Every year there are a handful of Halloween costumes that you just know everyone is going to wear. Look at recent Halloweens and recall just how many Amy Winehouses, Sarah Palins, and Twilight character costumes you saw.
Dressing up as the cliche Halloween costume of the year almost ensures someone else at the party will show up in the exact same costume, and there's nothing worse than that. So, Riptide is here to help by letting you know which trendy, ripped-from-the-headlines costumes will be trending this year, and offering alternatives that will help you stand out.
Honey Boo Boo
Oh child, you know literally tens of thousands of people are planning their Honey Boo Boo costumes right now. Everyone from Southern size-12 sorority girls to fat dudes who have always wanted to wear a dress. The pint size pageant queen will be to this Halloween what Snooki was to 2010 (and while we're at it, don't even think about Pregnant Snooki this year). Plus, do you really want anyone to be hit on you while you're dressed as a redneck six-year-old?
Alternative: Glitzy the gay pig
To go as Honey Boo Boo's beloved pig, all you need is six pack abs, glittery body lotion, a pink speedo with a corkscrew tail attached and a fake pig nose.
The Miami Zombie or the Miami Zombie's Victim
You're just playing with karma here, especially if you wear it in Miami.
Alternative: Bath Salts
You could go the literal route: dressing up as a package of Spice or K2. You could go the figurative route: a shalt shaker in a bath tube. Or you could go this route: the Morton's salt girl as a zombie.
Binders Full of Women
You know some last-minute liberal is going to go to Office Depot, pick up a 3-ring binder, fill it with pages ripped out of Maxim, and hang it around their neck.
Alternative: Binder Full of Mitt Romney's Tax Returns
If you're going to be that lazy, save yourself the time and don't even fill the binder with anything and just label it "Mitt Romney's tax returns."
Big Bird
There have already been news stories about how this dumb costume is selling out.
Alternative: Jim Lehrer
We all know Halloween can get heavy and contentious, so just dress in a suit and fail while trying to keep drunk dudes from fighting.
Ozzie Guillen
There was no greater sports horror story this year than the Miami Marlins, but put away your technicolor Marlins jersey and the Fidel Castro doll you plan to clutch all night.
Alternative: The Marlin's Home Run Sculpture AKA The Tremenda Mierda Fountain
Sure to induce nightmares in the young and seizures in the elderly. But how to pay for such a fanciful costume? Simple: just pickpocket Miami tax payers.
Psy
Congratulations, you saw the viral video that even your grandma saw this year.
Alternative: Guy in Yellow Suit
Considering there's guaranteed to be a Psy or two at just about every single party, dressing up as the guy in the yellow suit is nothing if not practical. Make a game of it. Line up 10 Halloween parties for the night. Enter dramatically, and find the guy dressed as Psy (there's sure to be one) and challenge him to dance off. Then, after you've won, promptly leave to find your next Psy. (Bonus: save the yellow suit for next year for your 90's nostalgia The Mask costume).
Slutty Sandra Fluke
Some unfunny conservative at a Halloween party deep inside the red states is planning this. You know the pictures are going to wind up online and enrage websites like Jezebel. You just know it.
Alternative: Slutty Rush Limbaugh
Guaranteed to be the scariest costume at any party.
Zombie Whitney Houston
This is another on of those, "Is anyone actually horrible enough to do this? ... Oh, wait, of course people are horrible enough to do this" costumes. Don't be horrible. Don't do this.
Alternative: Zombie Ciara
... or Zombie Keri Hilson or Zombie Ashanti, etc. These divas may not be dead, but their careers are.
Bane from The Dark Knight Rises
This will only highlight how scrawny your arms actually are. Yes, we know you totally have the voice down, but news flash: everyone who saw that movie is convinced they have the voice down.
Alternative: The Riddler from Batman Forever
Throw everyone for a curve and go as one of the villains from the '90s Joel Schumacher Batman flicks (obviously no one else at that party will be dressed as one), and frankly pasting a bunch of question marks on one of those spandex full body suits they're selling at every Party City seems a lot easier than fashioning together a Bane costume anyway.
Botched Jesus Fresco
It's already been done, and you're not going to do it better.
Alternative: Uncle Dolan
If you're going to go as a crudely drawn thing that became an internet meme just go as Uncle Dolan. Maybe only the Internet nerds will get it, but lets be honest, there are some cute Internet nerds and they'll be putty in your hands.
Clint Eastwood and his Empty Chair
First of all, are you really going to carry around an empty chair all night? No. No you are not. And without the chair, people are just going to mistake your Clint Eastwood costume for the crypt keeper.
Alternative: Ann Romney's Olympics Horse
Rafalca is one classy horse.
Any "50 Shades of Grey" Character
No one but horny moms even know what is in this book. So, unless you wanna go home with a MILF while everyone else thinks you're dressed as an American Horror Story extra ...
Alternative: Horny Mom
Easy: Grab an actual 50 Shades of Grey Book and a vibrator, and pair it with a polka dot dress and an apron.
Katniss Everdeen
Oh, you think you've got it all figured out. Just put your hair in a messy braid, put on a brown jacket, grab a fake bow and arrow and call it a day. Nope. Sorry. This is the HALLOWEEN HUNGER GAMES and it's not that easy.
Alternative: Effie Trinket
Oh, sure, you might not be the only Effie Trinket at the party, but you know what the real challenge is? Being the best Effie Trinket. You better bring it if you're going to win Halloween Hunger Games. You custom order that wig and fake lashes. You dye your skin periwinkle. You call up the fiercest drag queen you know to do your make up. Your learn how to sew and you make that crazy suit. You go big or you lose the Halloween Hunger Games and go home in shame (and be thankful you're alive at all, because frankly, if you can't bring that Effie realness, you don't deserve to be).
Naked Lena Dunham Eating Cake
HBO's Girls, the most talked about television debut of the year, is sure to garner some Halloween costume love, but don't be surprised when everyone blogs about their unique opinions on your costume.
Alternative: A Black Person on Girls
Because Halloween is all about dressing up as things that don't exist anyway, right?
Skrillex
This is the Halloween costume of choice for the dude who wore a Deamau5 or Daft Punk helmet for the past few years, obviously.
A Goth Human Mop:
Just cut to the chase.
Bonus:
And, just a fair warning, these are cliche costumes for 2012 we couldn't come up with good alternatives for: NFL Replacement Refs, Lana Del Rey, Pregnant Snooki, Blue Ivy Carter (this is offensive to my religion), Sharon Needles, anything related to the Olympics and tanning Mom.
