Halloween is two months away, but the internet has already returned to the endless debate over what women wear on the holiday

Already planning your Halloween costume? If you're considering wearing a corset top or dressing as "The Lorax," you may receive snarky remarks.

Halloween is more than a month away, but the internet is already divided over women’s fashion choices for the holiday. In the age of fast fashion and micro trends, the pressure to be original — especially on Halloween — has never been more intense. And, Gen Z's obsession with not "being basic" has led to a hierarchy where niche costumes are held up as superior to traditional looks. Each year, tutorials for "rare cool girl Halloween costumes" flood TikTok. In recent years, corset-based costumes have skyrocketed in popularity, adding spice to Disney princesses, Fancy Nancy or a vampire look.

As an antidote to traditional sexy costumes, some users are promoting “weird girl” costumes, and it's sparking a heated debate. Viral videos show groups of girls dressed in head-to-toe neon orange Lorax fits, sporting Pitbull-style bald caps, or emanating Alexander Hamilton in a Founding Father outfit, complete with a powdered wig.

But not everyone’s on board.

Some commenters say the costumes are just a facet of "pretty girl humor" or "popular girl humor." The term went viral on TikTok to describe conventionally attractive women who attempt to seem quirky or relatable by subverting typically feminine behavior.

“You can’t complain about basic corset Halloween costumes if you’re going as 'The Lorax.' You are two sides of the same basic coin,” one user said in a TikTok with over 2.5 million views.

The online conversation underscores a bigger issue: how some women feel like they can't get it right, no matter what they do.

"We really attack girls for doing anything," one user commented on the viral video.

‘Pretty girl humor,’ ‘The Lorax’ costumes and why women can’t win

The Halloween debate is a microcosm of women's daily struggles. Women may feel pressured to appeal to the male gaze, but when they show too much skin or cleavage, they might be ridiculed or shamed. When they opt for a humorous costume, like “The Lorax,” they're accused of being a "pick-me girl" (an insult for a "chill girl" or girl who's "just one of the guys").

There's a fine line between "cool" and "cringe," and for women, that line may be even finer.

"There is the stereotype that women are not inherently funny people," Leora Tanenbaum, author of “Sexy Selfie Nation," previously told USA TODAY. "You can so easily be accused of trying too hard to be likable, which is what 'cringe' is."

Terms like “pretty girl humor” feed into this stereotype and further the “I’m not like other girls” ideology, which pits women against each other.

“It only ever demonizes femininity,” one user commented on the viral video.

Memes can make a big impact

In 2024, terms like "girl math," "girl dinner" and "I'm just a girl" had an exhausting moment, and while they were fun for a while, they also reinforced negative gender stereotypes.

“Memes look playful, but they’re pretty powerful," Miriam L. Wallace, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Illinois-Springfield, previously told USA TODAY. "My worry is that it sets up and enables an underestimation of women's capabilities and capacity."

Likewise, terms like "basic" or "pretty girl humor" can get under people's skin and contribute to gender-based stereotypes, even if they're "just jokes."

"Everybody knows this is a thing, so we can laugh at it," Wallace explained. "But we also believe it at the same time, and that's when it gets really dangerous."

What happens when women lean into their sexuality

Ultimately, this fixation about what women wear and their sense of humor reflects the rise of modern-day internet police who dissect, judge and mock others behind a screen. At the end of the day, this takes agency away from women, who are constantly forced to consider how their appearance is perceived, even for something like a Halloween costume.

Especially on social media, women’s choices become performances that an audience judges, and even efforts to "be different from other girls" are quickly turned into trends and then subjected to the same scrutiny. This is heightened when women embrace their sexuality.

Experts say there's a difference between feeling sexy and being sexualized.

"Sexualization is sort of passive. It's when you're being sexualized by others," Erin Hipple, an assistant professor of social work at West Chester University, previously told USA TODAY. "Being sexy, to me, feels like an embodied, empowering thing."

Juliet Williams, a professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, added: "If we gave girls and women more permission to imagine possibilities outside of standard norms of sexiness, they would experience Halloween as more freeing."

Contributing: Jenna Ryu

Rachel Hale’s role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Pretty girl humor,' 'The Lorax' costume and why Halloween is already dividing the internet

Reporting by Alyssa Goldberg and Rachel Hale, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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