This post is written by a member of the Debut Contributor Network. Read on for Christine’s Halloween costume ideas:
Let’s update this year’s fall festivities, shall we? Ghosts and witches aren’t so scary to the millennial generation anymore. This Halloween, we delve into the modern-day fears.
1. Donald Trump as president
It’s been nearly a year and the concept of Donald Trump being president is still downright terrifying. He stands for everything the millennial fears. His backwards views and hair-trigger temper makes for a seriously insane world with him at its helm.
How to costume:
- Get the worst short blonde wig you can find.
- Apply an insane amount of spray tan (or use orange face paint, as long as you make sure it’s all relatively safe/non-toxic!).
- Wear a suit.
- Buy a pack of party poppers and at a specific point of the night, get some friends to set them off to celebrate your presidency.
2. Student loans
Now, we’re talking about the piles and piles of money that you owe to the government for your wild Fresher’s binge. In the UK, if you can’t pay them back after a while they will essentially disappear. But that doesn’t mean that feeling you get when you realise how much money you owe every year disappears too.
How to costume:
- Get some toy money and attach as much as you can to yourself.
- Find or create a mortarboard out of card.
- Proceed to spend the night chasing after various people as the money they don’t have.
3. The awkward Tinder hook-up
Whether they’re sending super inappropriate pictures or trying to impress you with awful pick-up lines, we’re all fearful of the dreaded awkward Tinder hook-up.
Sure, online dating is the way to romance for our generation. But that means straying into its dark paths and maybe finding things you can’t unsee. The Internet is great. The fact that online dating is our main way to actively search for romance? Not so much.
How to costume:
- Print out the Tinder like/dislike buttons and logo.
- Cut out the logo (maybe attach it to some card/cardboard to keep it steady) and stick it to some sort of headband.
- Stick the like/dislike buttons to your shirt. All done!
4. Social media
Oh, man. Social media runs our society in ways we may not want to admit. A decade ago, we didn’t really have a concept of Facebook or Twitter. But now all of your information is there for the world to see, including family members and employers. Eep.
How much information are we really willing to share, and how does that impact upon our lives?
How to costume:
- Try to make this a group costume if possible. Each person could be a different social media platform.
- Depending on how creative you want to get with this, it can range from just printing out the logos and sticking them to your shirts to emulating the websites’ colour schemes with makeup or face paint.
5. Newspaper headlines mocking millennials
No one takes us seriously, or at least that’s what the news enjoys telling us. The scarier thing is that there are a lot of people who truly believe the media hype.
To society, we millennials truly are the ‘Me, Me, Me’ generation. No matter how hard we try to prove ourselves, those people will never be able to look past the mentality that new is bad. ?
How to costume:
- Do a quick Google search of articles about millennials and try to embody those stereotypes or headlines.
- I’ve found that Google searching “millennials are ruining” and using the News feature gives you many gems, like ‘Are millennials ruining the High Holidays?’ and ‘Millennials ruined the Mexican internet’.
- You could also take another route and instead of trying to dress up as the content of the article, just print out or write the headlines on a white t-shirt.
6. Your CV
No matter how many months of work experience you do or internships you go through, you’re always going to be terrified that it’s never going to be enough.
In a world where the vicious cycle of “you need experience to get experience” exists, it’s getting harder and harder to find a first job. You can only stare at your CV and change it over and over again, hoping it’ll work this time.
How to costume:
- Get a white t-shirt and a Sharpie.
- Write a CV copy on it.
- For a bonus, carry around copies of a generic rejection letter and chuck them at people as they pass by.
7. Your degree (if you have one)
On that note, the whole point of having a university degree (we were told) was to increase our chances of getting a job and having a comfortable adult life. But nowadays the bachelor’s degree feels like the bare minimum.
Again, millennials will always be scared that no matter how hard they work or how many qualifications they have they will not be employable. It’s easy to worry that you’ve wasted years on an education that might not even help you at all.
How to costume:
- Similarly to the CV, get a white t-shirt and either print out your university’s logo or if you’re feeling particularly artistic, draw it.
- Then fill it in with the details a degree would have. Get creative with this one!
8. Being an impostor
Imposter syndrome is where you feel like no matter what you achieve, you’ve not earned it because you’re only pretending to be good at what you do.
Many millennials struggle with this, even more so because we’re given participation trophies just for being there (and we know the trophies don’t really mean anything) or we’re told we’re narcissistic and selfish all the time.
Being told that everything you do benefits you and that that’s a bad thing makes doing anything or achieving anything a miserable endeavour. Terrifying.
How to costume:
- Admittedly, this one’s a little more abstract. But you can do this a number of ways.
- Maybe get some friends to band together so you all wear the same thing, or copy one of your friend’s costumes badly. The idea is to make it purposefully and obviously a copy of something else.
9. Becoming an adult
And what we fear most of all… becoming an adult.
Yes, partially it’s because we feel that we’re not prepared to handle the nitty gritty details of adulthood, like taxes and learning how to drive. But I think as millennials we’re also worried that the world is changing for the worse, and that the more we grow up and the more we know, the scarier the world gets.
How to costume:
- Think about what you thought an adult had to be when you were younger and try to emulate that.
- Depending on how ‘adult’ you want to be, maybe even draw in some wrinkles on your face or carry a briefcase around – again, this one’s a little more vague and up to you to interpret.
Being a millennial is pretty terrifying. But that doesn’t mean that this generation should let that scare us.
No matter what the future holds, it’s worth noting that all these fears, like the day of Halloween itself, will hopefully wash away. If we all come together and work towards a better future, maybe it won’t be so scary after all.
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