What's Halloween like in 2101?

[Astromancer]

What it says on the tin. Are there subcultures based on the old Universal Horror films, I mean other than the Goths. What bod mods do they get for Halloween? Has Trick or Treating finally been banned by soulless killjoys?

Spill the beans and maybe the jawbreakers and gobstoppers.

[Phil Masters]

Given that, canonically, demographics have increased the Hispanic element in US culture significantly, for a USA-based game, I'd research he Day of the Dead extensively. Then dial it up to 11.

For the rest of the world, I'd have waves of memetic influence from US culture hitting every decade or so, then being subject to severe mutation. Probably with large chunks of Bollywood influence, if I could work out what the heck that looked like.

[Fred Brackin]

In a setting where the exotic is the norm the appeal of being something exotic for a day is something you could do any day of the year in VR.

In reaction to that you could spend Halloween in a VR of nostalgic normalcy. Mayberry might fit the bill though Happy Days might do if you get to be The Fonz instead of Potsie.

[Astromancer]

Halloween has only grown in popularity in the 1880 to 2023 period. The basics of a party holiday with different things on offer to different ages seems likely to keep Halloween around. Only Christmas has a richer iconography in American culture. At present New Year's, Valentine's, Saint Patrick's, Easter, July Fourth, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, are the US holidays. Some of these days are summed up in color combos. If I say black, white, silver, or pink, red, white, or green, white, gold, or pastels, or red, white, and blue, or black and orange, or red and green.

Holidays are powerful memeplexs. I don't see Halloween fading out.

Phil's ideas seem more like it. Halloween absorbing other memes becoming a wilder richer carnival.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Phil's ideas seem more like it. Halloween absorbing other memes becoming a wilder richer carnival.

Sounds more like it becomes "Cinco de Cervesa" only in the fall rather than the spring. If it's going to remain "Halloween" in some form recognizable to us today people are going to ahve to dress up as _something_.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Halloween has only grown in popularity in the 1880 to 2023 period. The basics of a party holiday with different things on offer to different ages seems likely to keep Halloween around. Only Christmas has a richer iconography in American culture. At present New Year's, Valentine's, Saint Patrick's, Easter, July Fourth, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, are the US holidays. Some of these days are summed up in color combos. If I say black, white, silver, or pink, red, white, or green, white, gold, or pastels, or red, white, and blue, or black and orange, or red and green.

Holidays are powerful memeplexs. I don't see Halloween fading out.

Halloween is different from the other holidays, though, in that it embodies a 'pretend trangressive' mood, at least in terms of its pop culture forms. The trouble with transgressiveness is that it requires rules or standards to transgress or more commonly, pretend to trangress.

The 'spirit' of transhumanism, as it usually presents, tends to embody 'anything goes'. Which undercuts the very pretense of trangressiveness that makes Halloween fun. Fred touched on this upthread, and I think he might be right.

In the second Michael Keaton Batman movie, there's a neat scene where Bruce Wayne attends an elaborate masquerade ball thrown by the villain, and Selena Kyle is also present. The joke is that he attends as Bruce Wayne, no costume, no mask, just street clothes. So, independently, does Selena. For Batman and Catwoman, this is being trangressive...sort of.

But I'm not sure that would work at a societal level. It's kind of hard to pretend to transgress against transgressiveness embodied as societal ideal.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

It's kind of hard to pretend to transgress against transgressiveness embodied as societal ideal.

I dunno; Transhuman Space (at least in template form) has a lot of restrictiveness against physical handicaps, ugliness and abnormal personality. Maybe THS Halloween becomes a procession of ugly people, people in wheelchairs and sociopaths?

[DaibhidC]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

The 'spirit' of transhumanism, as it usually presents, tends to embody 'anything goes'. Which undercuts the very pretense of trangressiveness that makes Halloween fun. Fred touched on this upthread, and I think he might be right.

The spirit of transhumanism might be so, but I'm not sure any Transhuman Space societies have actually reached that ideal.

("Ooooh, I'm dressed as a scary xox!")

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Given that, canonically, demographics have increased the Hispanic element in US culture significantly, for a USA-based game, I'd research he Day of the Dead extensively. Then dial it up to 11.
e.

What about memetic pushback from the Uploaded? One of the things they argue about in Transhuman Space is who's dead and who isn't.

Lighting a candle for the soul of someone who uploaded themselves in 2100 is probably going to be at least as bad as mis-gendering someone in 2023.

[Astromancer]

I get the impression that Halloween is seen in to limited a way. It has multiple aspects as a holiday.

A) It's about fear and the irrational. We become images of our fears and desires and walk around in public and semipublic as both. We make the irrational and the terrifying into games and toys.

B) It's about death, but we turn our mortality into candy. We take hard truths with plenty of sugar.

C) It's licensed transgression against our rules. Children can beg for candy, and get it. Adults can play let's pretend.

D) People believe it's an ancient holiday or an ancient holiday reborn. It is participation in something primordial.

E) It's a good party theme. And people like parties 🥳.