The horror movies created the fear. Stephen king wrote It about an evil clown (inspired by John Wayne Gacy) because he wanted to explore the predatory horror of a character that children love harming them. He wrote a corrupted clown terrifying because it transgressed. Then it got popular and a bunch of other fiction writers lifted a good idea, as artists tend to do.
The horror movies created the fear. Stephen king wrote It about an evil clown (inspired by John Wayne Gacy) because he wanted to explore the predatory horror of a character that children love harming them. He wrote a corrupted clown terrifying because it transgressed. Then it got popular and a bunch of other fiction writers lifted a good idea, as artists tend to do.