2016 Clown Craze– Feature Story

Just two years ago, the nation relapsed into minor panic as clowns were spotted among towns once again and posing threats to the community.

“The first initial sighting was just a hoax,” Officer Rick Ramirez commented. “End joke. And people started to copycat that thing. And that’s the thing- it got more and more attention, so more and more people began to do it, and people were trying to outdo each other. Then it turned to scaring and intimidating.”

Many of the clown sightings were spread through social media, due to its mass popularity as of now. Because of this, they were able to wriggle their way into the minds of adolescents and adults alike.

“With social media, it’s very easy to manipulate minds, right? And if someone wanted to sell the idea that there are crazy clowns all over… and it started to catch on. I think it was a YouTube sensation that started the clown prank,” Ramirez remarked.

Social media does a fantastic job of drawing out the truth and exaggerating it more than a little. Thanks to multiple influencers, the sightings were never as serious as vividly portrayed to everyone.

“In real cases there was always something else–it wasn’t like there was a big society of clowns,” Ramirez added.

Despite the controversy over how realistic these threats were, schools continued to hastily take action. In fact, a few familiar districts neighboring Ladue’s felt the urge to increase security within their campuses to be as safe as possible.

“So, in those cases, where clown sightings were making threats towards school, it didn’t matter if it was a hoax or a regular person. Any kind of of threats towards school will cause that sort of attention,” Ramirez explained on the subject.

Although Ladue may have been near the conflicted districts, it remained calm in the middle of the clown panic. 

“There was no security increase because there was no actual threat toward the school. But if there was, and it was from the whole clown epidemic, we would’ve treated it just like it was a normal threat,” Ramirez concluded.