Controversial Halloween Costume Has Social Media Eaten Up With Anger

Summer has gracefully departed, the leaves are changing, the days and nights are getting cooler. It’s that time of year folks, Halloween! People are decorating their yards to resemble cemeteries, hanging ghosts and putting up giant, scary inflatables. I’m not a fan of the fall, but Halloween is a pretty neat season.

When we were kids, costumes were simple. A plastic mask with a rubber band around the back of your head, and usually you just threw the rest of it together. If you were really creative, maybe you painted your face like a Kiss member or a ghost. If you had no imagination or budget, a simple sheet with a couple of holes in it would do. Though to be honest in 2022 I would skip the sheet idea.

Over the years as technology has improved, costumes have improved as well. They have also become scarier. Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton; the masks they are capable of making these days are terrifying! Of course, people tend to jump on the hottest trend at the moment when it comes to costumes, and one of the hottest is also one of the most controversial. Check this out.

This Halloween, costumes modeled after serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer are expected to be hugely popular.

The trend follows Netflix’s release of “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which has become the second-biggest English-speaking series in Netflix history.

Now, Halloween enthusiasts are floating the idea of pulling on an orange jumpsuit, wearing a pair of wide-set aviator frames — and hitting the town in a Dahmer-lookalike costume.

Jeffrey Dahmer-inspired Halloween costumes: Twitter, TikTok freak out over ‘disgusting’ trend https://t.co/Ju48q6JMh5

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 14, 2022

I get it, this is in poor taste, pun intended, but it’s Halloween. Most everything about Halloween, especially where adults are involved, is in poor taste. A slutty police officer? Stripper? Michael Myers? Joe Biden? All costumes that are in poor taste, but I guarantee you will see them everywhere adults are involved.

It appears most of the backlash over the Dahmer costume is because he was a real person, and the families of the victims will be offended. I’m not sure how many people are hanging out with victims’ family members that will be dressing like Jeffrey Dahmer, but if they do, they aren’t very good friends anyway. Beyond that, what is the harm? Feels to me like more snowflakes looking to poop in the punchbowl.

But the inspiration has the internet outraged — with many social media users begging the public to forget about Halloween and the festivities around it and to instead think about the families of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims.

“I think that the Jeffrey Dahmer costumes are a step too far,” Twitter user @swifteves tweeted on Thursday.

“These things actually happened. Families have trauma from these events,” the person wrote. 

“This is gonna be a hard Halloween for some, and I feel truly sad that’s the case.”

Even Fox News Nancy Grace weighed in. Spoiler alert, she is not a fan.

Grace specifically called out any vendors or stores that are selling Dahmer costumes and said she considered it just plain “wrong.”

“But to see their murders become the butt of a joke … a joke costume sold at Halloween? It’s not just hurtful … it’s BLOOD MONEY … and it’s wrong,” said Grace.

This feels to me like a whole lot of drama. Halloween is all about poor taste and fun and being scared. Maybe forget for a moment about social causes and political correctness. Perhaps it would be different if victims’ families were weighing in, but they aren’t. Maybe cut the props, like the body parts and plastic hearts, but if you want to throw on a pair of aviator glasses and an orange jumpsuit, knock yourself out but be prepared for the snowflakes to fall on you even if it is just October.