By now, you might have caught wind of the weird shit that’s happening in the US state of North Carolina. Weird shit involving clowns, aka the absolute worst kind of weird shit.
If you reckon it’s all sounding a bit, well, IT, you’re not alone. Hell, even Australian reports on the issue open up with the declaration “it’s like something straight out of a Stephen King novel.”
Obviously thinking the exact same thing, local media in King’s home state Maine have badgered the author about his take on the supposed NC clowns and their fear-invoking properties. In his view, it’s all a passing phase… But it’s a fucked one, nonetheless.
“I suspect it’s a kind of low-level hysteria, like Slender Man,” King said, referring to the internet-borne horror character that shot to prominence after its name was invoked by two young girls on trial for attempted murder.
“Take a little kid to the circus and show him a clown, he’s more apt to scream with fear than laugh…If I saw a clown lurking under a lonely bridge (or peering up at me from a sewer grate, with or without balloons), I’d be scared, too.”