, cable repair, city inspectors) drove by. I ulcerated over strangers saying ANYTHING. I worried about my parents getting converted to Scientology or Satanic cults. (Thank you, Readers Digest.) If you had sicced this clown on me, I would have been such a wreck.
Is Killer Klowns really a horror movie? I mean, IT terrified me when I was six. But, when I saw Killer Klowns I thought it was like a horror comedy.
At least that’s my recollection.
The fact that he has apparently based his business on movies inspiring sheer unadulterated lifetime stalking terror with a campy horcom is disturbing. This man may be mentally unhinged.
“Always aim for the nose.”
With a large caliber weapon, aim is less critical.
Just sayin’
“Can’t go to sleep; clown’s gonna eat me.”
He needs to charge more so he can lose the cheap rubber mask and invest in some scary makeup.
This is in Switzerland, one of those places where Saint Nicholas gets accompanied by a menacing helper who punishes all the bad kids. Stalking clowns may just complete the set of scary holiday bookends. Uh, right?
I’ve never found clowns frightening (or intrinsically funny, either). But the idea of attempting to make a joke out of the act of stalking gives me major problems. Does this guy have a side business where you can hire him to kidnap and rape your own child? Clearly that will be even funnier.
You could always hire him to pretend to kidnap and rape your daughter so that she’ll be saved in the nick of time by the fresh-faced Boy Next Door, and can marry him and live happily ever after until Act II. Then you can make a successful long-running off-Broadway musical about it. Oh, wait, been done. But without clowns.
wow – what a really BAD idea – it’s not even funny enough for a party of 16 year olds.
GAH
… as someone who has spent the past 6 years going to school for and working as a clown i find this sad and slightly offensive…
we call crap like this “negative clown stereotypes” and sadly they are only multiplying…
Let me guess, he’s a part-time psych student and preemtively working both sides of the fence?
I admit to finding it pretty funny that this exists, but also tend to think that a parent that actually hires this clown thereby should lose their license to spawn.
we call crap like this “negative clown stereotypes” and sadly they are only multiplying…
Hm, as I just learned, “coulrophobic” is taken, so it can’t be used to follow the pattern. What does one call someone who harbors negative clown stereotypes in the non-clinical, more aggro and antisocial sense?
Is there a NGO that tracks instances of anti-clown bigotry?
And like that “coulro-” means “one who goes on stilts”.
Switzerland has a really high gun ownership rate, no?
Hmmm. Maybe this could be fun after all. Think Killer Klowns From Outer Space crossed with The 10th Victim.
Oh, very well … with paintball guns.
When I saw the word “Coulrophobic” above, I thought at first that it meant someone who’s afraid of Jonathan Coulton. Glad to find out it means a fear of clowns, not geeks. ;-)
Kids (some kids, not all kids by far) love being scared in a safe environment. Scary movies, scary books, scary amusement park rides, ghost stories–the scare is contained, and the kid trusts on a deep level that no actual harm will be done in real life. This stalker clown thing takes it to real life, leaving the kid no way to know it’s safe scary while it’s happening. It’s a lousy thing to do to kids, who should be learning to trust their instincts about safety, IMO, not having their instincts (and their parents’ warnings about strangers, for instance) invalidated because it was allegedly a joke–and one set up by those same parents.
Even the alleged payoff sucks for the kid. I’ve never thought having a pie smashed in one’s face was a fun thing for the recipient, even an adult recipient. It’s embarrassing and messy. If you someone to enjoy a pie, give the pie to them intact, don’t assault them with it.
I’d say to that guy “You fail” for scaring people, just not kids. Isn’t that called stalking and you could get arrested in the U.S.? I think this must be a joke or something. Why would anyone in the world hire a person to do this? Geez.
@ hugh57
When I saw the word “Coulrophobic” above, I thought at first that it meant someone who’s afraid of Jonathan Coulton. Glad to find out it means a fear of clowns, not geeks. ;-)
i absolutely thought the same thing! :)
and because it must be said: we all float down here, georgie.
Clowns are socialist.
I wonder what age they’re targeting, specifically, when they say “children.” This would have scared the bejeezus out of me when I was six, but at 16 it would have been my favorite birthday ever.
Psycho clown throwing pies at you, as you walk out of chemistry class? What’s not to love?
beowuff@19: “Well, if they probably don’t do adults because it’s easier for adults to get concealed weapon permits.”
You don’t need a permit for a Louisville Slugger.
I think we need a stalker clown registry, so people know when one of these bozos moves into the neighborhood.
This is fucking sick. I think kids should be able to divorce their parents for hiring this guy.
In which states (or nations) are the penalties for coulrocide and run-of-the-mill homicide different?
The wrongness is so wrong, that there aren’t enough letters in the word ‘wrong’ to give the proper weight to how wrong this is.
the coulrophobic.com domain is available!
I believe the phrase my people use is “That’s some fucked up shit”.
On a related note… as someone with mild coulrophibia, I find it amusing that my first temp job in the 18 months since I’ve been laid off is working for Cirque du Soliel.
Evil clown is a redundant phrase.
He has a website (in German):
http://www.clockworx.ch/html/team.html
If this would trigger America’s children to commit random acts of violence against clowns &/or Juggalos, I have to say, I’m all for it.
Do the parents — double taps to the chest — after you finish off the clown.
I didn’t need to dress up like a clown, but my younger brother and sisters loved to be chased around with a threat of violence. “I’m going to get you!” My dog seems to love this game to.
Hmm, I didn’t know I had Coulrophobia. I always thought it was just an intense distrust because of people like JOHN WAYNE GACY who used the clown costumes to get close to children. Oh, and btw, I don’t mind rodeo clowns.
That clown’s almost as creepy as the Burger King.
Is anybody really hiring this guy for kids’ parties? I can see some adult bozos hiring him to stalk their friends, but nothing to suggest any parent actually believes this is a good idea.
John
Despite your tweet, I’m really not a spambot. Spambots don’t read comments, notice interesting but unsupported claims, and ask if there’s evidence for them, as I did at 20 and 21.
The link I posted was relevang to your post – it included a voucher offering ‘Two recurring nightmares about pale clowns for the price of one’.
I guess that I’ve now passed some kind of reverse Turing test…
Here it is:
http://www.framley.com/pages/offe002
It’s comforting to know that in a world replete with stupid, and I do mean mind numbingly dumb, ideas that there are paragons of the art to lead the way.
In the infamous words from L4D2… “Somebody shoot that f**king clown.”