Many Halloween costumes are rather consistent throughout the years, with traditional ideas being ghosts, skeletons, aliens, or monsters. Yet, every year, pop culture brings fresh new ideas into the costume mix. Pop culture costumes are inspired by the music, video games, movies, tv shows and the mass media that is popular at a given time and has an influence on people’s culture.

Music

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Recent musical artists tend not to have as much of a signature outfit that can be made into a costume. However, classics imitations of Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Freddy Mercury, and Elvis Presley have been crowd-pleasers throughout the years. These artists have iconic styles that are immediately recognizable- think Jackson’s glove, Mercury’s yellow jacket, and Presley’s greased pompadour.

Video Games

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Video games that have made a dent into the costume world are Pokemon and Fortnite. Pokemon has been around since 1996, and gives people adorable, lovable characters to dress up as. Fortnite, being one of the most popular video games this year, has become a growing obsession among the youth and has made its mark with the avatars on the costume market.

Movies

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The Marvel Universe, D.C. Universe, and Deadpool are movies that are providing sets of memorable costumes. The top-rated Marvel franchise has provided inspiration for a wide range of Halloween costumes from Ironman to Black Widow. With the unification of the Justice League, the D.C. universe was made comeback with their recent movies, which inspired a range of costumes for both men and women. Deadpool costumes based on the main character in the movie regaining popularity because of the recent success of  Deadpool 2.  It is unisex so anyone can wear it.

TV Shows

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Stranger Things, Rick and Morty, and the new upcoming live-action series, Teen Titans are also providing inspiration for costumes this year.  A quick search of local thrift stores could yield a perfect shirt or dress for you to become one of the Stranger Things characters. The beloved Stranger Things left an imprint on viewers since the last season came out a year ago, and people are still wearing the costumes. Rick and Morty, an Adult Swim series, made it’s way into the pop culture of 2018, bringing along costumes ideas.  Pickle Rick or the uni-brow look of Rick may be just the costume for you.  Many people grew up watching the animated series “Teen Titans” on Cartoon Network, and now the “Teen Titans” are being resurfaced into a CW live action tv series, which has brought back the nostalgia. This has led to a demand in the costume department.

Mass Media

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Most mass media costumes in 2018 either have to do with politics or memes (an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning). Political costumes have been around since the 1960s and still spark a form of humor and rebellion. Many of the meme ideas involve hand-making the costume, though there is a large variety due to the mass amounts of ideas from Vines to Instagram and Twitter.

Halloween this 2018 is on a Wednesday. Get creative and Happy Halloween!