Fake Spirit Halloween meme shows this year’s spookiest costume is a millennial cliché

For a truly terrifying Halloween costume in 2022, you have to look inside. These are times when wearing a slasher mask on the high street is probably just the fourth or fifth most gruesome thing people you pass will have seen that day, after all. Likewise, sheets turned into a ghost costume or skeleton face paint won’t do, and don’t even think about that creepy Ted Lasso costume idea that’s been sitting half-baked in your head for a month.

Luckily, Twitter’s favorite new meme has revealed that the spookiest Halloween character this year is someone you might meet at a dodgy bar or house party. From upper-class influencer to east London sommelier, beware 2022’s most terrifying trope: the millennial cliché.

The meme riffs on Halloween costume packs, especially photoshopping the one produced by Spirit Halloween, a popular American costume company, to parody modern character stereotypes or pop culture personalities. Why go out and buy a Michael Myers face mask when there’s never going to be a creepier vibe than becoming a yoga teacher or man-bun bartender?

Entries for the most terrifying near the bone so far include Twitter writer, professional screenwriter, polyamorous mixologist, and graduate student, with brutal results. Take the grad student costume, which the parody says doesn’t include “self-esteem” or “the will to live.” Or the Venture Capitalist whose pack includes “podcast mic and headphones”. Then there’s the Twitter Writer which includes “coffee shop memes” and “hot takes.” Parts not included are “the actual startup experience” or a “completed manuscript”. (We? Triggered?)

According to meme encyclopedia Know Your Meme, the format started in 2019 but picked up again in October of this year as the spooky season was getting started in earnest. The @AzureBiosystems Twitter account helped kick-start the trend, after uploading a version that consisted of a fake, scientist-themed Halloween costume complete with a “shame” accessory.