I haaaaaaaaate clowns. Haaaaaaaaaaaate. And apparently, I’m not alone. But Clowns of America International, apparently a trade association for clowns (here’s hoping I never acidentally run into their convention in Vegas), wants you to know that there’s nothing to fear. Except for that one time John Wayne Gacy dressed up like a clown to entertain at children’s parties between murder sprees, clowns are a mostly agreeable bunch. And definitely nothing like the psychotic clown on American Horror Story: Freak Show, Twisty, who chops people up with scissors.

Take it from Glenn Kohlberger, their president (clown name: Clyde D. Scope): clowns are an unfairly maligned bunch.

“We do not support in any way, shape or form any medium that sensationalizes or adds to coulrophobia or ‘clown fear,’” says Glenn Kohlberger…

“Hollywood makes money sensationalizing the norm. They can take any situation no matter how good or pure and turn it into a nightmare,” Kohlberger says. 

Let’s run down the facts. Grown men wear bizarre clothing, paint their faces with terrifying giant smiles, and subsist on scaring the bejeezus, perhaps unintentionally, out of impressionable children. I don’t need Twisty chopping an amorous mid-century high school couple to ribbons in the middle of a field to be creeped out by the whole concept. Also, they’re clowns. Yeesh.