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.