Why Don’t Any of You Dumb Nuts Understand My Minimalist Halloween Costume?
What am I dressed as for Halloween? What am I dressed as for Halloween? Are you kidding me? Take a look at me. I have a black T-shirt on. Aeropostale jeans from ten years ago. You seriously don’t know? I guess I’m just surrounded by people who don’t read the news, watch conspiracy theory documentaries, or think deeply about the world around them. Idiots. Think long and hard. Is the stance I’m making too complicated for your thick brain? I look around this semi-finished basement and see a lot of corporate store-bought costumes here tonight. It’s no surprise none of you are understanding The Statement I’m making.
Man, the commercialization of Halloween costumes makes me sick. During my latest hunger strike, the time between lunch and dinner, I decided to walk into that prison of a store, which I can barely bring myself to say. Like come on, when I walk the aisles of Sp…Sp…Spirit Halloween and get sneered at by the stoned high school-aged employees, I can’t help but be disgusted by the capitalist nature of it all. For example, ‘Man with Mask and Knife’? How original! I know that’s Michael Myers, nice try Universal Studios, but you’re not slick. But corporations like Spirit Halloween are the reason why I’m sending a big message with my costume, a black shirt and jeans, an actually really clever costume with a really deep subtext about society.
You guys are pathetic and make me sick. I can’t wait to tell my Dungeons and Dragons group about this, they’ll all get a real kick out of your cute little pre-packaged Harley Quinn costume and your DIY “Netflix & Chill’’ couples costume. Those costumes are telling you what to believe about society. Me and my black shirt and jeans are the ones telling society what to believe. This is why my DNDers are the only ones who understand me. And that’s why for Comic-Con this past year, we went as the entire main cast of the League of Legends, a real commentary on modern day classism. I went as Ryze, of course. I even shaved my head for the occasion, and my mom was able to find some reasonably priced purple paint that glowed in the dark to represent his energies online. Our Dungeon Master Kyle even brought his real sword he bought from Renaissance Faire a couple years ago, $5,000. And —
What? No, this isn’t the same. Comic-Con, Crunchyroll Expo, AnimeFest, Fanimecon, and all the other events that me and my friends spend tens of thousands of dollars on every single year to attend is not the same. It’s glaringly different from your unoriginal, uninspired, lacking authority Halloween costume of you in a blow-up plastic sumo wrestler costume, you piece of shit. So let me just stop you right there.
This isn’t the first time my costumes and me in general have been misunderstood. Like any explanation for why people are weird, it all comes from a deep-rooted childhood trauma. It’s 2004. I ring my neighbor’s doorbell, announcing that I’m trick or treating, to smell my feet, and demanding they give me something good to eat. The neighbors slowly opened the door and looked at me in horror. They asked what I was supposed to be, young man? I thought these tall humans were supposed to be educated and clearly understand I was making a staunch anti-Iraq War statement with my blue T-shirt and basketball shorts. I really thought parents were the smartest people in the world, but I guess they are just all oil barons helping the corporatization of Halloween. What was there not to get?
Since you’ve all been begging me to tell you all what I am and what I represent this Halloween, I’ll give in to your pleas: I am — clearly — social media. The 1%. I am everything that is wrong with society right at this particular moment. And the fact that you couldn’t see that….alarming. Jarring. The reason why Trump won back in 2016. And that, is the scariest thing of all.
