COLIN PERRY and CONNOR HOFFMAN
Editor in Chief and Managing Editor
Kelsey Martinez says that she’s always been terrified of clowns. According to her, the media and film industry instill a negative image of them on people when they’re most impressionable.
“I never really had any encounters with clowns. I never even met a clown in real life,” she said. “I guess just seeing all the negativity in the media, I had to get over my fear.”
For some people, getting dressed to go downtown means just putting on some makeup and a new top. But Martinez often takes it a step further. A Fredonia native and 20 year-old massage therapy student, she dons face paint and dresses up in colorful outfits to assume her playful alter-ego of Kels the Klown.
“I go take a walk in the park or I go downtown. I don’t try to hide anywhere, I don’t try to be anywhere creepy,” Martinez said. “I go do what I would normally do, but in exaggerated clothes and an exaggerated face.”
But it’s those exaggerated features that have people all over America on edge. According to a report by CBS News, dozens of clown sightings have been reported across the country since August, beginning when South Carolina police received reports of a clown attempting to lure children into the woods. Those reports remain unconfirmed, but from there, dozens of towns experienced their own moments of clown-induced-panic, mostly stemming from schools and colleges.
On Monday, Oct. 3, Martinez was walking around Barker Commons in full costume when senior marketing major Sarah Kelly and her boyfriend drove by.
“We were driving back from Westfield, and we saw the clown walking down the street. We went around the block at Barker Commons, because [my boyfriend said], ‘We have to take a video of this,’” Kelly said.
The video, uploaded to social media shortly thereafter, launched a firestorm of panic and paranoia across Fredonia, as many students came to believe that the nefarious clowns they’d heard about would soon terrorize their town.
The reactions were intensified the following evening when President Virginia Horvath sent out a campus-wide email addressing students’ clown concerns.
She described how social media posts had spread false information about fires and vandalism, while others attempted to initiate “clown hunts.”
“Let’s not do this to each other,” Horvath said.
“Some Fredonians’ comments on social media jokingly referred to the response last night as ‘clownpocalypse’ and ‘clowngate,’ suggesting that perhaps the appearance of the clowns was a hoax, intended to scare people and get a widespread reaction,” Horvath continued. “It’s a cruel one, given the tension we feel in our culture right now when strangers act in odd or suspicious ways. Let’s not feed that uneasiness and create panic here.”
While the tension seems to have subsided in Fredonia, news reports persist across the country of clown sightings every day. University Police Chief Ann Burns said that this recent wave of clown-induced panic reminded her of other moments of mass hysteria from the past.
“I remember back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, there was a slasher guy sometime around Halloween that was supposed to go to a girls’ dorm in the East somewhere,” Burns said. “He was going to break into the residence hall and kill all kinds of girls … and it caused panic, but it was not real.”
Burns said that there is a town rule that forbids the wearing of costumes. Titled “Masks and Disguises,” section 213-7 of the Fredonia Village Ordinance says that “No person shall wear any mask, false face or other disguise in any public place in the village except on a holiday or public parade.”
For Martinez, clowning has nothing to do with scaring people; between going to school full-time, working and raising a daughter, dressing up in costume is her time to have fun and “goof off.” She also said numerous times that she wants to demonstrate to people that, in light of recent reports, what’s really scary isn’t a clown..
“I want to show people it’s not the clown that’s bad. It’s not the outfit, it’s not the makeup, it’s the person underneath, and it’s what their intentions are,” Martinez said.
Martinez said that being dressed up allows her to “feel free,” and that she dresses up in other outfits as well.
“But the only thing that sparked anyone’s interest was the clown outfit,” Martinez said. “People are more willing to bash and hate things that they don’t know and they don’t understand and they don’t want to take the time to acknowledge that, but they’re A-OK with spreading the fear.”
Martinez said that she has received threats of rape and violence while in costume, but she remains undeterred in her clowning. She said she hopes to attend clown college and invited anybody with an interest in clowning to join her downtown.
“I will respect what everyone else has to say, but I’m not going to stop just because they’re harassing me,” Martinez said. “I do apologize for frightening any families, because I do have a kid, and I know how that might have looked, but I won’t stop dressing up and being me because someone’s afraid of me.”