No One’s Safe From the Spirit Halloween Costume Parody Meme – CNET [CNET]

This year’s fake costumes make fun of venture capitalists, aerospace interns, professional screenwriters and Lisa Rinna, among others.

Still can’t decide what to be for Halloween? Consider going as a 30-minute phone call that could have been 15 minutes (or been an email, better yet). It’s one of the many creative 2022 costume ideas from Spirit, famed American retailer of Halloween getups. Well, one of the ideas from the internet dressing up as Spirit, that is. 

The Fake Spirit Halloween costume meme involves adding an image and text to a blank template of a Spirit costume package. The meme started in 2019, but it’s really picked up this Spooktober. 

The meme can get political (this is the Internet after all). Fake costumes jab at short-lived UK Prime Minister Liz Truss (“discard after 45 days,” reads the package for the Truss parody costume); President Joe Biden; Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and local politicians. But a lot of the parodies just poke at stereotypes and pop culture figures. 

There’s the venture capitalist costume that’ll have you wowing any party with your “generic advice” and “aggressive term sheets.” And the private equity associate costume, which comes with an “elitist personality” and “business jargon flashcards” (sorry, newsletter subscribers sold separately). 

Pro tip: If you put on the rust cable knit sweater that comes with the geospatial-professional costume, be sure to read key phrases from the included phrasebook: “No, a PDF of tables is not a database.” “It’s like Google Maps with more layers.”  

Perhaps you’d rather eschew the worlds of Wall Street and Silicon Vallery this Halloween and aim for celebrity culture. In that case, you can go as the “biggest bully in Hollywood and everyone knows it,” aka Lisa Rinna. If you follow The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, you’ll know cast member Kathy Hilton accused fellow housewife Rinna of being precisely that during the show’s much-publicized reunion earlier this month. 

Going as Rinna will require a sparkly silver pantsuit, jewelry and heavy makeup. If you want something more low maintenance, try the aerospace intern, a simple black T-shirt, jeans and Converse kicks. Or the professional screenwriter costume. All you need is a robe, slippers and that haven’t-showered-in-days look.