GrodsCorp

The scum of all fears

Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:30 pm

Ant Rogenous

Categories: Society, Things that shit me

Tags: clowns, Kramer, liars, phobias, Seinfeld

Any time you’re standing around at a party and the topic of phobias comes up, it’s inevitable that at least one person will profess to have, or have had when they were younger, a fear of clowns.

They’re lying.

I blame Seinfeld. Until 1992, when the episode The Opera went to air, coulrophobia was a relatively rare phenomenon most people hadn’t even considered. In their desperation to prove how quirky and Kramer-like they were, unimaginative Seinfeld devotees began claiming this phobia en masse as a ready-made point of individual difference.

Obviously, it doesn’t work when everyone else is saying the same thing.

These were the kind of people who railed against anchovies on pizzas in the late 1980s — not because they’d ever eaten anchovies and found them unpalatable, but because Michelangelo of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame didn’t like them.

Eventually, the rash of people who claimed to have a fear of clowns became so virulent that it infected the next generation, so that now even people who were barely born when The Opera went to air — like 17-year-old Alamela from Australia’s Next Top Model* — carry on with the painfully unoriginal charade.

In short, when you ask someone about their phobias and they tell you they have a fear of clowns, what they’re really saying is that they have a fear of not being able to come up with a snappy, interesting enough answer.

Essentially, it’s a fear of being seen as dull — which is fair enough. So GrodsCorp is here to help.

Next time you’re tempted to succumb to the tired old clown meme, choose instead a fear from the following list:

       • Ferns
       • Black people
       • Margarine
       • Terry McCrann
       • Wheels

You’ll be an instant hit.

* Yes, I watch it. Get fucked.

37 Comments

Bron (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:39 pm) #

Oh Ant, why the hell did you watch that show? A man of your age too!

Clowns - I really do dislike them. I won’t go near one.

But my biggest fear is being under a mass of water. Driving through the Harbour Tunnel causes anxiety that it’s going to cave in. I can’t go snorkelling or deep sea diving. I can’t even watch movies set in the deep sea, like Jaws, without my chest feeling tight.

I have no idea why I get shaky, nervous, worried when it comes to a mass of water overhead/or deep below. I swim a lot, but it’s OK as long as I’m near the surface and can see the bottom.

What do you call that?

And does it make me desirably “quirky” or just a bloody weird wimp?
The Editor (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:40 pm) #

I’m sure I saw that McCrann image during the eyeball scene in A Clockwork Orange.
krypto (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:41 pm) #

I know you’ll dismiss this claim, but it’s actually true, when I was a kid I had a pathological fear (like I went nuts, ran out of the room crying and shit) of the TV series the Banana Splits AND Rolf Harris.

Rolf Harris used to do those British Paints commercials, used to make me go ape-shit.

I was around three or four, don’t take my word for it, ask my mum.
Krypto's mum (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:42 pm) #

yes it’s true, every word.
miss lallybroch (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:47 pm) #

okay I have a good fear, I have never heard of anyone ever having it before, can’t understand wny I have it, always have, don’t know why I do….

It is very original…

Buttons!!!

Let the laughter begin!
Ant Rogenous (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:47 pm) #

Krypto, I won’t dismiss those fears. Even if they’re exaggerated or largely bullshit, they’re original and funny — which makes them perfectly acceptable. People use the clown one for the same reasons, but it just doesn’t cut the novelty or comedy mustard anymore.
Ant Rogenous (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:49 pm) #

Miss Lallybroch, that’s awesome. I’d tell you I’m wearing several at this very moment, but I don’t want to scare you off.
magic bellybutton (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:51 pm) #

I’m not afraid of clowns as such, but they do freak me out.

A few more suggestions of things to be afraid of:

lint
post-its
paper
sticky tape
the month of September

Buttons!!!

Actually, the son of a friend of mine doesn’t like buttons. If he’s wearing a shirt with them down the front, he holds the clothing away from his body.
Wah (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:51 pm) #

I saw the preview for that episode of Australia’s Next Top Tappable Vapid Waste of Space and thought the same thing.
I also thought it was a good ploy by her though - why hold snakes, spiders or crocodiles when you can pretend that one look at Coco the fuckin’ Clown results in instant bowel evacuation.

A lot of people mistake their hatred of clowns for fear.
Wah (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:52 pm) #

MBB I saw a story recently about a woman with a phobia of buttons - can;t remember where though.
Evil Bill (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:53 pm) #

I have a fear of two forks being intertwined. But my mate is funnier he has a legitimate fear of sparklers and runs from the room squealing. Hilarious!
THR (Thursday 8 May 2008, 3:54 pm) #

I’ve heard of a clinical case study where a man had a fetish for buttons. If you can have a fetish, I don’t see why you can’t have a fear.
Krypto (Thursday 8 May 2008, 4:03 pm) #

I once swallowed a button when I was a kid, guess where it turned up?
Krypto's mum (Thursday 8 May 2008, 4:04 pm) #

it was in his poo
Krypto (Thursday 8 May 2008, 4:04 pm) #

thanks ma for ruining the suspense
Keri (Thursday 8 May 2008, 4:25 pm) #

I had an ex who was terrified of moths. It used to absolutely crack me up. He was six foot five, a footy player and built like the preverbial and he’d be standing there frozen by fear at the sight of a tiny moth.

I also had a friend who had a phobia of snails. She couldn’t explain it, and has never been able to get over it.
Private Tom (Thursday 8 May 2008, 4:45 pm) #

I hate flies. I’m not afraid of them, but I have a pathological Hitler-esque hatred of them and will enter a Terminator style trance of spraying and swatting until the f*ckers are dead.
Krypto (Thursday 8 May 2008, 4:50 pm) #

my brother’s ex-girlfriend was scared of birds.
Shit you not, freaked out by a freakin’ pidgeon or some shit.
Freakin’ kooky bitch, I can say that now that he’s no longer with her.
Jeremy (Thursday 8 May 2008, 5:16 pm) #

Bullshit, Ant. Clowns have been creeping people out since long before that Seinfeld episode - I think you’d have been challenged even in the late eighties to find any child who found them amusing or fun. Actually, I can’t even imagine how kids in the 20s or whenever they were popular liked them.

They have fake faces with fixed grins that do not reveal what they are feeling.

A real, honest to god phobia is a bit strong, but I don’t think a mild distaste for clowns is anything to do with Seinfeld.
miss lallybroch (Thursday 8 May 2008, 5:22 pm) #

I blame Stephen King’s IT novel for my dislike of clowns….

That was one freakin clown to mess with your head!

PS nice to hear of others with my phobia of buttons.
Jeremy (Thursday 8 May 2008, 5:27 pm) #

I have a fear of krypto’s button.
Will (Thursday 8 May 2008, 5:41 pm) #

I have a massive fear of those creepy-crawly things that clean the leaves etc out of swimming pools. When they come up my end of the pool I have to get out and start shaking.
I was also terrified of Mr Shocko, who lived in the wall sockets.
Zombie Mao (Thursday 8 May 2008, 5:48 pm) #

I had a massive fear of bloggers

Some of them still scare me
Suburban Marxist (Thursday 8 May 2008, 6:08 pm) #

“Any time you’re standing around at a party and the topic of phobias comes up, it’s inevitable that at least one person will profess to have, or have had when they were younger, a fear of clowns.

They’re lying.”

Another lie from the Master of Lies!

When I was but a young sapling of a Trotskyist my best friend’s father smuggled my friend and I into the Drive-Ins in the boot of his car to see ‘Poltergeist’. In that film a child’s toy clown comes to life and tries to kill him.

I have never recovered…
Liv (Thursday 8 May 2008, 6:25 pm) #

I can categorically state that it was a mauling I received by an overenthusiastic Silvers Circus clown when I was 5 years old that brought on my phobia (yes - phobia !) - not some show about a smarmy mouthed New Yorker and his neurotic friends.

And you would accuse me of making it up to seem cool! You think being scared of Ronald McDonald is fun, Ant ? Do you think having to look away when Krusty makes that stupid noise on the Simpsons is something I put on for affect ?
Huh ? Do ya ? HUH? Stephen Kings “It”?? - good grief, don’t even go there.

Keri, I have a friend who is not scared of moths, but vomits with fear if she sees a butterfly.
Go figure.

In closing, may I add - I also have an irrational fear of spiders and deep water.

Now my enemies have all the info they need…..
Damian (Thursday 8 May 2008, 6:33 pm) #

I have a pathological fear of being sideways. I have a weak chin.
Mikey (Thursday 8 May 2008, 7:12 pm) #

I have a fear of wiping out cans after I circimsized my finger.

LOL, Australia’s Top Model…
Tom (Thursday 8 May 2008, 7:31 pm) #

“They have fake faces with fixed grins that do not reveal what they are feeling.” I think that’s in part why the Joker is so utterly terrifying.
John Surname (Thursday 8 May 2008, 11:08 pm) #

“They have fake faces with fixed grins that do not reveal what they are feeling.”

Without a doubt the funniest thing you’ve ever written.
Krypto (Thursday 8 May 2008, 11:16 pm) #

now tell me this guy isn’t a fuck off scary clown, much scarier than a mime or a shit encrusted button.
notallright (Friday 9 May 2008, 12:01 am) #

i was petrified of clowns as a kid. not only for the reasons that jeremy highlights, which are true and valid, but also the sort of scenes that they’d play out at circuses or the arena at the show.

i had a heart operation when i was 5 (1980) and hid behind my mum’s leg when the clown came into the room as part of the easter stuff at kids hospital.

i just think that seinfeld hits that nail on the head, and not for the first time either….what’s the deal with ovaltine?

ps i love anchovies (nice one’s in a jar from local italian supermarket) even without pizza.
Jeremy (Friday 9 May 2008, 12:21 am) #

What are you on about now, Surname?
Bruce (Friday 9 May 2008, 12:46 am) #

Legal Eagle doesn’t like clowns either. She once linked to a study showing that kids don’t really like clowns that much and that they were counterproductive in comforting child patients in hospital.

But seriously…

Personally, I don’t fear this clown. It’s his worshipers that have me worried.
The Editor (Friday 9 May 2008, 8:57 am) #

Notallright: “I was petrified of clowns as a kid. not only for the reasons that jeremy highlights, which are true and valid, but also the sort of scenes that they’d play out at circuses or the arena at the show.

i had a heart operation when i was 5 (1980) and hid behind my mum’s leg when the clown came into the room as part of the easter stuff at kids hospital.”

I just verified this information with your mum, Notallright, and it seems you’re telling the truth. She said to ask you about the bears.
Michael (Friday 9 May 2008, 1:21 pm) #

I have a fear of large spiders (huntsmen, wolf spiders, big black house spiders, that sort of thing) but I have tried to tone down my reaction on seeing them to avoid passing the fear on to my kids.
I also have a phobia of furry mould on food, eg jams, yoghurt, that sort of thing. I remember being quite sick as a child when my mum opened a jar of apricot jam and just scooped out the mouldy bit with a spoon and proceeded to make me a sandwich with the rest. (My mum doesn’t have internet so you’ll just have to take my word for it.)
Mikey (Friday 9 May 2008, 8:00 pm) #

That’s not a clown. That’s a clown
steve (Saturday 10 May 2008, 8:39 am) #

Mikey, no good to those of us with Coulrophobia.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-coulrophobia.htm