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Two Years On, The Pennywise Thirst Has Finally Dried Up

Leah Williams Avatar
Leah Williams
Two Years On, The Pennywise Thirst Has Finally Dried Up

Has the evil truly been defeated?

In case you’ve forgotten the wild sexual fervour that surrounded the release of 2017’s It, I’m here to remind you. When this film was first unleashed on the world, everybody was thirsting over that goddamn clown. You couldn’t go a single moment without someone whispering ‘daddy’ in Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd direction, or using the phrase ‘down to clown’ liberally.

To be clear, when you encounter a killer clown, the appropriate response is this:

The rampant horniness for Pennywise was unending in 2017, and it was everywhere. It tainted my viewing of the film. It infiltrated my friendship circles. It appeared in my dreams. But — and it gives me all the pleasure in the world to say this — the clown horniness might finally have come to an end.

Perhaps it was a mixture of Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd weird brooding energy and Cro-Magnon forehead and Pennywise’s strange shapeshifting abilities that forced the demonic sexual energies to leak off this film. Maybe young teens all have a closeted clown fetish. Whatever the reason, this ancient demon had fleets of fans begging to ride his tricycle and toot his big horn.

[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/way-too-many-people-want-to-bone-the-clown-from-it/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/makemefloat-410×231.jpg” title=”Way Too Many People Want To Bone The Clown From It” excerpt=”Far be it from me to kink shame, but I feel like it’s probably OK to ask questions when someone wants to bone a murderous supernatural clown.”]

Just to give you a small taste of the unbridled horniness that the internet had to offer in 2017, I present you with some key pieces of evidence. Peruse at your own risk.

https://pennywiseconfessions.tumblr.com/post/165556539704

https://pennywiseconfessions.tumblr.com/post/165356886949

Okaaayyy, I believe that evidence is enough to suffice. Let’s just all settle for the knowledge that once upon a time, people thirsted for the forbidden clown juice, and now the tide has stemmed — or at least, gone into hiding.

I trawled through several pages of Twitter thoughts and reactions to It Chapter Two and — to my great surprise — the Pennywise thirst is becoming a rare beast. In fact, it might just be safe to go back into the murky clown-filled waters now.

Maybe it’s because Pennywise is (airquotes) “cancelled” now.

[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2019/09/it-chapter-twos-queer-subplot-is-too-subtextual-to-be-scary-good/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/qddbq6o6uxiahh8kfb9t.png” title=”It Chapter Two’s Queer Subplot Is Too Subtextual To Be Scary Good” excerpt=”It Chapter Two opens with a horrific, homophobic hate crime that Stephen King plucked from the headlines and incorporated into his 1986 novel. After a group of very human bigots attack Adrian Mellon and his boyfriend, they unceremoniously dump Adrian over the side of the bridge, and just as he begins to drown, he sees a figure beckoning him from the shore. A clown.”]

After all, he did actively cause a homophobic hate crime in Derry and murder a gay man in front of his boyfriend — an act of terror incited directly by his evil juju.

Despite Pennywise’s many, many murders and creepy antics in the original film, perhaps it’s one violent hate crime that caused the thirst-havers to reconsider the object of their affections. To remind you all, Pennywise is pure evil, and I very much doubt he’d be down for long walks in the woods or some good, hard bonking. His sole purpose is killing and eating, so how he became a sex symbol in the first place is a mystery to me.

Trawling through Twitter, perhaps it would be more apt to say that the thirst never really ‘went away’, it’s just transformed — but thankfully, the current object of the internet’s affection is far more deserving. Instead of thirsting over some festy clown that lives in the sewers, the internet now stans phenomenal actor Bill Hader, famous for his roles in SNL and currently starring in the fantastic HBO series, Barry. (You should all watch Barry, it is very good.)

This time around the thirst, surprisingly, is pretty tasteful. It’s a welcome change.

Finally, the clown curse has been broken. We are free.

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