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Evolution of Halloween: Modern Interpretation (part 1)

  • July 9, 2010 6:04 pm
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Evolution of Halloween: Modern Interpretation (part 1)

The origin of Halloween began as a day of religious ceremony, deaths and worship well over 2000 years ago. Throughout the passing of time, conquering armies and the rise of Christianity, the original dreary tone of Halloween was dropped and forgotten to be replaced by that of festivities and celebration. As it is with all things, Halloween took another turn yet again in the global, entrepreneurship and profit driven word of the twenty first century.

No longer just a simple festival and celebration, Halloween is one of the most popular holiday in the western world with expect consumer spending of almost eight billion dollars just in the United States alone. Halloween’s popularity grows every year- such growth can be attributed to products of the twentieth century such as mass marketing and increasing social networking. Beneath the growth, Halloween is evolving yet again, if ever noticeably.

To many, the mere thinking of Halloween brings up such thoughts as trick or treating and children in Halloween costumes. However, there will no doubt be many of you that have spotted the trend of decreasing amount of trick or treaters every year for many years now. As a matter of fact, the Halloween industry today is driven mainly by adult consumers spending on items such as Halloween house decorations and adult Halloween costumes. Of the nearly three billion annual sales of Halloween costumes, two thirds of which are adult Halloween costumes.

As society evolves and changes, the way of Halloween also changes. Life has never been more demanding and as a result: less time are spent on social gatherings and festivities. Halloween as a result, became almost a “speed networking” event in modern terms. Halloween became a “get away” day for many adults looking to get away from the work life for the night, a night to have fun and enjoy themselves.

As cue taken from the consumers, adult Halloween costumes became flashier, more extravagant, and as a recent trend, more revealing. The more demanding everyday life become, the more attractive the idea of a get away is. The modern Halloween now express this trend as many adults now uses Halloween as the one night to go wild, dress in excess in every way because Halloween allows them to get away with it. Also with the influx of movies and television, the amount of Halloween costume ideas exploded leading to even more extremes of extravagances and showing off.

However, there is a deeper reasoning behind the growth of Halloween for adults and a decline in the old Halloween traditions- many of which I will try to go over in the next part. The ways of which the modern world has changed affects society on every level more so than just Halloween and the key to understand it lies in the ideas and movement that pushes the change itself.

Mike is currently an university student majoring in the field of engineering.