With popularity gaining since late this summer, people dressed in scary clown suits have been terrorizing passers-by in otherwise quiet communities around the world. An abundant amount of people have been spotting mostly young adults dressed up in white face with a vibrant wig to portray clowns. Additionally, social media posts involving images of clowns have been threatening schools and communities, including the Hammond school system.

  The weirdest part about the clown trend, though, is that they are only visible threats. Besides several internet rumors about murders involving clowns in the U.S. (there have been 23 people in Canada that have been found dead due to recent clown-related murders in October, both the social media threats and the physical threats in communities are in vain: these clowns might look scary and even promote serious threats, but they just don’t do anything. So why do they even bother getting dressed up?

  The clown hoax may be a viral trend that solely provides brief internet popularity for those looking for their 5 minutes of fame. The season of the scary clown first gained ground on August 29 in South Carolina and got plenty of media attention by media outlets and Youtube; since then, the clown trend seemed to catch on.

  Considering what John Wayne Gacy did, the notorious serial killer clown and rapists who was known for abducting, assaulting, then killing teenaged boys, police officers in the U.S were quick to arrest all possible suspects with this year’s latest clown trend. A handful of people that were dressed like clowns were arrested and charged for a terrorist threat. After the first five clowns were spotted, police decided to take action of the safety amongst the citizens and started prosecuting everybody dressed like clowns.

Makayla Smith, 22 years old from Flomaton, South Carolina, was the first person to get arrested for portraying a clown and also threatening to attend a high school with other clowns. She was charged on September 14 for threatening a school and has a set bail of 200k. She gave no explanation for being a ringleader for other clowns in the Flomaton area.

Clowns have been spotted in a various of other states as well, including Indiana. According to theindychannel.com, officers have received reports of atleast four clowns within the Indianapolis area, but none of the people served as a serious threat. As of October, the amount of people dressed like clowns and recorded has died down, and the trend is slowly fading away.