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In Which You Learn Nothing About Halloween Costumes

Halloween night 2016. Instead of trick-or-treating, I decided to help hand out candy while also tracking the costumes of people that came to the step. I've decided to maintain this tradition for the last four years. This blog post will synthesize some takeaways from this data–and transition to how useless this is at finding the most popular Halloween costumes.

This blog post will synthesize some takeaways from this data–and transition to how useless this is at finding the most popular Halloween costumes.

Which Costumes Are Most Popular?

An obvious question to ask would be, which costumes are most popular? Cat/Kitty and Skeleton are the most popular costumes of all time, each tied with 23. Following those costumes are Hippie, Witch, Ninja, Unicorn, Spiderman, and Scream Guy. These results are illustrated in this bar chart.

The most popular Halloween costumes in my area.

But this chart doesn't tell the whole story. Between 2016 and 2018, there were just 3 Hippie costumes. It rose to the top only because of two well-placed 2019 group costumes, where it reached a high of 15 people dressing up as that costume. Generally, you might wonder how the top costumes have evolved over time.


2019: A Costume Renaissance

In 2019, many classic costumes deteriorated; only a pair of skeletons and unicorns could be found, and just a single cat costume. In fact, let's examine only the non-group costumes that 3 or more people dressed up as in 2019. Among these, FBI Agent, Woody from Toy Story, Pennywise from It, and Audrey from Descendants were unique to that year. That's four costumes. In 2018, 2017, and 2016 respectively, that number is one, two, and two. 2019 was a renaissance of sorts, with the top costumes being almost uncorrelated with previous years–who would have predicted the rise of hippie?


In the below chart, we can see how the top six costumes' prevalences have evolved over the years:

The most popular Halloween costumes in my area over time.

But this chart doesn't tell the whole story either. The top six costumes only represent about 12% of total costumes. (There were 988 total, an average of 247 per year.) So what do the other 88% look like?

The top six costumes only represent about 12% of total costumes. So what do the other 88% look like?

By Category

To answer this question, I sorted the costumes into six categories. Characters are the fictional humans of books, movies, fairytales, and the like (e.g. Harry Potter, Red Riding Hood). People are, you know, people, both named people and types of people (e.g. Hippie, Vladimir Putin). Creatures are the fictional and mythological beasts and animals of lore (e.g. Skeleton, Vampire). Animals are animals (e.g. Cat/Kitty, Bat). Objects are physical things (Pumpkin, M&M). Other has everything else (e.g. All Blue, Impeachment). I found that characters were the most common, followed by people, though everything has some representation. The pie chart expresses this:

The most popular Halloween costume categories in my area.

Bucketing

But the pie chart somehow doesn't tell the whole story either. I've put the costumes into buckets–but the size of the bucket tells us more about how I put the costumes into buckets then the prevalence of those costumes. If I separated fairytale/mythological characters from book/movie characters, then that would diminish. Or if I divided people into classes of people (e.g. Police Officer) and specific people (e.g. Steph Curry). If I grouped animals and creatures together, then that would become a more sizable category as well.


And it's not just these specific categories that reflect the bucketing. For instance, 14 people total have dressed up as "The Purge Character." Which The Purge character, you ask? I don't know. That data isn't in the spreadsheet, because at some point, the decision got made to put them all into one bucket and now we can't take them out. If I listed each superhero costume as "Superhero" then that would probably be in the lead.


Do a Google search for "most popular Halloween costumes" and you'll get linked to quite a few articles, each with its own idea of the most popular Halloween costumes. Bucketing doesn't just change the data–it is the data.

Bucketing doesn't just change the data–it is the data.

We like catchy headlines–but the truth is that this chart is the most accurate representation that we have of the most popular Halloween costumes:

The most important takeaway from this Halloween data set.

Moral of the story is, I haven't learned much about Halloween costumes. But I've learned a lesson about bucketing and how to change statistical data so it says what you want.**

–beautifulthorns***


*2018 has Starlord, 2017 has Dalmation and Strawberry, and 2016 has Ant-Man and Steph Curry. There was also a Poodle Girls group costume in 2018 and an M&Ms group costume in 2016.


**Also, I snagged just as much candy anyway. And it was fun.


***I guess this post is a bit short, but they say a picture is worth a thousand words. And this post doesn't have the filler images I use sometimes that tell you nothing (but help the flow a bit).

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