Scary clowns and coulrophobia

Kids say they like clowns, but they don't know why, they just do, because they are told they do. Fear of scary clowns (also known as coulrophobia) is more of a hindsight thing, and may be more about the associations people have with scary clowns, than the clowns themselves. This would vary, but might be something like being pressured to like someone whose face is hidden behind makeup. Or maybe the constant fear of being pulled out of the crowd and embarrassed.

I suppose that clowns are humorous to most people. But when they look like scary guys with pounds of theatrical makeup pasted on, jumping out from behind trees and where ever else they think it is cute to hide, and you are not even in grammar school. Yet that can actually cause a lifetime of coulrophobia, panic attacks and bad feelings. Clowns can be very scary to the young minds. Can you imagine something like that picking up a kid for the first time in their life and shaking them thinking they are funny? Having to get your picture taken with one and he is laughing while you are on his lap, all this just because someone thinks it is cute? It is really scary situation when you take the time to think about it.

Basically there are three main reasons for the scary clowns' phobia: fear from something that looks not normal to us, fear that a person might hide from us his thoughts and deeds. And finally a scary clown can do everything he or she wants and get away with it, because after all it is all just a harmless show, but is it? It is estimate that one of seven people have fear of clowns so the cultural phenomena that should have make people happy, done only the opposite - a living nightmare.