Choosing what to wear for Halloween can be a nightmare.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll spend the previous month concocting ever more elaborate and high-concept outfits, before running out of money and time, then picking up a £2 pair of vampire teeth from Tesco on your way to the party.
But to help you get ahead of the curve, Google has released ‘Frightgeist’, a list of the most-searched-for Halloween costumes. Here are the top 15. Some of them are better than others.
I’ve added in my own personal reviews so you can ensure your Halloween costume is approved by someone on the internet who you’ve never met.
1. IT (Pennywise the evil clown)
I’d say I have an ‘irrational fear of evil clowns’ but, on reflection, that’s a pretty rational thing to be afraid of. Clowns are simply terrifying – evil or not – and this costume has the advantage of actually being scary – a precious rarity in the era of the slutty Halloween costume.
It’s not my intention to slut-shame anyone: if you want to go out in the costume equivalent of a thirst-trap, bearing as much skin as is humanly possible, then you have my full and unconditional backing…on literally any other night of the year.
Call me a fusty old traditionalist, but Halloween is about being scary, goddamnit. It’s about being spooktacular.
2. Witch
Now this is more like it. A time-honoured classic, it’s the kind of Halloween costume that mum used to make.
Not only are witches scary, but there has also been a historical revisionism around the subject in recent years, with historical witches viewed as both victims of misogynistic persecution and also, in some cases, women with an empowering degree of agency.
This has been accompanied by a trend of feminists embracing witch-craft: think of Lana del Rey putting a hex on Donald Trump. This doesn’t appear to have been effective yet.
So going as a witch is actually pretty progressive – you could even go as far as to claim it as a radical feminist gesture. The patriarchy is shaking.
3. Spider-Man
Only acceptable if you’re a six-year-old child, to be honest. Grow up.
4. Dinosaur
This is a cute option, but dinosaurs are just dangerous enough to make it appropriately frightening. You wouldn’t want to get in a fight with a velociraptor in an Oceana smoking area, would you?
5. Descendants
I was really confused by this one as I thought it was referring to the 2011 film of the same name, a gently bittersweet family drama starring George Clooney – which seemed a bizarre source of inspiration for Halloween.
As it turns out, Descendants refers to a series of Disney films about the teenage children of classic villains (Jafar, Cruella de Vil, Maleficent and the Evil Queen from Snow White) and their attempts to navigate high school.
Who knew? Finding out about the popularity of these films was the moment I was finally forced to accept that I am no longer down with the kids.
These villainous adolescents would make a decent costume but if you’re over the age of 18, it risks looking a little creepy. Find someone your own age to dress up as, granddad.
6. Clown
Given that all clowns are evil, going as a regular clown is indistinguishable from going as an evil one. A solid costume but the only problem is: if you, personally, go out on Halloween dressed like this… how would people be able to tell the difference?
Because you’re a clown. Get it?
7. Fortnite
I don’t know what Fortnite is exactly but I gather it’s a ‘video game’ of some sorts.
If you’re a straight guy and considering dressing up as Fortnite for Halloween, why not save some time and money and simply wear a t-shirt that reads ‘I have never before felt the loving touch of a woman’?*
*This is obviously a joke. Fortnite players are entirely able to find love.
8. Chucky
I used to find Chucky pretty scary until the other day, when I read this tweet:
how did chucky manage to murder so many people??? just pick him up and yeet him in the bin. he's a doll
— 𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖎𝖊 🦇 (@thholyghost) October 16, 2018
A solid costume, but if you step to me, I will yeet you in the bin.
9. The 1980s
What does this actually mean? A lot of stuff happened in the 1980s, and most of it was terrible.
I’m sceptical of 1980s nostalgia for this reason; it was an awful decade, one which saw the miners’ strike, the AIDS crisis, the destruction of the very fabric of society from which, 30 years on, we are yet to recover.
But the clothes were pretty funny.
Give this one a miss, unless you’re going as zombie Thatcher, which undeniably would be pretty epic.
10. Unicorns
Well, unicorns aren’t remotely scary so let’s nip this twee nonsense in the bud.
But also, in the parlance of today, ‘unicorn’ refers to a bisexual woman who has threesomes with heterosexual couples. Quite an out-there costume choice – but maybe you could pull it off?
11. Rabbit
Google isn’t giving any specific information about these searches so it’s hard to say exactly what kind of rabbit we’re dealing with here.
If you want to go a straight-up, cute rabbit, might I direct you towards a little known festival called Easter? That might be a little bit more your speed.
If you want to go as the nightmarish, apocalypse-warning rabbit from Donnie Darko, on the other hand, then I can only applaud your good taste and sophistication.
If you want to go as a sexy Playboy Bunny, well who am I, as a man, to deny your agency? You can, and should, dress as sexily as you want.
But if you imagine for one second that such a costume embodies the true spirit of Halloween… you’re lying to yourself, my friend.
12. Pirate
I’m strongly in favour of costumes like this: nothing meta, no try-hard puns, no attempts at satire or social commentary, no wry allusions to Article 50 (this isn’t Have I Got News For You, mate, it’s Halloween – so wisen up and have a bit of respect)… it’s just a good, old-fashioned pirate.
And to that, I think we can all say: ahoy!
13. Stranger Things
It’s likely that the most popular Stranger Things-related costume this year will be the uniform Steve wears at Scoops Ahoy, the ice-cream parlour he’s working at. This is not scary but it’s at least visually distinct, unlike the rest of the characters who are simply wearing… clothes. Dressing up as a child if you’re an adult is a bit weird, if you ask me.
14. Mouse
I can’t for the life of me think why this would be a Halloween trend in 2019. Has there been some viral meme that’s passed me by?
Presumably not, given I spend every waking second of my life on the internet… so why?
Whatever the reason, this is simply not a very good Halloween costume. It’s not sexy, scary, or funny… it’s nothing. And if you go dressed up as Minnie or Mickey, you risk the Disney corporation sending their henchman after you to slap you with a ‘cease and desist’, which might put a dampener on your evening.
15. Harley Quinn
Harley Quinn is a villain of sorts who first rose to prominence played by Margot Robbie in 2016’s Suicide Squad.
The thought of someone doing a Harley Quinn costume with their boyfriend dressed as Jared Leto’s Joker is enough to chill my blood. It’s the couples costume for the kind of people who’d describe themselves as being ‘always one of the weird kids’. Scary… but not in a good way.
If none of these float your boat, ‘Rebecca Vardy’s Instagram account’ is a sure-fire banter option. Alternatively, you could print out Colleen Rooney’s notes-app announcement and simply cellotape it to your face – laughter guaranteed!
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/15/the-15-most-googled-halloween-costumes-of-2019-reviewed-10907492/
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