Hey: Which Meme Should You Go as This Halloween?

It's October, bitches: goth Christmas approaches. What are you going to go as then, for Halloween? I don't want to panic you, but if you haven't already decided you might want to book the rest of the day off work, sit down and Sort Your Fucking Shit Out, because it may already be too late.

I know you think it's not that deep, but you're wrong. Sure, it was kind of lame to care that much about Halloween costumes in you early teens, and you might have been able to get away with something you made in half an hour out of a couple of cereal boxes and something bought from Claire's Accessories when you were at uni, but you're in your twenties now, and people care about this kind of stuff. Your Halloween costume represents your most curated self. It's the same as Instagram. It needs to say: "Yes I am a fun, sexy yung millennial with a defined personal aesthetic. I understand and participate in Youth Culture™ and I read and have opinions on The News. I enjoy avocados, but I am also self aware." You cannot fuck this up.

So… which 2017 meme-slash-pop-culture reference should you go as for Halloween? Let's weigh up some options:

This is, unarguably, the most 2017 thing. Thousands of years from now, after the seas rise to swallow the land and 95 percent of culture is lost, after the human population builds itself back up from a few hundred thousand survivors (except the gene pool was severely diminished so everyone has, like, a really long neck or something) a solitary spinner, resurrected from the dust, will be the key to an entire lost civilisation. People will write PhD theses on the fidget spinner. It will be the millennial equivalent of the Antikythera Mechanism. The 2017 Rosetta Stone. If you go as a fidget spinner this All Hallows' Eve, you will be the zeitgeist.

But also, cancel your plans for the foreseeable future because you're gonna have to spend them painstakingly crafting this out of large quantities of Styrofoam. The fact you have made multiple trips to Hobbycraft will be immediately and regrettably apparent to everyone in attendance at your Halloween event. You will almost definitely have to travel to Zone 5 to borrow a glue gun. It'll probably look like shit in the end anyway and you will have to remain upright the entire night and walk sideways through doors. It'll take you 45 minutes to have a wee. Also, I just feel like there is a distinct likelihood that a man dressed as Patrick Bateman/Heath Ledger's Joker will ask if he can fidget your spinner. It's a no from me.

Gotta love Meryl. National treasure is that Meryl. Not our nation, I know. But she's like the American Dame Judi. An institution. And this truly is a great meme. A universal meme. I've seen versions of this meme that reference Beowulf and Drizzy, Catholic school hymns and the Autoglass jingle. But unless you somehow devise a way of attaching some Impact font text to the spaces above and below your face and are prepared to cup your hands around your mouth for the entire evening, everyone is just gonna think you've gone as actual Meryl Streep. And that's kind of a weird choice of costume.

Again, a great meme, but similar concerns here. The only way I can think of making this costume actually recognisable is to construct some sort of intricate mobile of mathematical symbols to wear like a hat. Might be quite hard to hold a conversation when you're concentrating on looking permanently confused and a quadratic equation keeps poking you in the eye.

No.

I mean, sure, if you're buff then this is a great costume idea. Hits the sweet spot between "barely even a costume at all" and "I spent £85 and eschewed social interaction for the entire month of October to pull this off". This will take you, like, 15 minutes to sort out. Just order one of those name decals and a clear water bottle off eBay, dig out your swimwear and sunnies and do a quick fake tan. If you're feeling a bit extra you could clip a fake microphone to your waistband. Rub yourself down with coconut oil and you're good to go.

Just know that a lot of people will hate you. Not that this isn't the point of this costume, but if you're a girl you're almost definitely going to be aggressively hit on by some seriously suspect individuals. And if you're a guy, all the other lads are going to feel very threatened and you will be solely responsible for creating a weird competitive vibe that basically kills the party stone dead. Also, it's late October, man. Put some clothes on.

Literally the easiest thing. You will need: one deep V-neck T-shirt, one pair of black aviators and one fake moustache. Season to taste. Extra points if you bring a delicious steak. Truly a great costume. As long as you can resist the urge to claw your own face off when your upper lip gets a sweat on and the moustache adhesive starts to melt. And chances are you're going to have to wear sunglasses indoors for at least some of the night, which I personally believe should be punishable by a £1,000 fine and a minimum of 40 hours of community service. But hey, that's just me.

The 2017 equivalent of going as a "dead schoolgirl". I would be willing to bet £100 that this year's X-Factor girl band will be doing this for the Halloween Special. Don't be a basic.

Bonus points for being a Halloween purist and going for an actually scary costume. But come on, there are gonna be like 12 versions of this, minimum, at whatever event you end up at. Besides, you've missed the boat because all the best Babadooks were at Pride. Do you think you can beat the gays at fancy dress? You cannot. And somebody will think you're Edward Scissorhands.

Same issue. There will literally be so many red balloons you could probably just do your hair all 80s and say you've come as Nena.

ALRIGHT GELS! I JUST WANNA GIVE A QUICK SHOUT AAHT TO MAH NEW FAVOURITE COSTUME. IT'S HALLOWEEN ESSEX STYLEE AND IT'S DEAD EASY DAHLINS NO GRAFT AT ALL. ALL YOU'LL NEED IS SOME NICE NEW EXTENSIONS AND A NEW SET OF LASHES. TREAT YOURSELF TO SOME NEW NAILS AND ABOUT FOUR SPRAY TANS. GO AS BIG AS YOU LIKE WITH THE SHOULDER PADS. VERY FLATTERING FOR US CURVY GELS. IT IS SELLIN FAHST GELS SO GET IT WHILE YOU CAN YEH. THANKS FOR ALL MY MEMAYS.

Please go as Gemma Collins this 31st of October. Collapse through the ground and be swallowed by the floor.

Some added concerns when it comes to pulling off a group costume. On the one hand, an orchestrated group effort that proves to other partygoers there are at least two real life humans who like hanging out with you can only be considered a good thing for your Halloween Image. But on the other hand, coordinating a group costume is, actually, really hard.

Great meme, and pretty easy to prepare. But nobody's gonna get it unless you stay together all night, faces frozen in the same expressions. As soon as one of you goes to get a drink or use the loo you will become just two quite poorly dressed white people. Bummer.

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You're reading VICE, so it's highly likely you have easy access to some vintage sportswear and one of those shallow beanies that doesn't fully cover your head. Every boy I have ever met owns a pair of sweatpants and a plain black T-shirt. If you get separated while wearing this costume, at least you'll all look kind of cool? For added realism, stop at Maccy Ds on the way home for some medium fries from the saver menu.

On the one hand, I personally have always wanted to try one of those wigs on. On the other hand you'll scream ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE for 15 minutes before you eventually give up and have to google "daily mail cover Brexit judges" to explain what you're there as, and there will probably be several people who still don't know what you're on about, so now you're at a Halloween party getting miffed about politics. And they didn't actually manage to stop it in the end anyway did they.

Khloe, Kylie, Kimberley and surrogate. Luminous with the kind of pregnant glow you get when you're in possession of a vast personal wealth/literally manufacture your own bronzer/aren't actually with child/are being paid thousands of dollars for the trouble. This group costume is an Extreme Power Move. Rock up to the party as a squad of immaculate multimillionaire celebrity siblings and you've obviously won Halloween, 2017.

That is, if you're still talking to each other after things get heated in the group chat because two of you want to be Kim and nobody wants to be "anonymous surrogate woman". And with that baby bump you're not gonna be quick enough to dodge clear of the guy dressed as the rabbit from Donnie Darko, who is determined to prove his intellectual superiority by explaining to you, pregnant Khloe, the minutiae of his hatred of the Kardashians, which is how you find yourself trapped behind the kitchen door for the rest of pre-drinks, listening to him drone on about its "amazing cinematography" and "under-appreciated soundtrack".

Cut to the half-hour long queue for the club, where you've inevitably managed to get separated from your "sisters" and have to spend 15 minutes drunkenly explaining to the bouncer that, no, you're not actually pregnant, it's your costume… you're Khloe Kardashian and your friends are Kim and Kylie, they're her sisters, and if you could just let me get them from inside you'll see – look, I'M TWENTY-TWO, I'M NOT HAVING A KID! While 20 dead nurses gawp at you from the smoking area. So, no, maybe you haven't won Halloween after all.

@RosieHew

*Some might argue that this isn't strictly a 2017 meme, with uses documented as early as October 2012 AD, with a sharp spike in popularity around October, 2016. I would argue, however, that it belongs in The 2017 School, owing to the fact that it did not reach peak virality until circa February, 2017.