Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’ve always handled scary movie characters well. The zombies from 28 Days Later? Love ’em. The Xenomorph from Alien? Used to have actions figures I’d play with as a kid. The dead-eyed demented girl from The Ring? Sign me right the f*ck up. How hard can it be to Leonidas-kick her in the chest and break her little water-logged rib bones? However, in the exact same breath, evil clowns were much more difficult. I never quite had nightmares like the ones with clowns in them. It’s hard to say if the fear stems from watching IT at too young of an age, or getting yelled at by Fonzie the Chuck-E-Cheese Clown during a birthday party, but the panic is there.

Which is why this new creepy-clowns-coming-out-at-night-to-slowly-walk-at-you-while-carrying-a-weapon trend is a bucket-full of f*ck that.

It’s hard to say exactly what type of person thinks it’s a sound idea to walk around dressed up like everyone’s favorite evil piñata, but the overwhelming response seems to not be a good one. Because of a few of these people, schools have been closed, threats have been made, cops are on high alert and birthday clowns everywhere in Texas are burning their costumes.

Naturally, the trend made its way to Twitter where people have been using the hashtag #IfISeeAClown to explain what might go down if they run into nightmare fuel.