The abnormal fear of clowns is called coulrophobia. The phobia is not among the anxiety, dissociative, stress-related, somatoform, and other nonpsychotic mental disorders listed by the World Health

Organization.

There is even some debate about the term coulrophobia itself, with Dictionary.com writing that “coulro” does not match any Greek word for clown. The prefix instead comes from

kolon, which means limb. 

“The whole creation looks suspiciously like the sort of thing idle pseudo-intellectuals invent on the Internet and which every smarty-pants takes up thereafter; perhaps it is

a mangling of Modern Greek klooun 'clown,' which is the English word borrowed into Greek."

Definitions and official phobia lists aside, clown phobia is real, but where does it come from? Some credit Charles Dickens with spreading the idea of an unhappy clown with

his depiction in “The Pickwick Papers” and his editing of the memoirs of Grimaldi, London’s most famous clown who died a poor alcoholic.

Around the same time, a popular Parisian pantomime named Jean-Gaspard Deburau killed a guy with his walking stick because the man was shouting insults at Deburau.

The rise of the circus in America (from England) turned clowns into widespread cultural symbols of youth and entertainment. According to psychologist Steve Scholzman, that increased exposure plays a role

in why a lot of people get anxiety by faces and mannerisms that are not quite human.

"Pattern recognition allows to see when things are recognizable but off just enough to where you take caution," Scholzman told PEOPLE. "That’s why a little kid can recognize something

as being a little bit dangerous without quite knowing why they know it’s dangerous. They recognize it as familiar but not quite the same as what they’re seeing."

“With clowns, you have two arms and legs and a face — it’s human,” Scholzman added. “Like most monsters, it’s a recognizable shape that’s tweaked. The perpetual smile is by

itself is a different type of pattern recognition because we look at people’s expressions to get a sense of what to feel upon seeing them. But a clown doesn’t do

anything but smile, so you don’t really know what it’s thinking or feeling. And all of those things are playing on pattern recognition.”

There is a difference between not liking/being uncomfortable around clowns and having an actual fear of them, which Scholzman says is more rare than pop culture would have us believe.

Not knowing who is really behind the makeup also contributes to people’s fear of clowns, according to clinical psychologist Dr. Dena Rabinowitz. “We rely a lot on facial expressions to

understand people and see their motivations. And with clowns, you don’t have facial expressions. It's all under makeup, and it's fixed. And so there's a kind of a question of,

‘What's going on under there?’”

Dr. Rabinowitz added that no one is born with a fear of clowns, but people can be “genetically predispositioned to have an anxiety disorder...a specific fear of clowns either comes

because you had a traumatic event in childhood around clowns, a family member or somebody close to you kind of has taught you that clowns are scary, or you had

an anxiety attack when you were around clowns and paired them together.”

There is also the influence of popular culture and news from the world around us. In the 1970s, a serial killer named John Wayne Gacy permanently damaged the reputation of

clowns when he sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered at least 33 young men. Gacy became known as the "Killer Clown" because he often dressed as his alter ego Pogo for

parties and fundraisers.

Then Stephen King simultaneously ruined clowns and storm drains with his 1986 novel “IT,” which was followed by a terrifying TV-movie adaptation by Lawrence D. Cohen, starring Tim Curry as

Pennywise.

King is often blamed (unjustly) for coulrophobia, but all he did was to build upon an existing idea. It’s not his fault that his story inspired countless copy cats and

helped make the perversion of clowns into a pop culture trope.

There was “Killer Klowns From Outer Space” in 1988, “Clownhouse” in 1989, Zeebo the Clown in “Are You Afraid of the Dark,” the Joker in DC comics, cartoons, and movies,

the Clown in “Star Trek: Voyager,” the Killer Krusty doll in “The Simpsons,” Twisty the Clown in “American Horror Story: Freak Show,” and the list goes on and on.

In the real world, killer clowns have become a popular Halloween costume, and in 2016 there was a trend of people dressing like clowns just to prank and terrorize communities.

Professional clowns found themselves struggling to overcome the bad stigma, as people were calling the police to report clown sightings. “People had school shows and library shows that were canceled,”

World Clown Association president Pam Moody told The Hollywood Reporter. “The very public we're trying to deliver positive and important messages to aren't getting them.”

In 2017, Ringling Bros. circus folded up its big tent after 146 years, which means that less children will be introduced to clowns in their purest form. 2017 also gave

us a new adaptation of Stephen King’s “IT,” which was more graphic and arguably more terrifying than the ‘90s TV version, so younger generations will likely be more familiar with

evil clowns than they are with normal ones.

Members of the World Clown Association would obviously prefer if children were not exposed to clowns who feed on fear, or ones that murder people, but is it too late

to turn back? And does it even matter anymore?

I have nothing against clowns as entertainers, but maybe their time has passed. From the pygmies of Ancient Egypt to Homey the Clown from “In Living Color,” the colorful laugh-makers

have had a long run, but if they all decided to pile into a tiny car and drive away, it would take a while for the world to notice. 

I

hope that never happens (people are also afraid of dogs, but we didn’t get rid of them post-”Cujo”), but I also don’t see their smiles bringing the kind of universal

joy that they once did.