How to Dress for your First Halloween at College

As anyone who's ever sat through The Dark Knight Rises with me knows, I'm a big fan of Catwoman. So when Halloween came around, I naturally decide to dress like Catwoman. I get my black spandex, my ears, make a utility belt out of duct tape, and I'm good to go.

One problem. It turns out Halloween in college is really different from Halloween at home, There's quite a good deal more alcohol, for one. For another, the costumes are very, very different. I think it might just be a style thing. I'm cool with that. Every little place has its own idiosyncrasy for Halloween costumes. Diversity is a wonderful thing.

I just had no clue how horribly diverse these costumes could be.

Let's start with a simple one: the non-costume. This is the costume about half the people will wear to your costume party. They will sheepishly laugh and say things like, 'yeah, I really didn't have time to make a costume' or 'this is my costume. It's ironic.' What they really mean is 'I hate Halloween. You're still dressing up? What are you, five?' These are the people who think Halloween is a fascist plot to control the mindless hordes into consuming the pacifying candy of the Great Capitalist Lie. Unfortunately, they can't say it out loud, as they're currently at a Halloween party and that would mean pissing off the person who invited them, who's probably wondering why their friend is such a party pooper.

Next, we've got the 'animal' costumes. I think we've all seen that scene in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan walks into the Halloween party and all the girls are dressed in leotards with animal ears on their heads. Look, if you want to dress like a slut, then just tell everyone you're dressed like a slut.  Now, I'm a pretty easygoing person. I don't particularly care what you wear. But I'm also a Biology major, and I'm pretty sure that real animals don't wear stilettos or makeup.

Also, do you really want to attract boys who are attracted to raccoons?

The third type is the half-assed ironic costume. This is the person who tapes the piece of paper to their shirt that says something they heard on the news. I'm expecting to see a bunch of 'horses' and 'bayonets' this year after Obama joked about it in the debate--not people dressed like actual horses and bayonets, because that takes effort, but people with 'horse' and 'bayonet' written on pieces of notebook paper that they've taped to their chest. What they're trying to say is 'look at me, I understand politics'. What I see is 'I spend six hours setting up for this party and I really didn't feel like dressing up, but I'm the host and I had to'.

Then there's the costume bought in five minutes at Target. This person knew they were going to a party, so they went to target and dropped twenty bucks on a pre-made costume. They account for about one percent of the costumes I've seen on campus, which is surprising  since it seems like this is a good way to pick a costume.

Always a favorite, the costume made from red solo cups and flattened cans of PBR grows in popularity as the night goes on.

And last but not least, there's the awkward freshman costume. This is what you wear when your cool upperclassmen friends have invited you to a party in Collegetown. You spend half an hour building a belt out of duct tape and styling your hair to look like Anne Hathaway, convince your two roommates to dress up and assemble costumes from scratch by going through their wardrobes, and parade down to Collegetown. On the way, you realize no one else is in costume and in fact everyone else is staring at you funny. On the way back, you realize it's just because you walked over at nine PM and people in Collegetown happen to be nocturnal.

Happy Halloween, everybody!