Ah, yes. Halloween, America’s annual carnival of glutton, immorality, and bad taste, is upon us, coming up faster than your vomit after too many bite-sized Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Fireball whiskey shots (now with antifreeze!) at your friend’s boyfriend’s annual costume party. And in the days before the battalion of hungover girls in wrinkled sexy witch costumes attempt to teeter over the puddles of sick for their November 1 walk of shame, a nation of misguided Halloween enthusiasts are busy plotting their super-sweet party outfits, bro.
Before the All Hallows’ Eve bacchanal has even officially begun, we’re already getting a glimpse at the atrocious, shameful, and every-other-synonym-of-awful costumes people have been planning or have worn to early parties. The worst of the worst, as they do every year, spin-off the news of the day for what end up being astonishingly offensive costumes that mock real-life tragedies.
While the Halloween Hall of Shame from years past include Chris Brown and a beat-up Rihanna (couples’ costume!) and a victim of Jerry Sandusky, we’re already working with an overabundance of contenders for this year’s most despicable costume ideas. So with a little help from a disturbing Reddit thread and a general news survey of the biggest stains of our human population, here is our list of the most awful costumes and costume ideas…thus far.
(Some with photos, some without. Because why give publicity to the dregs of the earth?)
Ebola workers
Because bad taste spreads more quickly than infectious disease, today’s most dangerous and tragic global epidemic is being exploited as one of this year’s most popular off-color Halloween costumes. Coming in equally appalling his and her varieties, these Ebola hazmat suits presumably guard from the spread of the headline-making illness—although the drunken assholes wearing them somehow inexplicably still vomit uncontrollably at the end of the night.
Ray Rice
There have been at least two instances of guys dressing up as Ray Rice and his beat-up, abused, dragged-out-of-an-elevator wife at Halloween parties. And because those two instances were so widely written about and because widespread coverage of atrocious things typically triggers spates of copycats among the world’s most morally bankrupt and, as it would have it, unoriginal people, it’s likely that there will be more cases of people recreating this infamous scene of domestic violence in the name of ghoulish frivolity.
ISIS
Here is a CNN description of ISIS: “ISIS is known for killing dozens of people at a time and carrying out public executions, crucifixions, and other acts.” You might have heard of them around the time U.S. journalist James Foley was decapitated by them. Now here is a link to a picture of a group of college-aged girls dressed as sexy ISIS terrorists. R.I.P. the future of humanity.
An ISIS terrorist mid-beheading Fear not. The “Worst Humans in the Universe” race is a tight one. Here is a child dressed as an ISIS militant about to “behead” a doll dressed in an orange jumpsuit, just like Foley and the other captives who were executed were.
Ice bucket challenge
Bastardize a good cause and enrage all of your friends all over again by never letting this damn-blasted thing go. Seriously, though, you’ll enrage them. That costume is huge. You’ll be knocking into everything. But back to that bastardizing a good cause thing: you have three seconds to tell me what the ice bucket challenge benefited without Googling it. Mmm-hmmmm.
Joan Rivers
Arguably, Joan Rivers would have a ball with the macabre, darkly comic idea of dressing up as a dead celebrity for Halloween. But still. Just don’t dress up as a dead celebrity.
Malaysian airlines In the Reddit thread “What is the Best ‘Too Soon’ costume for Halloween?”—a rabbit hole of depraved, dark thinking—users tried out their best “is this thing on?” amateur comedy when it came to the tasteless topic. “A chauffeur with a cardboard sign that says, ‘Malaysia Airlines: Flight 370,” wrote compartivelysame. “A Malaysian airliner! And then just don’t leave your house, and everyone will wonder where you are,” wrote RAZZORWIRE.
Baby cigarette
“No worry of cancer with this cigarette costume,” the description for this gem reads. “Who knew tobacco could look this cute?” And at $29.99, lighting up all sense of parental dignity and responsibility costs less than a carton of actual cigarettes. What a deal.
Baby pot leaf
Because you can’t let the parents of baby cigarette win Parents of the Year without a good fight.