With help from author and clown expert Benjamin Radford, Granger Wilson from Vulture explains how clowns evolved to become the creepy cultural phenomenon they are today.
“Clowns have always been represented as tricksters and jokers, from the days of jesters all the way through Ronald McDonald, but the high jinks were always paired with pathos and humanity. However, at some point in the last century, clowns became a source of a major cultural phobia, and the “scary clown” has become a staple of the American pop-culture landscape.”