A Barnum Statement is a phrase used by conmen (for example a psychic) to try and make people think they have some deep insight into their psychology or life.
They are also commonly used in horoscopes

Barnum Statements are statements which most people will agree with, regarding themselves, while not realizing that almost every other person will also agree with them regarding their own lives

examples are:
"you have a good sense of humor, but not everyone sees it"
"you tend to think about things before taking action"
"You have had some major challenges in your life"
"you recently had a disagreement with someone you care for"

The tendency to accept certain vague or worthless information as true, such as character assessments, horoscopes, psychic predictions and/or exaggerated claims.

When you have a normal life with a loving husband and two kids, but you decide to exchange it in your early middle age for a traveling circus life of failed business ventures, and monthly domestic violence incidents with the local white trash king who has sired half the illegitimate children in town, including your own new baby daughter.

n. Moderate to severe depression in a performer or staff person after giving birth to a fantastic blow-your-mind show, when the cast and crew diaspora leaves your hitherto fervent banner flaccid in the listless echoing breeze. Onset is typically a few days after the blowout closing party.

Symptoms include sadness, fatigue, insomnia, appetite changes, having the libido of an awkward teenaged virgin, crying episodes, hysterical laughter, irritability, staring at Google Maps, the tuneless humming of barn-revival spirituals, chromatic-motion melodies in 6/8 time, or minor-key adaptations of Survivor's 'Eye Of The Tiger', and Facebook status updates.

Food-related cravings are not uncommon, especially for hot dogs, or paper and plastic bags of salty-yet-sweet snack foods (e.g., kettle corn). A dull disappointment is inevitable when the lid is removed from a can of peanut brittle and the sufferer is not EVER greeted by spring-loaded snakes. Honestly, what's the use.

Commonly abbreviated as PBD.

Closely related to "post-camp depression" (PCD), "post-con syndrome" (PCS), "whoa, too fun" (WTF).

Derived from circus-animally, it is a term used to describe an out-of-hand situation that tends to result in a giant cluster fuck

A burger that comes with fingerling potatoes and is flavored with bay leaves

An American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth

The Chicago Tribune reporter from 1993-1994 that reported on the subject that became the archetype for a creepypasta. In 2002 as the writer that penned the story played it up as a much harder successor of Edgar Allan Poe The Tell-Tale Heart as he relates aspects that took place before the story first broke and into what Art Barnum related. As of this era he's no longer with The Tribune but he reported on the events since they first broke. The Cabbie Homicide's writer found the articles years later as the dialog he did in the story mirrored Art's report. He pointed this out in his expose rebuking Kealan Patrick Burke as well as a gossip blogging bugchaser from Phoenix who verbally used The Cabbie Homicide for his personal urinal as he's known for Barbed Wire Kisses. The combination between the articles Art did and Cabbie, there's creepypasta fodder "Cabbie's Killer Sentenced" as this was reported on November 11, 1994; when the latter story's writer got shitfaced drunk in Urbana to numb himself from even knowing what his classmate did as he thought the classmate was selling wolf tickets.

(Adult) A baby, miniature man. Bald and gay- immune to heat.