DAVID COOK / OPINION EDITOR

Halloween is one of the best nights  of  the  year.   When   you’re younger,  it’s  all  about  dressing up as your favorite movie character  or  princess and getting candy. Running around  the  streets  with  your best  friends and a pillow case full of candy, all while wearing whichever hilarious or adorable costume I wanted, truly is the epitome  of  being   young.  The only stress of Halloween was whether or not I would be able to trade away my Almond Joys or not.

When you’re older, however, the purpose shifts. Halloween becomes a day  of  self-expression and exploring different versions of yourself. Maybe it’s the confident version, the funny version or the bold one. After all, there is one lesson that we learned from the movie “Mean Girls”.

“Halloween is the one day of the year that you can dress like a s—.”

Regardless of which version you pick, Halloween is an opportunity for everyone to express themselves in any way that they would like, ideally without judgement. Each year, though, there are always those who try to make rules anyway. You hear the same recycled statements every year: “That costume is too revealing,” or on flip  side,  you  might  hear, “Look at thatugly costume!” Every year, it’s the most entitled people who are the ones that are  ruining  Halloween, not those who are simply exploring self-expression.

Halloween is about transformation. It’s about becoming someone or  something else for a night and stepping out of your own shoes. The ones who are always having the most fun and bringing the best vibes are always those who truly transformed into a bolder, funnier or more confident character.

There is something deeply ironic about complaining that people  “don’t  take  Halloween   too seriously,” when the entire point of Halloween is to quite literally not be serious. 

It is the one day of the year when society allows you to completely transform  yourself  into  anything  or anyone you want. Who cares if, for that one night, someone decides to be an emboldened version of themselves and wear a bolder costume, or who cares if another person takes that day to dress up as their favorite orange-mustached environmentalist.

So before you roll your eyes  at someone’s “too much” costume, or look at a confidently dressed woman with a side-eye, just remember: Halloween is about expression, not approval. The  people  who  keep  the holiday alive in college are those who express themselves the most. Meanwhile the real horror? The ones who are too busy judging to have fun.

Two students humorously dress as the Lorax on Halloween, wearing matching outfits and holding Truffula trees. Photo courtesy of @twizsilver/Instagram