A poll:
C’mon, there must be someone out there who doesn’t find them completely traumatizing… right?
I love clowns!! Not just the scary type, as evidenced by my posting in the ICP thread. I love the sense of wonder it brings back from childhood when I see “normal” clowns, at a parade and such.
And Killer Klowns From Outer Space is my favorite cheesy movie.
I don’t like creepified clowns but other than that I like clowns. I used to be one.
During my clown time, I met quite a few people who were clowns and knew them without the makeup. They were people that just enjoyed entertaining people and having fun. A lot of them are actually rather shy, I was, and the makeup and silly costume gives you a mask to hide behind and makes it easier to perform. In general clowns are good people and don’t deserve the creepy label. I understand how they can scare very young children but it is not their intent and most good clowns will not force themselves on children if they are obviously scared of them. But adults are fair game. 
You all are sick, you read me…? SICK!
Clowns are the devils spawn!
And those porcelain clown masks that hang on your wall are creepy to the max! EEEWW…!
I don’t particular like or dislike clowns. Now mimes, those are weird, deranged people.
Oh no, no–I get that. I do imagine the vast majority of people who go into clowning are big-hearted folks who want to make people happy; I don’t think the creep-o thing is their fault. I was interested that the volume of people who find clowns disturbing seems to far outweigh those who enjoy them, but it’s always in the context of “clowns are scary” discussions. I was just curious about the responses and the ratio between a “hooray for clowns” thread and the “clowns make me pee my pants in terror” ones. You have to figure there must be people who enjoy them, or they wouldn’t still be around.
Other clowns…no-one else. The posts will prove me right.
Clowns range from painfully unfunny to outright creepy. There is nothing likeable about them.
I think they taste funny.
I like clowns, except for this one in some sort of event where I’d taken my brothers and four other kids, who chose me (probably for being the only kid in the theater who wasn’t laughing, but heck, I was also about the only kid over age 6) to be the target of a wet kiss that left me smeared with red facepaint. It took a lot of scrubbing to get that shit off, too!
One of my favourite people in the world is a clown. Pepe Tonetti
Clowns have never bothered me, and my dad’s friend and his wife were (actually, as far as I know, still are) clowns.
They’d make my brother and I balloon animals whenever they came to visit.
There was another thread here not too long ago, I think it was in GQ, where quite a few dopers confessed to having been clowns at some point. Some might even still be clowns. Everybody likes to make clown jokes and turning them into something scary, evil or creepy is done because it goes against type and is supposed to be shocking, but they aren’t evil, they’re just people. Okay, some may not be very good clowns and they come off as creepy, scary, grouchy or just plain unfunny, but they are just people.
Mimes on the other hand shudder I’m not sure what they are.
See, we’re in agreement. Or as John McClane once said when asked Are you aiming for these people? “No. Well, maybe that mime.”
BTW: **Doc Cathode ** is a clown.
Okay, look here, people–we know there are a lot of anti-clownites here. We’re clear on that. I’m trying to make a safe place for the clown-appreciators amongst us to step forward and publicly proclaim their love for the grease-painted and squirty-flower-lapelled ones!
Naja, I used to collect clowns. Any and all kinds, I had around 5,000 when I sold them. Before that happened, I’d hoped to open a museum and give some of the proceeds to my charities of choice. Unfortunately, that obviously didn’t happen.
But the reason I liked them? It was the dichotomy of the sadness behind the smile, I suppose. Plus the surreality of their appearance, depth of history (like the characters in the Commedia dell’arte) and the often wrong-headed desire / push to make things better in such a ham-fisted away. In other words, they reminded me of myself sans a venue and a seltzer bottle. An outlet for a (mostly) harmless twist, if you will.
I like them. When I was little and the circus came to town, the best parts were the clowns and the animals. Clowns are funny.