A recent spate of Spooky Clown sightings has spread to Hull and East Riding with Twitter claiming sightings across the region. But Mail columnist Ian Midgley is in no mood for clowning around.
Do you remember planking, owling, Harlem shaking and Rick-rolling?
You probably don't.
They were internet crazes that came and went faster than a can of pop through a five-year-old with a weak bladder when there's not public conveniences within ten miles.
These fads left behind a sorry collection of Youtube videos and Instagram images of people, respectively, laying on top of cupboards, crouching like, er, barn owls, dancing like muppets and singing Never Gonna Give You Up. Badly.
Oh how we laughed. For about five seconds before getting bored and moving on.
Now we've got clowning, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. Like Ronseal, only not as funny.
The fear of clowns is officially known as coulrophobia and is entirely rational. It must be because they give me the willies too.
It's only natural to be scared of flamboyant entertainers in ginger wigs and outrageous costumes. It's amazing Elton John's lasted so long.
As far as we can tell it all started in Northampton, that hotbed of innovation and crazy japery.
There, a bored student dressed up like Pennywise, the creepy clown from Stephen King's IT, would turn up on the streets looking a bit weird and menacing in the way only a man plastered in white make-up, a curly wig and size 34 shows can do.
He had photos taken of him by passers-by and he quickly became a Internet phenomenon.
Who was the Northampton clown? What did he want? Why was he here? Was he an other-worldly monster waiting to eat our souls? Who did his make up, Barbara Cartland? Did he borrow his outfits from Su Pollard? Will no-one think of the children?
From Northampton, clowning then spread like Dhobie itch around a sweaty groin, and clowns started appearing on the streets of towns sush as Lincolnshire, Chesterfield, Mansfield and Doncaster – causing an utterly irrational fear and outbursts of social media panic as worried passers-by expected to be custard-pied to death or run over by a miniature car at any minute.
Of course, the clowns didn't help themselves.
Commenting on a Facebook page created especially to report sightings of the Burnley clown, a man claiming to be the white-faced one, wrote: "I am sorry to everyone I scared tonight. I will keep my clownings to the parks from now on. Now I have to go to bed but I hope you all have a clowning good day tomorrow.'
later, responding to the sort of abuse you wouldn't normally expect meted out to a man with jelly down his trousers, he added: "Will everyone stop being mean. I am a friendly clown not a bad clown that is why I hide in bushes and behind trees where you least expect so I don't scare anyone."
His last message read: "Am home now. I cleaned some peoples windows, they said to go away but I said I am a clown here to help. Everyone needs a clown in their life.
"'Now I am at home maybe I will go out again later. I am your local neighbourhood friendly clown woof woof.'"
the man who wrote this is probably called Dennis and works in the accountants department for a carpet warehouse. He wrote it wearing his Spiderman pyjamas.
Now the craze-turned-mass-hysteria-turned Christ-the-Apocalypse-is-coming delirium is heading for Hull. Or so Twitter would have you believe.
According to various posters who know someone whose mate knows someone whose brother saw something, a creepy clown has been spotted on the streets of Hull. Maybe.
According to Tweeter Arronferguson, who posted on November 24: "Has anybody heard about the Yorkshire clown hes in hull atm and he either bums you or muggs you depending if youve got out valuable haha omg."
Now, apart from having a very limited grasp of grammar @arronfergie is one of the first to confirm that clowning has reached East Yorkshire. But he's not alone.
Fuelled by media hype – which ashamedly includes this piece – clowns are supposedly being spotted everywhere.
Stephanie Green ( aka @Stephvegreen1) nervously Tweeted, last week: " If u live in hull they clown going round, he'll knock on ur door or window. If u dont who it is dont answers the door thanks."
JCuthbertsgirls followed this with: " THERES A CLOWN IN HULL GOING ROUND SCARING PEOPLE i'm sCARED heLP"
Finally, never one to be left behind former Hull Council leader Carl Minns offered his two-penneth worth on the Pennywise debacle by retweeting a story from the BBC about how the boys in blue are planning to (over) react to this invasion of demonic jesters.
He twote: "Quote of the day : Police have vowed to hunt down the clowns to offer them 'strong words of advice'."
Even a colleague's teenage son came home from school and announced: "Have you heard about this clown going around Hull breaking into people's houses?"
And thus we have the beginnings of mass panic based on no evidence about something which isn't apparently happening. At all.
And there we have it folks; a guide to 21st century internet crazes.
To paraphrase Shakespeare: "It's a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing and wearing trousers two sizes too big."
