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
Nah legit the one part of anglo/American culture I will defend with my whole chest this shit is dope and the more of it that exists the better
I'm not sure how to break this to you, but Halloween is European. Halloween was invented in Ireland, from the pagan celebration of Samhain. Even the practice of dressing up in costume and going from door to door asking for food is recorded as of the 16th century at the latest. Pranks, as well as "Mischief Night," also dates from the 18th century at the latest. This is all pre-Americanisation. It's not a continental European tradition but it's certainly European, not American.
Sure, but this shit started not really being a thing in non-anglo European countries sometime in the 90s
you'd best take back your comment calling Ireland an "Anglo country" 
And now its back, like many religious and non religious celebratory traditions before it.
I file Halloween with Valentine's Day under "Fake American holidays imported to sell tacky plastic crap"
That's ok, you still celebrate the biggest, fakest and most tacky plastic holiday of them all; Christmas.
nah christmas rocks I get to see all my family and just enjoy the vibes and goodwill to all men
plus past a certain age christmas presents become books and socks (this is one of the main reasons to keep reading as an adult)
How is that any different from halloween? Just that your personal family dont bother to get together for it?
because halloween isn't a holiday anyone celebrates with family gatherings, and the themes of goodwill to all men is a very explicit cultural aspect of christmas when it isn't for halloween.
You don't even get a day off for halloween because it was never a big deal culturally
I always thought it would be interesting to declare some random dates as paid holidays, and tell people to figure out their own traditions for them.
that's just bank holidays and nothing happened the tradition is to take a long weekend
Thats, again, a personal you thing. Around me halloween is such a family thing that people without good family ties do a friends-giving style celebration to replace it.
And goodwill to all is a pretty common harvest celebration theme that halloween carries just as well as christmas, especially with how immensely cynical christmas has become.
I dont get a day off for most of my holidays, and christmas is included with that. Not sure why your bosses opinion on holidays matters tho.
It's not just a me thing because also everyone else in my country celebrates those two holidays the same way or at least a significant proportion enough to make that the default cultural understanding.
Is it a cultural understanding because everyone does it like that?
Or is it a cultural understanding because a lot of movies and shows show it like that, and people arent doing what movies do as much as you would think?
well base and superstructure the way the holiday is presented and the way it is celebrated influence each other
but I take it as a cultural understanding because it's the only way I've ever known it. When I was a kid that was the way every family I went to school with celebrated it and now I'm an adult everyone I know does it that way round, also that is the way media, news etc cover it. So all my experiences of living in my culture tell me this is the normal expected way of doing it
it's fine to not do it that way around of course but it's outside of the social norms
I dunno, thats also what op says is their norm, except for all the people from all around europe saying that op is probably just projecting their parents opinion.
Social norms arent really often as norm as you think
no people are saying OP is wrong and that halloween is a holiday not that is a bigger deal culturally than Christmas
people in europe only really started celebrating halloween in living memory it is simply not a major holiday here. That doesn't mean it isn't a holiday though
Halloween was born in europe..... One generation falling out of the celebration doesnt erase it from the culture.
And no one said it was bigger than christmas?
Halloween was a very specifically Irish thing that got picked up the English and passed on to the Americans. It wasn't some pan-European celebration but some cultures had similar celebrations
We don't get a day off so we celebrate the Friday or Saturday we have off before. They only give us shit off if it has supposed religious or historical importance, like Washington's Birthday or Colombus Day, they're federal holidays but ain't no cultural significance behind those
It definitely is a big deal culturally, especially for young people. Kids and parents go on haunted hayrides and carve jack o lanterns, teens and 20s dress up and party with each other. Hell plenty of people in their 30s and beyond still dress up and party. It's an informal holiday but still a ton of people's favorite holiday
But its not fake, or american, and every holiday is used as an excuse to sell plastic crap.
Apart from the plastic shit everywhere I think I can get behind some spooky fun. It's so tiring stuffing all these apples with razor blades and heroin though.
and the expense alone. Fentanyl has really done wonders for the affordability
I've always thought Halloween was a cool holiday but it's a completely hollow marketing exercise here, no actual tradition behind it all.
Might as well pretend it's the Day of the Dead or Obon
I just remember being a kid and my parents being baffled and borderline offended when I told them my school was holding a Halloween party
That sounds like your parents were in tune with halloween just fine, america also has plenty of prudes complaining about people having fun in october too
Yeah I remember trick or treating one year and a neighbor answered the door and just said "we don't celebrate Halloween" leaving me baffled and without any candy
yeah that happened a lot with me and it happens more as you get older people really hate pre teens and teenagers trick or treating
there was a strong feeling that the holiday is an americanism people only reluctantly get involved in
I should stress that it wasn't some religious thing, they just thought celebrating American holidays was stupid nonsense
Halloween is one of the few things America appropriated and made cooler. No disrespect to the Irish OG's that made it, mind you.
Yeah Halloween is one of the few things I want to keep about
When the communist revolution happens not only will Halloween remain as an informal Holiday: All saint day will become an official federal holiday to ensure there is no work or school the day after!
TBF doing a big ass Fourth of July display in England would be a pretty funny troll job. Especially if you played up the French collaboration angle.
Halloween? At least it got some social meaning behind it.
Wait until you realize how many countries specialy in the global south have "Black Friday" discounts now. I don't think there is anything quite as pathetic other than being a literal gusano.
Anyway one of the best examples of cultural imperialism by capitalism, shoving some meaningless sign in the language of the imperial core to signify a holiday that these people don't even celebrate.
I don't know if there is a better source somewhere or if it was discussed before, but anyway its quite obvious even on the wiki entry just look at the around the world section and you'll notice it literaly became a thing "overnight", since 2010s with the growth of online retail around the world.
Actualy thinking about it now its quite scary to think, western capitalism was extremely effective here.
The calvinist countries went too far in abolishing its traditional holidays and now they have to import foreign ones to mend its ecosystem.
Halloween comes free with your subscription to movie & tv monoculture having happened.
Sorry, boomers existed and they made capitalism mandatory, and now we're stuck with the consequences forever.
Of all things you could complain about with Americanization, you complain about Halloween? The best holiday ever conceived by any culture ever?
Decorating a supermarket with gaudy plastic skulls does not a holiday make
It doesn't, but it's also the only truly communal American holiday. Christmas creates a lot of good will amongst people, I know my union my Grandma represented adopted HUNDREDS of families for adopt-a-christmas every year. However Christmas is still about. But modern Christmas is still based in celebrating your family, not people as a whole. Adopting other families isn't essential for a Christmas celebration. Halloween is a day for children to walk around feeling cool in their costumes, get candy, and just have a good day. It's the one day of year Americans can actually knock on their neighbors door without it being weird. Even St. Patrick's day, the second most communal holiday in America, is entirely based around parades and not homes.
On one hand, I don't think Halloween would mean much to nations with closer communal ties. I get why other nations don't understand why America loves Halloween so much. On the other hand, Halloween's cultural significance of being the only inherently community building holiday in America makes it a more worthy holiday than many others. With how alienated people are becoming from each other, I think Halloween is a more important holiday in America than ever.
WTF is this thread?
Americans are trying to claim Halowe'en as their thing now??
Fucking stop trying to make yourselves the main characters.
Idiocy.
Whatever. Youre missing out on the only semi decent holiday in existence.
But it's not a holiday over here! There's no real tradition behind it- it's literally just a reason to sell shit with cobwebs and bats on it
It's the egg holiday, it's like a yearly tradition of eggs to go "haha, wouldn't it be so funny and ironic if I dressed as a girl/guy/non gendered thingy majiggy this year guys haha" every year until they crack
Not to be confused with the other egg holiday in the spring, except with literal eggs.
Even if you didn't, implying any tradition is real in any meaningful sense.
I don't think that anyone in their right mind would say that we are suffering from an overabundance of joy in the world.
Nobody is forcing you to celebrate Halloween but it's okay to abide people having harmless fun. Life is short and far too often it's filled with misery and suffering and there's no need to add to your own misery unnecessarily, especially when it's because other people are celebrating.
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love [for the people]. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.
— Che Guevara
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.
bad news, halloween is the best thing that US hegemony ever gave you
