Once upon a time, Halloween was about being as frightening as possible. Sure, there is something indeed terrifying about being broken up with via Post-it, and some less-online people are still attached to the classics—a zombie, a devil, et cetera—but Halloween has been co-opted by the internet, and by celebrity culture, in a way that has made it entirely self-indulgent.
Consider Heidi Klum’s famous annual Halloween bash, which she started in 2000. Early on, her costumes evolved from classic (a dominatrix the first year, a vampire in 2005) to more complex (a skinless person in 2011) to complete cosplay. In 2015, Klum appeared as Jessica Rabbit; in 2018, as the ogre version of Fiona from Shrek. Last year, she was a Medusa, and her husband, Tom Kaulitz, a hoplite turned into stone. There are Hollywood-level prosthetics, and, largely, it appears as if her costumes are made more for an image than for a party. Klum, in this space, is both the trendsetter and the shining example of the way our collective take on the holiday has evolved to adjust to our online-first lifestyles.
“Someone I just started working with recently said, ‘We live in a reference economy,’” says stylist Ron Hartleben, who works with Camila Cabello and Tyla, among others. “That really struck me,” he says. “Everything has been done. Everyone has access to all the same images now.” So much so that people in the queer community “have gone about seeking the most niche, obscure reference from a show or pop culture moment and making that their Halloween costume” so that a mere mortal, in this case a cis, heterosexual person, may not understand it. “Gay Halloween is exploiting that obscure moment in pop culture and running with it to create one of the most stupid and entertaining outfits imaginable,” Hartleben says. “As long as you think it’s funny and you get it, you’re doing gay Halloween right.” Consider Benito Skinner and Mary Beth Barone’s costume this year as a shining example of gay Halloween: they dressed as Dakota Johnson and Ellen DeGeneres and even recreated their infamous, viral interview about the actor’s birthday party.