There was a post from halfchan an anon put up here, wish I saved it. They figured clowns could follow the colors in the hair to see how long these memes made it to normieland. It was based on the hair colors all being identical, which implies one source. Thats what I remember from the post, FWIW.
Appears to be, just started maybe less than a week ago, and when I tried to find the original post on halfchan it was 404'd