People are being super mean to Melbourne punk band Clowns on social media

Because apparently they're the ones behind all these terrifying clown sightings..

It's been big internet news for about a week now; people are dressing up as creepy clowns and standing around in public places with both real and fake weapons, just to fuck with people. It's disturbing stuff. Now, I'm no clown-sympathiser and I certainly wouldn't be super cool with seeing one of these guys lurking in my street or at a local park, but I also haven't been losing any sleep over it, and I certainly haven't been taking to social media as part of some anti-clown crusade. Lots of others have, however, with The Great Clown Uprising of 2016 striking a nerve with many who have felt compelled to get stuck into the puffy-pantsed lunatics on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

The past few days have seen Melbourne punk quartet, Clowns (who we happen to be very fond of), copping the brunt of harsh words from the internet's anti-clown squad; who stumbled across the band's social media pages and decided that they must be the masterminds behind the whole clown sighting epidemic. The poor bastards are probably wishing they'd called themselves 'Jesters' at this point, posting about their ongoing struggles to their Facebook fans earlier today: "Still receiving abusive messages every 5 minutes, no joke..." Take a look at a couple of the exchanges below, and remember: always do your research before giving someone a massive spray on social media.