I caught the very end tale of this old international tradition. By the time I was a kid, the “freaks of nature” were no longer kosher and soon enough, even the traditional circus with animals is getting nailed as insensitive as the old circus displaying people with “defects.”

You no longer see any of this:

Contortionists…unless they are in the Cirque du Solei which is you know, cool because it does not have bears and lions.

This guy is obviously an exploitation of the human physique and you would never see it nowadays… unless you are watching a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

And the horrors of morbid obesity shown for profit in this day and age? Are you nuts? It is not like we would have cable Reality TV shows like TLC’s My 600 Lbs Life. But that is for the betterment of people…yeah right.

And to use midgets/dwarves…ahem, Little People to entreating? How dare you sir, it is not like again TLC has a show called Little People, Big World, right?

The circus strongman is no longer seen… Oh hell who the fuck are we trying to bullshit? One of them became a frigging governor and you can see acolytes fueled in body altering chemicals and looking even more freakish than anything you could find in the old tents.

Seriously, how many tattoo shows we have on TV right now? And the lady pictured here has a tasteful tattoo compared to the literal crap displayed across our screens.

So no, the Freak Shows are alive and well. They are no longer on the side of the big tent but come directly to our living rooms in  basic cable disguised as “Caring TV” and have social media presence.

Same product, different packaging so we feel better. But at the end of the day, our fascination with Freak Shows is alive and well.