Recently, every time I’ve opened my TikTok I’ve seen videos of girls unboxing their Halloween costumes, trying them on and running trials of their make-up looks. I don’t mean just a few videos either. It’s more four in a row, then a break, then another three.
I always watch them and I get excited every time. That kind of thing is one of the many reasons October is my favourite time of year. Everyone gets so creative and finds ways to express themselves that they wouldn’t normally. Fashion is always a form of self expression, but Halloween really is the one night, or few nights, of the year where you can be someone entirely different and look around to see everyone else doing the same.
Recently, I think people have started to lose focus of that fun, freedom based lens of the holiday. I’ll open the comments to those videos and without fail, there is always someone saying that “Halloween is supposed to be scary,” or expressing disappointment and frustration over someone else’s costume choice.
I think the point of a holiday surrounding the idea of dressing up is that it’s not “supposed to be” anything. Sure, it definitely can be scary. It’s definitely the season of horror movies, haunted houses and decorations that jump at you or make loud noises when you walk past. Even Kingston has its very own “Haunted Walk,” although whether you consider that scary or fun thematic history is up to you.
There’s also a lot about Halloween that isn’t scary and hasn’t really ever been. Trick-or-treating as a kid isn’t really all that scary. I might even go as far to say that it’s the opposite, with little kids running around in tutus, capes and masks and laughing as the sun goes down. I think when I was that age, the only really scary part of Halloween was hiding bits of my candy from my parents so they wouldn’t say “It’s too late for a chocolate bar.” I can probably count on one hand the amount of houses I was nervous to go up to, and the amount of people who answered the door with a scary trick that had me wanting to go home.
Just because we don’t trick-or-treat like we used to doesn’t mean we have to lose the jovial spirit of the holiday. It’s not all that different from when we were kids, really. We still dress up with our friends, dress up ourselves to show off our costumes to our friends and run around laughing in the dark. We go to our friends houses, they come to ours and we go from there. Not to mention midterm season is coming to a close and most people are able to have fun without the looming threat of getting up the next day to study hanging over them.
I think that’s part of why I get so excited seeing those Tiktoks, and why I watch each one through. It’s special to see people get creative and explore something new in an environment that fosters that. Halloween can be whatever you make of it, and whether you chose for that to be scary or not is entirely your choice. If you decide to dress up for the weekend, let yourself have fun with it. Play your music, do your makeup, take pictures and maybe even film your own Tiktoks. There are so many nights in the year to worry about how people perceive us, why spend the few nights that are meant to celebrate self expression doing anything but having fun?