EMMO
Staff Lampoonist
Every year it seems Halloween is a competition to one-up each other with funny, quirky, clever and over-the-top costumes. The TV/movie character, pop culture reference, meme and pun costume — like Taco Belle, Spice Girls, etc. — have become commonplace.
It’s truly incredible how the concept of the Halloween costume has changed, but isn’t it time to celebrate Halloween the way it was meant to be celebrated — you know, by being something scary? To bring back the holiday’s true spirit, here are some spooky costumes that you can make yourself and are guaranteed to put some fright back in Halloween night.
- Student loan debt. You’ll want to look exactly like a dementor from the “Harry Potter” series. Nothing symbolizes student loans better than these foul creatures that consume all hope and happiness, leaving their victims an empty shell of their former selves. Simply print out your loan statements and glue them all over your body. Wear a long, black, hooded, flowing grim reaper-like robe. Only wear black clothing underneath and wear a pair of skeleton gloves for the finishing touch. Other students will tremble with terror when they face the incarnation of inescapable debt that they will encounter six months after they graduate!
- Drunk texts. I’m sure you’ve seen people wearing a painted cardboard box with drawn-on apps and an Apple logo on the back. The idea here is pretty much the same, except with a horrifying twist. Using a white piece of construction paper or posterboard for the phone screen, blue and gray construction paper for the message bubbles and a Sharpie, you can recreate your most regrettable and embarrassing drunk texts. The options are endless. You can go with the late night booty call, the take-me-back text to your ex or even the accidental sext you sent to your mom. Be creative!
- Sexually transmitted diseases. LoGrasso is sure to be busy the day after Halloween, but consider making your Halloween costume a tribute to the struggles students will face the night of Halloween. Hot glue broken condoms to your mid-thigh-high dress and draw some oddly shaped red dots on your face, fingers and unmentionables. You’ll get bonus points if you actually contract an STD — and even more if you pass one along to your friends!
- Search history. Feeling brave? This is the costume for you. Use a piece of posterboard and your artistic skills to draw your computer monitor and, with a Sharpie, write your recent search history on it. Poke two holes in the top, and tie it around your neck with a piece of rope. You’ll either horrify everyone with your oddly specific and disturbing taste in porn or make everyone paranoid about their own search histories.
- High similarity on Turnitin. There’s nothing more panic-inducing than procrastinating a paper until an hour before it’s due, submitting it to this plagiarism watchdog — or should I say hellhound — and being told that your paper is not original enough. It could be that those box quotes are to blame. You probably should have reworded the two paragraphs that you cut and pasted from Wikipedia a little better as well. For this costume, all you need is a white t-shirt and a printer. Print out one of your recent papers, the Turnitin logo and “40 percent similarity.” Tape them to your shirt.
- Unemployment vs. Bad employment. Here’s a cute couple idea for you and your partner: one of you dress up in a beer-stained wifebeater and baggy, ripped sweatpants while the other dresses up in garb donned by workers at their favorite fast food establishment. This will give both of you the opportunity to represent different forms of grease, but in a romantic sort of way. Walk around with a welfare card and a cardboard sign attached to your back that reads: “Will work 4 candy.”
Middle school version of you. Scare your Fredonia friends with the awkward, repulsive, preteen version of yourself. Bring back that awful haircut, the braces and the acne. Look through some of your old photos or your middle school yearbook for inspiration. Remember that scene-kid phase you went through? Make people physically uncomfortable with the most cringey, insecure you that they wish they never knew. Let those deeply repressed memories of early puberty resurface for this terrifying costume.