Halloween is a time of year that ushers in creativity and a serious, diehard dedication to DIY costumes. Given that store-bought costumes are a relatively modern invention, patching a costume together from items in your closet, glitter, a glue gun and a dream, is the solution that many people turn to come the week or so before Halloweekend.
This rich history of crafting and creativity has been dampened in the past few Halloween seasons, as ultra-fast fashion companies make Halloween their Super Bowl and act as vehicles for people to buy as many costume options as possible. Namely, corsets from Amazon have taken over, with many people opting to wear a candy-colored corset paired with a mini skirt and a tiara and dubbing themselves a Disney Princess.
Given the brevity of Halloween, I don’t mind this approach, or any of the more “subtle” costumes, especially when they use items you already own. All this considered, it may seem like Halloween is dead–chewed and spat out by fast fashion and lackluster ideas–but the holiday based around death and gore lives another day. How? Through the advent of what the internet, mainly TikTok, has dubbed “gay Halloween.”
When someone cites “gay Halloween,” it’s understood as a costume that is a niche reference to media or pop culture, sometimes including clever wordplay. The more common phrase associated with this term is “I hate gay Halloween, what do you mean you’re…,” followed by the niche reference the person is dressing as. This trend has allowed for unfettered levels of boundless creativity, which has had the effect of infusing a vivacious light back into the Halloween season.
Throughout October, I opened Instagram or TikTok daily to be flooded by photos of people in costumes incredibly dedicated to the bit. What do you mean you’re the lady in the leaves at Great Wolf Lodge, or Miku binder Thomas Jefferson, or Zendaya and her big hat in 2014, or Shane Dawson saying “Guys! I’m kind of getting better!” with rainbow eyeshadow, or the Skims bush thong? Infinite opportunities are at your disposal with this new wave of ornate, referential costumes that pull from the pop culture moments of the past.
I thought that being the Bill from the 1976 Schoolhouse Rock! song “I’m Just a Bill” was creative and topical, but three minutes on Instagram later, I was informed of how woefully underthought my costume is in comparison. But, comparison is the thief of joy, and since my cross country conference meet landed on November 1st, depriving me of truly experiencing Halloweekend at Dickinson, I had a lot of time to sit on some more ideas for niche costumes. And here’s my contribution, I hope it sparks creativity for next year:
- Harry Styles auditioning for X-Factor in 2010
- The gum that Melissa McCarthy chewed while playing Shawn Spicer on SNL
- “Not now sweetie” Sims 4 Meme