Who doesn’t love Halloween? For one night, it’s endless candy, Halloween festivities and the chance to dress up as someone you love, admire or even love to hate. Every year the costumes are different, but the traditions remain the same.
Last year, many people dressed up as Ken and Barbie, Mario characters, Spiderman, Batman—the list goes on and on. Ken and Barbie became popular because of the “Barbie” movie. You would hear “Hello Ken, Hello Barbie” everywhere you went when the film came out. Nintendo’s Mario also had a movie released last year, which made the character a top costume choice. The media plays a lot into what the most popular costume will be, and this year is no exception to this trend.
There is one movie that dominated early 2024 even before its much anticipated release in the summer of 2024: “Deadpool and Wolverine.” The title was all over the newspapers, morning news shows, talk shows and YouTube- nearly everywhere you looked. The promotion for this movie was outstanding. And the movie itself? Fantastic. It was full of surprises, ones that were hard to believe, but were undeniable when you sat down and watched the movie.
It is no wonder that Deadpool and Wolverine are among the most searched costumes for this year. More characters in the film have also come up as potential costume searches, but we’ll avoid naming names to keep the movie a surprise.
Other popular Halloween costumes for this year include pop star Chappell Roan, contemporary horror icon Art The Terrifier and characters from the recent Beetlejuice sequel such as Shrunken Head Bob, Dolores and Delia Deetz. Additionally, Dr. Doom from Marvel Comics, Shadow The Hedgehog, Envy, Anger, Disgust, Anxiety from Inside Out 2, Raygun from the Olympics and many more have been trending.
I asked a few San Diego State University students which costumes they thought would be the most popular this fall season, the following are the results.
Michelle Estrada, a criminal justice major, said she thinks Deadpool and Wolverine, alongside Beetlejuice characters, would be popular this season; however, one costume she doesn’t think will be popular in the long run is Joker and Harley Quinn from the new movie “Joker: Folie A Deux”because the movie hasn’t had the best reception.
“People have a tendency to dress up as whatever popular movie they see,” Estrada said. “The Joker and Harley Quinn might be other popular ones, but due to the bad reception of the movie, people may be unmotivated to dress up as them.”
There was one costume that surprised me. As Samantha Stenzel, a marine biology major, stated, “Sabrina Carpenter could be a popular one. Also anything related to movies, or TV shows.”
Amanda Gonzales, a kinesiology major, when asked her predictions for costumes this year, said, “Anything that is mainstream. I think people like to go with the trend and go with what is popular at the moment versus something more creative and more themselves.”
Whether you want to embrace your inner creative self or your alter ego, in this Halloween season we’ll be seeing tons of colorful characters roaming our campus.
