🗣️ How Halloween Ate the World

 THE CULTURE CODE

🎃 How Halloween Ate the World

A reader in the Ivory Coast wrote last week, surprised that his daughter’s (mostly Muslim) school celebrated Halloween — a day he saw as pure Americana.

Fair question.

When I was a kid in the UK, nobody really cared about Halloween.
No costumes. No sweets. No “Jack-o’-lanterns” (turnips are harder to carve and twice as ugly).
My parents called trick-or-treating “glorified begging” and shut the curtains (while hiding the chocolate 😠)

Now? The UK, Japan, and even parts of West Africa are crawling with mini vampires, “sexy Pikachus,” and dogs in skeleton onesies.

How did this American sugar orgy go global?

👻 Short version

• Halloween began as Samhain, a Celtic festival marking the night when the spirits roamed free.

• Christianity rebranded it All Hallows’ Eve (the original cultural appropriators)

• Irish immigrants took it to America, swapped turnips for pumpkins, and added costumes, candy, and TV specials.

• By the 1960s, the U.S. had perfected the formula: fear + sugar = profit.

• Once Hollywood weaponized it (ET, Hocus Pocus), Michael Jackson dropped Thriller (the greatest 13-minute Halloween ad ever made), and social media turned costumes into content, the rest of the world said, “Fine, pass the fake blood.”

The result? Cultural soft power at its sweetest (even dentists hand out Haribo).
All the fun, none of the religion.

And enough sugar to make your teeth sizzle.

💡 PRO TIP: “Do you celebrate Halloween where you live?” is instant culture talk.

💬 FOLLOW-UP: “What’s the best or worst costume you’ve ever seen?” (Me. 8 years old. ‘Paperboy.’ Literally me covered in newspapers, selling newspapers. Thanks, Mum. Probably why we never did it again.)

⛔ DON’T SAY: “It’s a night of eviiiilll.” (Nothing kills the vibe faster. Except clowns.)

FAMOUS WORDS

Halloween Edition

Think you know your horror movies? See if you can name the film before peeking at the answers.

1. “It’s alive!”

2. “A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

3. “Here’s Johnny!”

4. “I see dead people.”

5. “He has his father’s eyes.”

🎬 Can you name the film?

🔪 A quiet suburb. A mask. A knife. Heavy breathing.

Answer at the end of the issue.

QUOTE QUIZ ANSWERS: 1: Frankenstein (1931), 2: Psycho (1960), 3: The Shining (1980), 4: The Sixth Sense (1999), 5: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

💀 Your Score: 5/5: Film buff! (or deeply concerning.) 3–4: Solid. You can handle your scares. 1-2: You jump at your own reflection. 0: Disney+ is calling.

💡 PRO TIP: Drop one of these quotes at a Halloween party and watch film geeks instantly gravitate toward you. (Or away from you, depending on how you say it).

WORD WISE

😱 Beyond “Very Scared”

When “I’m scared” and even “I’m terrified” just aren’t enough.

👻 Polite Society (Safe for Work)

• Petrified: So scared you’ve turned to stone (from Greek petros = stone).

  “I was petrified before my presentation.”

• Heart in my mouth: Fear literally rising up your throat.

  “That horror film had my heart in my mouth.”

• Blood ran cold: That icy feeling when terror hits.

  “My blood ran cold when I heard footsteps behind me.”

• Jumped out of my skin: Physical reaction to sudden fright.

  “That door slamming made me jump out of my skin.”

💩 With Close Friends Only (Never Your Boss)

• Shitting / bricking myself: Self-explanatory. Effective. Never formal.

  “I was shitting myself on that rollercoaster.”

💡 PRO TIP: “Petrified” works at the office; “shitting myself” works at the pub. Mix them up at your peril.

💬 FOLLOW-UP: “What’s the most scared you’ve ever been?”

⛔ DON’T SAY: “I was literally dying.” (Unless you were. Otherwise, it’s drama.)

TALK TOOLBOX

🤐 The Power of Shutting Up

Sharks. Ghosts. In-laws coming to stay. What terrifies you?

How about silence?

A three-second pause can feel like social death, so we fill it with babble, nervous laughter, or “Sooo… umm, weather, erm, blah, blah, yawn.”

But here’s the twist: silence is a superpower.

The best conversationalists don’t talk more — they know when to stop.
Silence can make people open up, give space for thinking, and show you’re actually listening (not just waiting to speak).

So, why do we fear it?
Our brains read silence as rejection or awkwardness (it’s usually neither.)
But most people are just processing.

Want to control the silence? Give this a try – P.A.U.S.E.

• P — Pose your question. Ask something meaningful, then stop. Actually stop!

• A — Allow 3–5 seconds. Count silently. Fight every urge to rescue them — they’re thinking, not dying.

• U — Understand their answer. Listen, don’t plan your response.

• S — Stay present. Eye contact + small nods = engaged, not spaced out.

• E — Extend with a follow-up. “Tell me more about that” beats jumping to your story.

What if they don’t answer?

After five seconds, gently clarify: “Is that too difficult?” or “Let me rephrase that?” Sometimes they just need permission to pass.

 NEWS YOU CAN USE

🚗 Your Silent Chauffeur

Heard of Waymo? The self-driving taxis are rolling into London next year (already circling Tokyo, though I haven’t spotted one yet).

No driver. No small talk (no smell of cigarettes – taxis Tokyo style!)

I once had a Las Vegas cabbie rant about 9/11 being an inside job—at 4 a.m.—while I prayed for the hotel to appear. So yes, I get the appeal. (Uber’s Quiet Mode lets riders pay extra not to talk.)

Still, Christine flashbacks aside, Waymo might actually be the safer bet: 50 million miles, 83% fewer crashes, and 90% fewer injuries than us fleshy drivers. Turns out robots don’t text, drink, or argue with their GPS.

Yet there’s still something unsettling about climbing into an empty car that knows where you live.

Trust the tech? Or take the bus?

BECAUSE THE ROBOTS ARE COMING

🤖 Meet the Next Apple… With Legs

Apple, Tesla, Meta…how long before Unitree is a household name too?

The Chinese robotics company is dropping new models faster than my wife drops new phones (I last talked about them in #32 and #20.)

I always tell my daughter her dream of being a ballet dancer is safe — but then I watched this.

It’s got better moves than me (admittedly, a low bar).

Smooth moves, scary mask – seriously, have they never watched a horror film, ever?

What do you think? Rise of the Dance bots?

ANSWER

🎬 Movie: Halloween (1978)

A masked killer stalks babysitters on Halloween night — and a genre is born.

🎃 Cultural Impact: Launched the modern slasher film, gave us the indestructible killer Michael Myers, and that piano theme you still hear every October.

🧠 Deep Dive: Written in two weeks and shot in only 22 days. It made $70 million and became one of the most successful independent films ever.

💬 YOUR TURN: What’s your favourite movie to watch around Halloween?

LAST WEEK

🗳️ POLL: When “The Event” hits, where will you be?

A) 🏠 My basement (wait… do I even have one?) — 8%
B) 🇳🇿 New Zealand (if I can afford it) — 10%
C) 🤷 Above ground with the rest of humanity — 64%
D) 💀 First to go (no survival skills, but great playlists) — 18%

💬 Your Two Cents

S.U: “I'd like to continue my daily life and work as usual, calmly welcoming the end of this world and the beginning of a new one. ＼(^o^)／”

THIS IS THE END

That's it for #41.

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