Corona Daily 284: The Altered Spirit of Halloween

Halloween 2020 was expected to be a rare event. This year, 31 October falls on a Saturday and on a full moon day. Not just a full moon, but a blue moon, meaning the second full moon in the same month. (1 October was also a full moon day). On Halloween night, most countries which celebrate it will end the daylight-saving time to usher in winter. This once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence had elated the tourism and confectionary industry, until the pandemic began.

This ancient Celtic festival, coming from around Ireland and Scotland, is now hijacked and super-commercialized by the USA. Last few years, American consumers have been annually spending nearly $9 billion on Halloween. Social media – Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter- has fueled the spending. In 2019, Americans spent $3.2 on costumes, $2.6 billion on candy, $2.7 billion on decorations and $390 million on greeting cards.

The top three Halloween costumes worn by children were the Princess, Superhero and Spiderman. Adults preferred to dress as witches, vampires and superheroes. Thirty million people dressed up their pets, the preference being a pumpkin costume, a hot dog and superhero.

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The data for 2020 will be very different. The second coronavirus wave, as expected, is gripping North America and Europe. CDC has issued guidelines. Carving and displaying pumpkins is fine. Parents can organize a scavenger hunt in the house or garden. A virtual costume contest is safe. A horror movie night can be spent with your own family or virtually with friends. Houses can be decorated with spooky scenes.

“Trick or treat”, an annual ritual where kids in costumes go from door to door asking for food or money (treat) or threatening a prank (trick) will have to be diluted or cancelled. Masks, gloves, sanitisers are recommended. Some people plan to leave the candy baskets outside to avoid contact. Naively, kids are expected not to touch the candies until they return home and wash hands with soap. Of course, no screaming indoor parties please.

Traditional Halloween parades are cancelled. In some towns, drive-in movie theatres will show safe-to-watch-from-cars horror films. At home, you can rent the latest horror films on Amazon prime, Netflix or Hulu. Or listen to horror podcasts around midnight. The Harvard global health institute has created a colour coded map that tells you how safe it is to celebrate Halloween in your locality.

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Halloween is the candy industry’s biggest selling season, followed by Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s. This year, Hershey has tied up with Google search. Google is selling them data that allows Hershey to send targeted ads. For example, if a person google searches business hours for a store nearby, or browses for vacation ideas, Hershey knows her family is likely to go out. Those people intending to go out will be shown ads of masked kids and adults going door-to-door for candy. Other people who are browsing say horror films on Netflix are likely to stay home. Hershey shows them clips of people eating KitKat in the living rooms. Hershey has increased digital media spending by 160% over last year, with e-commerce shoppers being their prime target.

Hershey has also created a creepy rolling robotic door. These singular doors will traverse through American neighborhoods via remote control and bring candies to the doorstep. The child simply has to say trick or treat. The door then dispenses king size Reese’s Peanut butter cups. This hands-free device tries to keep the Halloween tradition alive.

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Every year, those who celebrate Halloween know the theatrical nature of the celebrations. Mature children know that the thrill they seek is not real.

This is the first time when hundreds of thousands will feel a real sense of fear and unease during the Halloween celebrations.

Ravi