many lies come told on TikTok; Also, many truths. One of those truths emerged last weekend when a user with the handle @madallthatime explained that everyone searching for different Halloween costume ideas on social media was simply receiving the same videos from the algorithm, thereby denying their uniqueness. Instead, this internet sageThey should look elsewhere: the #HearMeOut trend.
The trend’s TikToks, also known as #HearMeOutCake, encompass a simple premise: a group of friends, enemies, or coworkers place a cake on a table and then take turns placing sticks on it. On each stick rests the image of a person (or fictional character, human or not) that the friend/enemy/coworker is embarrassingly in love with. Sometimes it’s Mr. Burns, sometimes it’s Fidel Castro. It’s always uncomfortable. That’s the point.
What @madallthatime was suggesting, however, was that all the faces in those cakes represented a source of untapped potential for Halloween costumes: a series of dark characters perfect for the Halloween party.
Every October, us internet savvy people search for clever and creative outfits and decorations, and every year many of the best ones come from weird memes. That is why that person who made a “Pink Bone Club“Of skeletons in their garden in honor of Chappell Roan (i.e. Chappell Bone) has already been all over social media this fall. (Just me?) But the meme as a costume, as an idea, no longer has the trend that I used to have. If anything, it’s a millennial shame. When The Atlantic publishes “The chronically online have stolen Halloween”, it’s time to put away your Target Lewis look and go home.
That’s where @madallthatime’s plan comes into play. As algorithms, particularly TikTok’s, become more adept at delivering viral-ready content, homogeneity takes over. If everyone is going to be some version of Roan, or, perhaps, some green-clad brat, then perhaps the best costume is an obscure C-plot character from an animated series. Right now, the #HearMeOut trend offers many of them.
Four score and seven internets ago (well, maybe a decade or so) celebrating what became known as HallowMeme It was a cultural moment. People dressed as Mitt Romney’s “double rainbow” or “binders full of women.” Unlike the “total whore“Knowledge of Halloween costumes provided by bad girlsHallowMeme’s outfits were mostly modest. Sometimes they were politicians. They were the Obama years, before the power of 4chan was revealed as a true political force.