Halloween is a world-renowned holiday that all people know of, and most people love. With this seemingly month-long event, great creativity and festivity are always bound to ensue. Over the years, Halloween costumes have gradually changed and evolved, resulting in different trends popping up due to the influence of pop culture, celebrity and television influence alike.
In the 2000s, Halloween costumes tended to focus more on humor and lighthearted fun. This can clearly be seen when you consider Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon dressing as the classic snack combination Cookies and Milk in 2008, or when you recall Snooki dressing as ‘The Pickle Queen’ in 2009. With the top two most popular Halloween costumes in the 2000s being ‘The Joker’ and ‘Spongebob’, it is visible that the media that was popular at the time had a large influence on the way people wanted to dress for Halloween.
In the 2010s, the overall theme of Halloween costumes started to see a palpable shift in the way people wanted to express themselves. With Rihanna dressing as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in 2014 and Cardi B dressing as Cruella de Vil, the 2010s saw an uprise of strong and resilient characters being represented, especially when you see that the top two costumes of the decade were from ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ and ‘Game of Thrones’. This shift could have possibly been inspired by the progression of social acceptance (due to how expression of more obscure interests started to gain traction), or maybe just due to the rising interest in superhero-oriented media.
“Participants expressed wanting to dress up as Hello Kitty, Katniss Everdeen from ‘The Hunger Games’, and even Little Bo Peep!”
However, in today’s times, creativity in Halloween costumes has seemed to skyrocket over the past couple of years. From interviewing a couple people about their opinions about Halloween and what they wanted to dress as this year, the participants expressed utmost excitement towards the activity, showing that morale for the holiday itself has definitely not fizzled out. Participants expressed wanting to dress up as Hello Kitty, Katniss Everdeen from ‘The Hunger Games’, and even Little Bo Peep! With the vast variety of costumes we have seen over the years, people have not failed to utilize every possibility to the fullest, and most are planning to go all out to show off their Halloween spirit this year!
