Thanks to Showtime and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, most people are familiar with the term “Californication.” Though the word was popular in the 70’s and may date as far back as the 1940’s, the meaning has always been associated with a variety of concepts and actions thought to be uniquely Californian. Today, it’s primarily used to reference the influence that The Golden State’s had on pop culture and society at large.
With that being said, when we also consider just how much of an impact the American version of October 31st has had on millions of people, I think it would be fitting to coin the term Halloweenication. To the best of my knowledge that word’s never been uttered, so I thought, “What the heck, I may as well invent it.”
To witness the phenomenon of Halloweenication, we have to look no further than the medium you’re using to read this entry: the internet. Where the tale is really told, to be more specific, is in search engine traffic. I like to think of search engines as sociological and cultural barometers.
In fact, just recently I was studying some of Google’s Halloween search statistics spanning the last decade. During that period, the accelerated growth in Halloween related queries (each successive October) is staggering!
I can recall searching for Halloween sites in 1995 (not on Google, of course) and finding a very small amount. I remember one in particular had plans for making a trash can trauma prop. The site took forever to load on dial-up (think: you’ve got mail). We’ve come a long way since then. Today, there are thousands upon thousands of Halloween websites.
I believe Halloween’s recent, explosive growth (especially as a marketing tool) in Europe is another good example of Halloweenication. I lived in Germany twenty-four-years ago. During the 80’s, Halloween (as we know it in the states) was nowhere to be found “off-base.” The closest thing to Halloween in Germany was called Fasching. If you wanted to trick-or-treat, you had to stick to American military installations.
Today, I can do a search on You Tube and find many videos uploaded by Germans celebrating Halloween; including several filmed in amusement parks. Many other European countries have joined Germany in embracing October 31st in a very Americanized way as well.
This post isn’t meant to be a rant – far from it, instead it’s an observation and even more, it’s an endorsement. Spreading something as awesome as the eclectic American take on Halloween is a “policy” that I can get behind.
To close this entry on a more personal note, regarding my own Halloweenication; October 31st cast a spell on me during my very first trip to a professional haunted house, but it also worked its magic during one of my first trick-or-treat sessions. As the old song goes, “just one look, that’s all it took” and I was a goner. Yet, my enchantment with Halloween was never about what I could get, i.e., candy.
As a child, I could have cared less about chocolates, suckers, and caramel apples, as long as the rest of the magic was present. I would have walked the neighborhood a dozen times for no return on my investment, if only for the opportunity to once again don a mask, feel the chill of fall, gaze at a harvest moon and interact with a handful of homemade cemeteries and ghoulish corpses. In fact, I would have camped outside in our own yard haunt, just to soak up every last second of the ambiance, had my parents let me.
As most children become adults, it’s inevitable for their perceptions regarding Halloween to change. But, for those of us who identify with Halloween as our passion, there is still a special, magical feeling associated with that night that will forever remain, despite growing older. Halloweenication, aint it cool?
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