In the column This week on the Internet, we will be taking a gander at what is on the internet, this week. Don’t let the revolutionary title fool you; I’ll be asking folks for their thoughts about popular web content.
On Halloween, countless celebrities dressed up for the occasion. John Cena dressed as the tuxedoed Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber and Nikki Bella suited up as Harry. Heidi Klum embraced her inner Jessica Rabbit, while Tyra Banks pulled off an impressive Richard Branson. With all this post-Halloween chatter and Instagram-based storytelling, you would think that the people of Guelph would give a hoot. Nope. No hoots given.
“I have no examples,” said Patrick Coffey, a Theatre and Philosophy major at the University of Guelph. “I like people impersonating celebrities—that I like, that’s fun—but I don’t care what celebrities are doing for Halloween.”
So, while my social media feed was crammed with Halloween stories via Twitter and Instagram since Sunday, there is a sizeable amount of folks who are shrugging this off. How could Buzzfeed, Uproxx, Vulture, Jezebel, The New York Post, The Guardian, The BBC, and The Huffington Post, among others, be so off base? Is it tradition?
On Coffey’s note, there were a galactic amount of folks dressed up as celebrities this year, perhaps the most common being the reoccurring Drake impersonators. With the Drake video for “Hotline Bling” (and many, many parody videos) being released just before Halloween, this costume was undoubtedly on point. “My sister’s boyfriend was Drake,” said Raquel Archie, an Arts and Science’s student at the University of Guelph. “He was Drake in one of his videos dancing really awkwardly, and now there are vines about it.”
Yes, Raquel, Mr. Bean, The Avengers and Elaine from Seinfeld have all made appearances in a string of “Hotline Bling” parody videos. It’s a good time to be Drake.
Some people had so little to say about celebrity related Halloween topics that they skipped over the topic entirely.
“I didn’t see any costumes that would be considered in bad taste, that was probably a plus,” said Matthew Blong, a student at the U of G. While poor Halloween choices happen, this year there were few and far between both on the streets and across the internet. Stay classy Guelph.