Clown Scare Taken To New Heights

By Vanessa Bell

Clown hunting and sightings have been running rampage through Texas State’s social media community after students received emails about an assault.

University News Service sent out an email Oct. 4 in regards to a clown sighting at the Bobcat Village Apartment complex. The suspect, dressed as a clown, grabbed a female student.

Afterwards, Twitter hashtag #TXSTClown began to trend and students took it upon themselves to search for the clown.

An account was created in light of the clown craze in San Marcos. Pictured as a clown, the user threatened Twitter users in the San Marcos area.

Eduwiges Tellez, philosophy sophomore, said social media heightened the exposure of clown sightings.

“It’s all media frenzy,” Tellez said. “In a few weeks, people are going to get over this because people are just waiting for the next hashtag to talk about.”

Leopoldo Rodriguez, exploratory sophomore, said people should not take the clown wave lightly.

“Social media helped spread this clown thing like wildfire,” Rodriguez said. “People don’t realize that it went from a joke to something serious.”

A resident of Sanctuary Lofts apartment complex witnessed a clown carrying a chainsaw Oct. 5.

An email from the apartment management was sent out to residents, informing them no harm was done. Officials advised them to be aware of their surroundings before opening doors for visitors.

“People pull random pranks,” Tellez said. “I thought this was just something else that someone decided to do, but now they have weapons and are trying to assault people.”

The clowns prevent people from doing everyday tasks without fearing a clown will harm them.

“I usually go skate at night when there is no one at the park, and now I fear for my life sometimes,” Rodriguez said.

Some who never had a phobia of clowns now have to deal with stress of a possible encounter.

“I was having nightmares about clowns coming after me and thinking about the fact that they are trying to do harm is scary enough,” Tellez said.

Students did not want to believe the hype about clown sightings until it started happening in San Marcos.

“I thought it was just going to be some sort of fad,” Rodriguez said. “Later on, there were reports that clowns started being hostile. It made me wonder like, ‘okay we need to do something about it, not like go clown hunting, but to take precautions.’”

Matt Flores, University spokesman, said there is an active report involving the clown assault.

“It is something our police department is taking seriously,” Flores said. “With as much activity as there has been on social media, this bears our greatest scrutiny.” 

This article originally published by the University Star.