clown
Gricean Maxims
He was an inquisitive person by nature, but he expected his questions to be answered by sentences, not by videos of unicycling naked sumo clown
Overcompensating for laughter or for love
Tom became a clown because with his makeup on, nobody could tell he was depressed. This was the same reason his sister became an escort.

Ironically, he didn't see it coming.