Words by Fopé Ajanaku
Design by Yosef Phelan

Autumn has come with cold, grey skies and a debilitating strain of flu floating around. An online friend has just come out of a two-week self imposed social media ban, only resurfacing to warn me of what was to come. One by one, all the members of my household fell to the October 2026 flu.

I am trying to work out whether I am actually excited about Halloween or whether I am experiencing some kind of collective queer FOMOBIEH (fear of missing out before it even happens). I constantly feel like I am trying to make up for lost time.

Mean Girls nearly got it right: “In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” For multimedia artist Clo, Halloween is all about the freedom to be whatever you want. "Halloween is a great time to be weird, or a slut, and 2026 is a pretty good time to be gay. Now I can live up to my potential by being all three, in a place that includes everyone and judges no one. And that’s beautiful.”

For queer people, who have spent varying amounts of time being told to tone it down, fit in, to stop making everything about ourselves, the opportunity to be excessive feels quite important.

There is something in this, in the temporary suspension of the rules. A socially sanctioned opportunity to be a little bit too much. And for queer people, who have spent varying amounts of time being told to tone it down, fit in, to stop making everything about ourselves, the opportunity to be excessive feels quite important.

But with the sense of occasion, there is a constant and overwhelming sense that something is happening somewhere and you really ought to be there. I call it the annual normie migration towards the dance floor.

I call it the annual normie migration towards the dance floor.

This is what makes Halloween so frightening: people who don’t normally club somehow find themselves in a club, with no idea of the long-established rules and etiquette. It’s horrifying.

Meanwhile, choosing a Halloween costume is a very important decision. Do you plan weeks in advance or throw something together three hours before you leave? Do you go as Big Miss Steak, or OceanGate, the actual name of the company that sent a submersible down to depths no human could survive in 2023? Both are excellent options, provided the right people are in the room.

Memes are modern-day hieroglyphics: tiny, highly specific cultural artefacts that communicate entire worlds of meaning to those who can be bothered to decipher them.

Memes are modern-day hieroglyphics: tiny, highly specific cultural artefacts that communicate entire worlds of meaning to those who can be bothered to decipher them. A look, a facial expression, a screenshot divorced from its original context and circulated until it becomes a nonsense language of its own. You either get it or you don't.