Authorities have stressed that the clowns are not dangerous, nor, despite considerable effort on their part, are they particularly scary.
"They're just fucking everywhere," said Emily Bloodrose, who encountered seven clowns during a twenty-minute shopping trip on Thursday.
"I went into a club and there was one standing behind the DJ, then I went to a shop and there was one sitting on a barrel. Then I opened Primfeed and there was some bloke in white face paint staring at the camera with blood coming out of his mouth. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. Am I frightened? Do I call someone? Do I like it?"
The annual outbreak traditionally begins in late September when the first male avatar buys a clown skin, black contact lenses and a blood-covered Victorian waistcoat and decides that nobody in Second Life has ever thought of this before. Within approximately 48 hours, thousands appear. Most can be identified by their white faces, enormous smiles, red noses, inexplicable facial wounds and a tendency to stand completely still at the edge of photographs.
Experts believe the behaviour is intended to be sinister. "It's very important not to panic," said Professor Raven Moonbeam of the Second Life Centre for Seasonal Bullshit. "The clown may attempt to frighten you by tilting his head slightly to one side. Remain calm, he may then crouch, again, remain calm. In extreme cases he may hold a blood-covered balloon while looking directly at you. At this point you should simply walk around him."
Nightclubs have been particularly badly affected. Several venues now contain more clowns than customers, with DJs struggling to perform while surrounded by avatars dressed as demonic circus performers slowly dancing to remixes of Dua Lipa.
One club owner admitted the atmosphere had become difficult. "We had six in here last night," she said.
"One was crawling around on all fours. Another had no eyes. One had a chainsaw. Then somebody requested Murder on the Dancefloor and they all started doing the same dance animation. It took the edge off it."
Shop owners have also begun placing decorative clowns beside entrances, apparently concerned that customers might otherwise forget it is October. These usually consist of a pale man sitting on a chair with his head hanging down, surrounded by blood, children's toys and writing on the wall saying things such as WANNA PLAY? Researchers have confirmed that nobody does.
Primfeed has meanwhile become almost unusable. Residents scrolling through photographs of sunsets, new outfits and somebody announcing that they "don't do drama anymore" are now routinely confronted by close-up photographs of clowns accompanied by captions including HE'S WATCHING YOU, SWEET DREAMS and simply 🤡🔪🩸.
"It's relentless," said one user. "I saw a genuinely unsettling photograph yesterday, it was a woman wearing normal clothes standing in a kitchen, I'd forgotten what people looked like."
Authorities believe the infestation will peak around Halloween before disappearing almost overnight on 1 November, when the clowns will quietly return to being heavily tattooed men called things like ƊΛƦƘ ƜӨԼƑ.
Professor Moonbeam said residents should remember that the creatures are considerably more frightened of you than you are of them. "Actually, that's not true," she admitted. "They desperately want you to be frightened of them. That's really the whole problem."
The Second Liar attempted to interview one clown outside a shopping event this morning. He stared silently at us before slowly raising a blood-covered knife. “Nothing?” he said. We explained that we had seen quite a lot of clowns. He followed us through three shops explaining that his costume was based on a much darker interpretation of the character he was aspiring to be and that we probably hadn’t read the original book.
Eventually we pretended to be frightened so he would fuck off. He asked if we could put that in the article.