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I’m Not A Murder Clown I’m Just Really Into Knives

Your assumptions are hurtful and unfair

Sarah Lofgren
2 min readJul 24, 2020

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I blame the media. Television, movies and books have all decided there’s something sinister lying beneath our makeup and shiny noses. Modern storytellers can’t allow anything in this world to remain pure and untainted, so they’ve done all they can to paint clowns as homicidal maniacs. #notallclowns

Most of us just want to make people laugh and laugh and laugh and die and laugh.

If a normal person was super into knives, no one would find that creepy. They’d just be like, “Old Uncle Bob sure has an interesting hobby!” But when a clown can’t stop tweeting about the razor sharp blade on their Wusthof 8-inch chef’s knife, everyone gets all nervous.

Maybe I like to slowly slice tomatoes until their red, juicy insides run out all over the table? There’s nothing abnormal about that. Then I photograph the results and turn the saturation way up, not to mimic anything terrifying, but because Instagram demands drama. I wish people would stop with all the shocked emoji responses.

They’re having emotional reactions based on my identity as a clown. They don’t even know that I could probably debone a small human in roughly twenty minutes. If I was a normal human being, I could talk about that all I wanted. But because I’m wearing big, funny shoes, I have to keep my mouth closed.

People impose their expectations on clowns all the time, but we’re as multifaceted as anyone else. I could get deeply into balloon animals or tiny cars, but that would mean bringing my work home with me. I get enough of that stuff at the office! Sharing images of cotton candy and circus tents would make people feel safer, but then I’d be forcing myself to fit inside a clown-shaped box. I don’t want to live inside a clown-shaped box. I want to live inside a knive-shaped box without everyone else making a big deal about it.

We need more places to stick knives if this world is ever going to be a fair place.

Please remember my words next time you judge a clown for liking dynamite, axes, rocket launchers, or swords. We’re merely engaging in innocent hobbies. You wouldn’t think twice about it if the media hadn’t unjustly painted us all as denizens of mischief and horror.

And, when I walk around the neighborhood at night in my bright red wig, stroking my D.E. Henry Bowie, you can be assured that I’m not imagining all the little children I could slowly murder with it, I’m just admiring the polish.

Thanks for reading. For more stuff I’m on twitter and I have a newsletter.

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Sarah Lofgren

Engaged in inadvisable wordsmitheries and other creative acts. http://sarahlofgren.com