Maybe it is just me, but it seems like Halloween has exploded in popularity over the last 10-ish years. It has gone from a day that was primarily centered around kids dressing up and trick-or-treating, wearing good but not great costumes, to a social media fashion show where people wear (and post) not one but sometimes several elaborate Halloween costumes. I cannot remember many adults dressing up when I was a kid, not even the parents who would take their kids trick-or-treating. Perhaps my memory is bad, but I remember that, for the most part, adults more or less dressed as themselves. Now, I have no gripe with what people do. I believe people should have the freedom to express themselves, so no judgment here. Rather, what I want to explore in this blog is the why behind Halloween’s explosion. And no, I’m not going to go for the low-hanging fruit of people just loving the attention on and outside of social media. I think the why is more layered than that, and maybe even something most do not realize. This is not verbatim, but I once heard something along the lines of, Halloween is the one day you don’t have to wear a mask. I am not sure the extent to which I believe that to be true, but it is interesting and is the compass that will guide our exploration here.
Fear of judgment is in our DNA, as it is essential for survival. Think back even just a few hundred years ago. If you were judged (fairly or unfairly) for what you did or who you were, that meant you would be cast out, ostracized, and left to your own devices. In those days, that severely impacted the likelihood of survival. In the spirit of Halloween, take the Salem Witch Trials, for example. Any behavior deemed peculiar would put a person on trial and potentially result in death. As such, the residents of colonial Massachusetts had to put on (metaphorical) masks and costumes to avoid being wrongly judged and killed. To paraphrase what former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn once famously said, "If you wanna get along, you gotta go along." This is an extreme example with extreme consequences, neither of which are closely present today. But it speaks to the fear of judgment we have and the lengths we go to avoid or mitigate it.
Every day, we put on masks and costumes—to be liked, to be loved, and to avoid being criticized.
Halloween is the only day we get to choose the costumes we wear, the masks we take on. In essence, Halloween allows us to take on a role we need not fear judgment for. You can be whoever you want; you can do whatever you please without the anxiety of being judged. In a world where we are hypervigilant about how we look, what we post, and the image others hold in their minds of us, Halloween has become the one day where that worry does not exist.
The freedom and level of carefree attitude we have toward our self-image on Halloween should be the everyday norm. In fact, Halloween should be the one day each year when you don’t have to be your most authentic self, but when you can be something you’re not. But we have it backward. For many, we are our most inauthentic selves 364 days a year and our most authentic selves one day. Be who you are and don’t be ashamed of it. Those who love you will still be with you. Those who don’t accept you? Well, it’s for the best that they won’t be around you.
