Tired of all this pumpkin and plastic skeleton crap everywhere. Thanks, marketing ghouls 
What, are we going to start celebrating the 4th of July next? Might as well with the NATO membership I guess
Tired of all this pumpkin and plastic skeleton crap everywhere. Thanks, marketing ghouls
What, are we going to start celebrating the 4th of July next? Might as well with the NATO membership I guess
I just see it as a completely vapid commercial exercise
I don't disagree with this take.
But until we build strong, healthy, connected communities that centre alternative activities which bring joy to people outside of vapid consumerism then this is what people will gravitate towards for experiencing joy. That's not the fault of the people who are surrounded by commercialism who effectively have no other options available to them, any more than it's the fault of kids who grow up in a suburban hellscape surrounded by busy roads (patrolled by cops who will arrest them on any pretext) with little access to recreational third spaces for spending all their time indoors on social media and gaming.
We must remind ourselves to be materialists in all things, including this matter. The material reality that fosters this sort of vapid commercial exercise is the problem and the exercise itself is merely a consequence of this reality. The people who participate in it are just trying to have fun and to take part in a community celebration with what's available to them.
I'm not saying that your opposition to this is wrong but it's important that we don't misplace our frustrations by blaming people for this. It's people like you and I who know better and yet if we haven't put in effort to make something outside of this late capitalist hellscape to prove to people that there are better options then, if anything, we are more to blame for the state of things than the person who lacks class consciousness and who just goes along with the Halloween trend because, essentially, they don't know any better.
Glad someone explained this better than I could. Halloween is essentially the only holiday in America where people come together just to make a good day for the kids. As long as there is no real community centers in America, events that foster community are essential for the working class. The closest holiday we have that's just a community celebration is St. Patrick's, and that's still centralized around parades and being 21+ instead of just the normal people around you. It's the one day of the year that Americans can knock on their neighbors door without any real concern.
Halloween is extremely consumerist because everything in America is consumerist. But Halloween being the most popular holiday in America is a function of worker's alienation from each other. Trunk or treat is a great example of this. People in rural areas with no real way to walk to each other's houses just pull up to a school parking lot with enough candy for kids to walk around 3-4 times. We buy $30 dollars worth of candy for the sole purpose of giving it to other people, we buy cheap yard decorations to make our community happy. It's the only American holiday that we're supposed to give to the greater community.