MHS is always brewing with gossip–whether it’s about the homecoming candidates, a new policy, or in the latest case, creepy clowns, there’s always something new churning through the rumor mill.

The clown situation first began at the end of August in South Carolina when there were several reports of children being approached by clowns in the woods (New York Times.com). Since then, the clown problem has increasingly escalated leading to “creepy clown” sightings and incidents and the whole thing has gotten way out of hand.

Since October began just six short days ago, there have been clown reports in 21 different Michigan cities, including the clown threat to Monroe High School the other day, an armed robbery by a clown in Brownstown Township, a school lockdown over a clown threat in Muskegon, and an alleged clown attack in Sterling Heights (MLive.com). The number of reports, however, greatly outnumber the amount of actual documented clown sightings and incidents.

Even in Monroe, there are several people claiming that they were chased by or spotted a creepy clown by their home or at the park or while they were on their extravagant vacation to Atlantis. There’s very little evidence to how much validity these stories may have, but they sure are gaining speed as they’re being spread around the community.

There’s no doubt that this clown epidemic has been making the news, but is it really newsworthy? There’s always some sort of hoax going on, and I’m relatively sure that this is just another invention of the internet and social media craze. Remember that “Charlie Charlie” game that everyone was convinced was ghost-powered? That turned out to be most certainly just another social media trend that had no actual evidence backing it. I suspect this recent trend has a lot to with Halloween coming up and instigators banking on the common fear of clowns.

If the whole thing is really just fake, then in theory, there should be no harm done, but that is not the case. Some people make a career out of being clowns, and their lives while on duty are now at risk thanks to some pranksters trying to get a rise out of the public. Now, the professional clowns are losing jobs and some have even been assaulted as a result of all this creepy clown business (International Business Times.com).

Honestly, until there’s definitive proof of these creepy clown incidents, I don’t think there is much to worry about. There’s so much information from literally anyone with access to a connection on the Internet, and it’s likely that things like this are just spawned from someone’s boredom. Sure, this is hot on social media, but I don’t think it’s really what one would call a hot-button issue.