Halloween costumes 2023: See what viral moments on TikTok, Instagram inspired looks this year
It’s meme-o-ween on social media.
On TikTok, the hashtag “#Halloween” has been viewed more than 3 billion times in the last week, with many online sharing Halloween costumes that were inspired by viral moments, pop culture trends and iconic internet memes.
This year, some online said it feels like people went even more all-out with their costumes, flexing their creativity when it came to the execution of their looks. “There has to be some kind of scientific reason as to why the costumes are just so good this year,” TikTok user @Bmekween said in a compilation video of her favorite costumes she has seen online.
Some suggested the Halloween fervor stemmed from people needing an escape from bleak current events (including war, mass shootings and natural disasters). Others suggested that Halloween participants were just more enthusiastic about leaning into pop culture moments and viral phenomena than in years past.
Here's a look at some of the most fun costumes being showcased online.
Costumes inspired by recent headlines
In September, the remains of alleged “nonhuman” beings were presented at Mexico’s first public congressional hearing about unidentified anomalous phenomena, also known as UFOs.
Images immediately circulated on social media, and the viral "Mexican aliens bodies" meme was born, according to Know Your Meme, the meme database. Many joked that Mexico was "unboxing" aliens.
The news event-turned-meme transformed into a costume for some, including YouTube star Grace Helbig, who unveiled her alien meme costume Monday on Instagram. She also shared the process of getting the costume together in a YouTube video.
"Why yes this is and incredibly niche costume and yes I did have the best time doing it," she wrote in the caption of her YouTube video. "And my apologies the Mexican government did not expose these 'alien' bodies, these 'alien' bodies were presented TO the Mexican government."
Helbig wasn't alone in her "niche" costume pick. Another video of a Mexican alien body costume from TikTok user @Anfre_Bish has been viewed more than 534,000 times.
Meanwhile, some were inspired by another viral moment that made headlines in 2023.
TikTok user @naazmotv dressed as “Plane Woman," or Tiffany Gomas, who was kicked off a flight after an outburst in which she claimed a person at the back of the plane was “not real.”
“If 2023 was a Halloween costume," @naazmotv wrote in her video caption.
Popular memes brought to life
A Canadian children's television show called "Nanalan'" has become one of the latest meme to transfix TikTok. The show features a grandma puppet singing the words "Who's that wonderful girl? Could she be any cuter?" to a green baby puppet. The meme has been used to joke about a person's "point of view."
TikTok user @AutumnBxx showed herself and another person dressed as the pair from the meme.
Another TikToker was inspired by the popular 2022 meme known as "Me as a little baby." The meme is a reference to a video by TikTok user @MestreEnsinador1, who shared clips of a puppet with a pointy green cap and a wispy white body, according to Know Your Meme.
Some parents and older siblings began showing the videos to toddlers and children, telling the little ones that the video was of them “as a baby.” So, naturally, the meme, which took off too late for Halloween 2022, became a staple of the holiday this year.
In a video showcasing a person who had dressed as the meme, a commenter asked, “dude, how did you so accurately dress up as me as a baby?”
Another person on TikTok, @Taylor_Tarantino, dressed as "Hip-Hop Dena," a dance instructor from a viral video shared in the early 2010s.
Dena’s iconic blue top, black pants and close-cut hairstyle are easily recognizable for internet culture enthusiasts, but it’s the choreography from the viral video, followed by the phrase “and that’s what makes it hip-hop,” that takes the costume to another level.
@Taylor_Tarantino re-created the outfit and shared a video of herself “popping” and “locking” with the same goofy swagger that made Dena a meme icon.
Paying tribute to viral kids from local news
Local news interviews with kids have become fodder for many memes in the last decade. And now some are using internet nostalgia to fuel their costume choices.
In 2007, a viral video featured a kid with zombie face paint replying to a newscaster in Portland, Oregon, "I like turtles." (The question was not about turtles; it was about his face paint.)
A TikTok user re-created the clip's chyron as part of the costume. A clip shared by @jb1509 of an "I like turtles" costume even showed the user's dog dressed as a turtle in the background.
A 2014 video of a boy named Noah Ritter, then 5, being interviewed at the Wayne County Fair in Pennsylvania also inspired a TikTok user this year.
Known as the "apparently kid," Noah rambled throughout the interview, punctuating sentences with "apparently" over and over again.
With her costume, user @JennaTalia4 wore a striped green shirt, like Noah, a red wig and khaki shorts while she held a microphone that read "16 WNEP." Imitating Noah's doe-eyed look into the camera, @JennaTalia4 lip-synced the original audio from the nearly 10-year-old interview.
Leaning into all things Taylor Swift
Pop culture has long been a cornerstone of Halloween costumes, and there was no larger pop culture moment in 2023 than Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and The Eras Tour.
Many dressed as Swift and Kelce in outfits matching the singer-football player duo. Some wore costumes representing the friendship bracelets exchanged at Swift's concerts. Some even dressed as the most terrifying costume of all: the Ticketmaster debacle when fans tried to buy tickets to Swift's tour.
Channel a celebrity in costume
What could be better for Halloween than a viral video predicated on a celebrity in a costume?
User @large.basic.loser shared a video of a costume based on a clip from “The Masked Singer,” in which Wendy Williams, who was disguised as The Lips, sang the song “Native New Yorker.” That clip went viral in 2020.
