i wonder what evolutionary niche clowns evolved to fill
Apex predator.
No im pretty sure they started as a prey animal, that’s why their pupils are rectangles
Short answer: They are physiological designed to be the perfect children’s entertainer.
Long Answer: They didn’t really evolve at all. They were selectively bred alongside mimes, which share a common ancestor, the Jester. Jesters are, of course, the domesticated descendant of Bards, from which the entire Entertainer genus evolved.
Clowns were bred to be appealing to small children who would (theoretically) be more interested in the clown’s bright colors, silly antics, and slapstick comedy.
Mimes were bred to be more appealing to older audiences, for whom color and simplicity are as likely to be disinteresting as fascinating.
This is a dangerous oversimplification. Party clowns were bred to entertain children, and many modern circus clowns are crossbreeds with high party clown content (the party clown’s bright coloration being a desirable trait) but the party clown’s gentle nature and poor reflexes makes purebreeds a poor fit for the circus. The ones you see in the circus are generally crossed with mimes or acrobats.
Generalizing clowns as children’s entertainment leads to tragedy when people think they can trust any clown with small children when many breeds are temperamentally unsuited for that kind of thing - rodeo clowns are notoriously high-strung, funhouse clowns can be mean-spirited, and while the evil clown’s name is something of a misnomer you should still never leave a child alone with one.
To that note. The ancestry doesn’t stop at bards. It goes back to poets! See a particular breed of poet back in the Gaels time were actually quite formidable. They were ruthless and unstoppable to the point of dethroning kings with their sick burns alone. In attempt to harness their power and strength they were cross bred with european writers who were already fully domesticated under the heel of the ruling church. This produced the well known bard with their shanty and songs while still maintaining a bit of their ruthless bite they were prised for. While never quite as effective as the Gaelic poet they maintained their popularity.
The poets however began to fall out of favor and were mostly wiped out. But threads of their heraldry can still be seen today with americanized poet cross breeds. While not retaining their classic power of the Gaelic poets they still maintained their respectable cunning and might of word we can still see today in clubs and spoken word events.
actually entertainer species of one kind or another have been present throughout pretty much all of recorded history. even paleolithic art documents the evolution of homo coulros alongside early humans
history didn’t begin with europe. humans and clowns have coexisted since the beginning
fun fact: while prevailing scientific attitudes tend to assume that clowns were predominantly a scavenger species, there is some evidence that early clowns & humans hunted together
This entire thread is a fever dream am I dead??
surely death would be more peaceful
Unironically, as a trained clown (no, really) I find this really funny because you are literally describing how these types of clowns historically came about IRL and doing so with surprising accuracy. I learned this in actual clown school y'all. Your shitposting is accidentally (?) real, factual Clowning History and I can’t get over that.
They’re still evolving
