Top 5: Things I Hate About Halloween

It’s that time of year again, when fall is upon us, the trees are changing color, and for us here in the Pacific Northwest, the rain is back. Pumpkin spice flavoring will be put into everything white people buy, and soon, Halloween will be upon us. I haven’t been a fan of Halloween since I was told I wouldn’t be getting any more free candy and I wouldn’t be dressing up as superheroes anymore. There is a strange repose in this holiday, between childhood and college age, where it isn’t cool anymore. Once a person hits about 21, it suddenly becomes cool to dress up and use it as an excuse to get shitfaced and hammered. So, without any further delay, I give you all five reasons I hate this holiday as an adult.

1) The Tradition Of Giving Kids Free Candy Is Crazy

This is the only time of the year we knock on strangers doors and they give our kids stuff for it. Any other time of the year, if we knocked on strange doors, we’d be met with considerable aggression, I’m sure. But, during Halloween, we as an entire culture, dress up our kids and let them rob our neighbors. Now, our neighbors know this is coming, so they prepare for it. They answer the door with a bowl full of candy in hand. When you really think about it, though, it’s as strange as trying to imagine the first person to see a cow udder and think...if I suck on this, something delicious will surely come out and my thirst for bodily fluids will be sated. Most other times, adults preparing to give children free candy would be considered a felony—and, those kids wouldn’t be coming back from the houses they are lured into.

2) College Halloween Parties Are The Worst

When I was at Purdue University, I went to a few Halloween parties and they were all fucking awful. We didn’t have Dollar Tree back home at the time, but they were always adorned with the cheapest decorations Walmart could offer. There would be a five dollar cover charge, for which you would get an orange plastic cup and access to the cheapest keg beer money could buy. These parties would always take place in the shittiest college apartments you can imagine, with stains from God-knows-what all over every surface you could find. In retrospect, I am aware these parties were also the hunting grounds for young rapists, but not being of the rapist variety, I just got blackout drunk for cheap and went home. In retrospect, that would have been an ideal time to dress up as a superhero and actually save someone... but, I was young and naive then, and actually believed that most frat boys weren’t rapists.

3) As We Get Older, Our Costumes Get Closer And Closer To Being Naked

This is nearly universally true, so much so, as to be a trope—or, a meme, as we would call it now. Young ladies start out dressing as a nurse or a kitty cat. But, as they get older, those costumes contain less and less fabric (and, more and more lace). Men aren’t getting off free and clear, either, as kids, we dressed as heroes, policeman, firemen and all manner of things we wanted to be when we grew up. As adults, we dress like assholes, which, if you think about it, was always what we were going to end up being anyway. I am not here to slut-shame women for their costumes though—your body, your clothes, your rights as a human—you do you, booboo. I do want to criticize those dudes wearing giant dick costumes, though. You bros are the worst and I don’t care for your kind one bit, at all. Y’all ladies out there shaking what your momma gave you, though? To that, I say, keep the faith and dress up however you want, but you don’t need a special day...in America, every day can be Slutty Kitten Day.

4) White People Dress Up In Dumbass Ways

Every single year, without fail, I see at least a dozen viral "news" reports about a bunch of privileged white kids wearing blackface, or Native dress, or God knows what. If you have a culture, white people are going to appropriate the shit out of that culture during Halloween, with absolutely no regard for social norms and conventions. I mean, seriously, who in their right fucking mind thinks a bunch of bros from Zeta Reticuli Ki can wear blackface? They do it, though—they do it every fucking year, like clockwork. Other people’s cultures are not your playground white people...get your shit together...get all your shit...get it together...put it in a backpack... whatever...just get it together, for fuck’s sake.

5) We Get It—You Wear Black And Worship Satan

The holidays are my least favorite time to use social media. I mean, I hate holidays on social media more than I hate 9/11 on social media—and, boy howdy, do I hate that a lot. Given that I have a certain personality that draws in a certain type of person, I have a ton of people on my feed who are Wiccan, Pagan, Satanist or some other kind of fringe religion or cult member. These people take this time of year to remind us all about how our holidays are stolen from Pagan traditions, or some other condescending shit that every single person who has ever seen a history channel special already knows. They make extra sure to remind you that they never take down their Halloween decorations, because, in the dark, black heart of an edgelord, every day is Halloween. They Google some shit and talk about All Hallow’s Eve or the Salem Witch Trials, then proceed to be even more annoying than people that put up Christmas trees in September (or, people who think 9/11 wasn’t an inside job). We get it, Becky, you worship the dark lord and drink blood...but, you should still wear sunblock, ‘cause melanoma comes for all, even the wards of the darkest powers. Also, 9/11 was an inside job.