About

Sexy Halloween Costume Parodies are humorously revealing Halloween costumes associated with a variety of pop culture topics, including film, television, politics and internet memes.

Origin

On December 6th, 2006, CollegeHumor released a parody commercial titled "Girl's Costume Wearhouse," featuring women modeling a variaty of "sexy" costumes (shown below). Within 10 years, the video gained over 2.8 million views and 3,000 comments.

Spread

On October 24th, 2010, Cracked published a "listicle": highlighting photographs of "sexy Halloween costumes that shouldn't exist," including "Sexy Sentient House" (shown below, left), "Sexy Naked Woman" (shown below, middle) and "Sexy Pregnant Raggedy Ann" (shown below, right).

On October 14th, 2011, a TV Tropes^[4] page titled "Sexy Whatever Outfit" was created, describing the trope as a sexy women's outfit modeled on something that "isn't really sexy on its own" (shown below)

On October 25th, 2013, artist Rebecca Cohen posted a series of sexy Halloween costume parody illustrations on Tumblr,^[3] including "Sexy Cockroach," "Sexy Frying Pan" and "Sexy Poo" (shown below).

On September 30th, 2013, the BuzzFeedVideo YouTube channel posted a slideshow of bizarre sexy Halloween costumes (shown below, left). On October 22nd, 2014, BuzzFeedVideo uploaded a video in which men try on sexy Halloween costumes (shown below, right). In the next two years, the videos gained over 11.9 million and 2.9 million views respectively.

That month, BrandOnSale.com^[5] began selling a "Sexy Ebola Containment Suit" costume (shown below, top). In October 2015, the online costume retailer Yandy^[1] began selling a Sexy Pizza Rat costume (shown below, bottom).

In October 2016, Yandy placed a "Sexy Undecided Voter Costume" up for sale on their website, mimicking the outfit worn by Ken Bone and the second 2016 United States Presidential election debate (shown below).

Sexy Handmaid's Tale Controversy

n September of 2018, the onlien retailer Yandy briefly sold a provocative interpretation of the garb worn by women in The Handmaid's Tale, a show featuring a dystopian future where women are forced into subservience (shown below). The tagline for the costume reads:

An upsetting dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a say. However, we say be bold and speak your mind in this exclusive Brave Red Maiden costume."

Social media backlash began against the costume on September 20th, 2018. That day, Twitter users posted negative responses to the costume. For example, Twitter user @kath_krueger gained over 460 retweets and 3,200 likes with her response (shown below, left) and user @Bmac0507 gained over 4,000 retweets and 15,000 likes with his (shown below, right).

After the backlash, Yandy removed the costume, stating^[6]:

Yandy always has stood, and will continue to stand, at the forefront of encouraging our customers to "Own Your Sexy". We support our customers being comfortable in their skin, regardless of who they are or what they choose to wear. Our corporate ideology is rooted in female empowerment, and gender empowerment overall.
Over the last few hours, it has become obvious that our “Yandy Brave Red Maiden Costume” is being seen as a symbol of women's oppression, rather than an expression of women's empowerment. This is unfortunate, as it was not our intention on any level. Our initial inspiration to create the piece was through witnessing its use in recent months as a powerful protest image.
Given the sincere, heartfelt response, supported by numerous personal stories we've received, we are removing the costume from our site.

Yandy Costume Controversy

In September 2018, Change.org ^[7] user Zoe Dejecacion launched a petition "Stop Yandy From Using Our Culture As A Costume" to stop the sale of such costumes as "Tribal Trouble Native American Costume (shown below). In the description of the campaign, they write:

"For years, Indigenous peoples have been protesting the use of our culture as Halloween costumes. We have made efforts to discourage consumers from buying these costumes that grossly appropriate our culture and sacred regalia through education, but it is clear that we have to go straight to the source."

"Recently, Yandy has pulled their “Yandy Brave Red Maiden” based on the fictional show, The Handmaid’s Tale, due to backlash. However, when confronted about their Native costumes that mock a real culture, they refuse to pull them because they simply make them too much money ($150,000 a year), and they haven’t seen enough demonstration and outrage from the public."

"Jeff Watton, Yandy’s chief financial officer, told Cosmopolitan magazine that they won’t stop selling the costumes until it 'gets to the point where there is, I guess, significant demonstrations or it gets to a point of contentiousness that maybe is along the lines of the Black Lives Matter movement, where you have major figures in the sports world going to a war of words with the president, then it's become too hot of an issue.'"

Within two weeks of the campaign's launch, the petition received more than 16,000 signatures of the goal 20,000.

On October 5th, Twitter ^[8] user @blackhorse_a tweeted, "We went back to @Yandy to deliver @zoexrain petition w/ 13,773 signatures opposing their use of stolen Native identities as Halloween costumes for profit. CEO Jeff Watton immediately told us to leave & threatened to call the police. He refused any discussion with us." The tweet received more than 3,100 retweets and 4,800 likes in four days.

Sexy Biggest Fear

On October 9th, 2018, Twitter^[9] user @SummerRay tweeted, "Your Halloween costume is ‘sexy’ + your biggest fear." The post received more than 900 retweets, 6,700 likes and 5,000 comments in two days (shown below).

Following the post, people began responding to the text and posting their own "Sexy Biggest Fear" halloween costumes (shown below). On October 11th, The Daily Dot^[10] published a listicle about the trend.

On October 10th, Twitter's official Twitter^[11] account responded to the tweet, mocking the frequently requested Twitter edit button. They wrote, "Sexy Edit Button." The tweet received more than 25,000 retweets and 91,000 likes in 24 hours.

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Yandy – Pizza Rat Costume

^[2] Yandy – Sexy Undecided Voter

^[3] Tumblr – rebeccacohenart

^[4] TV Tropes – Sexy Whatever Outfit

^[5] BrandsOnSale – Sexy Ebola Containment Suit

^[6] Yandy – Statement

^[7] Change.org – Stop Yandy From Using Our Culture As A Costume

^[8] Twitter – @blackhorse_a's Tweet

^[9] Twitter – @SummerRay's Tweet

^[10] The Daily Dot – This haunting Twitter meme reveals your Halloween costume

^[11] Twitter – @twitter's tweet