About

Hollow Knight: Silksong Fans In Clown Makeup refers to a fan art trend depicting the main characters of Hollow Knight and its announced sequel Silksong in clown makeup, typically a rainbow wig and a red nose. Such pieces tend to appear when a video game presentation like a Nintendo Direct or Xbox Showcase is announced, leading to speculation that there will be news about Silksong. When there is no news about Silksong in that presentation, the fans depict themselves as clowns by posting the characters in clown makeup for getting their hopes up yet again.

Origin

Silksong, the sequel to 2017's Hollow Knight, was first announced in February 2019. After a year of no updates about the title, the first meme associating Silksong fans with clowns was posted on August 7th, 2020, on X / Twitter^[1] by @mossbag69. The post gained over 400 retweets and 2,000 likes in nearly four years (shown below).

Spread

Over the following several years, memes depicting the game's player character from Hollow Knight and the Hornet (the main character from Silksong) in clown makeup and costume appeared throughout the fandom, particularly around video game presentations in which Silksong could conceivably get an update.

For example, on September 23rd, 2021, Redditor Bossmanperson17 posted a picture of Hornet in clown makeup, gaining over 2,100 points in nearly three years in /r/HollowKnight^[2] (shown below, left). On December 9th, Redditor GaelSK posted an image of the the Knight in clown makeup in /r/HollowKnight,^[3] gaining over 3,000 points in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

In June 2022, Xbox stated that Silksong would be out within the year. The news led to a surge in memes that depicted fans removing their clown makeup. For example, on June 12th, 2022, Twitter user @_therusan_^[4] posted a clip of Hollow Knight looking at Hornet taking off the clown makeup, gaining over 260 retweets and 1,200 likes in two years (shown below).

However, as of April 17th, 2024, Silksong has barely received any updates, and the meme remains active. For example, on April 17th, Twitter user @zenzlia^[5] posted art of the Hollow Knight and the doll from Bloodborne as clowns, gaining over 570 retweets and 4,100 likes in less than one day (shown below).

Various Examples

Related Memes

Putting on Clown Makeup

Putting on Clown Makeup, also known as Clown Makeup Tutorial refers to a series of memes based on a step-by-step tutorial guide for applying clown makeup. The format gained initial popularity on Twitter in June 2019 and spread to Reddit, Tumblr and other social networks in the following months, usually used to illustrate a person making an increasingly larger fool of himself by providing arguments which are deemed increasingly weak or illogical.

Search Interest

External References