Simple costumes are okay, unless you’re a ‘basic’ cat

It may be simple but, hey, you’re dressed up

It's Halloweekend, guys, and we all know what that means: throwing together any last-minute costume you can think of. For some of us, that means repeating our costume from last year because it was just *that* good. For others it means making a costume out of any household items.

Generally speaking, no matter what a female college student wears for Halloween, it's plagued as "basic."

This year, The Tab Temple asked college students what the most “basic" Halloween costume would be for girls and answered ranged from sexy witch, devil or animals to The Purge.

To that I ask, what makes these costumes basic? Is it because they're revealing? Because someone else is wearing it?

Yes, basic means simple and common, but when The Tab Temple asked students about the most “basic" costume male students will wear, it appeared to be more difficult to come up with an answer to the question. In fact, it wasn't even initially considered to ask what the most "basic" male costume will be.

?J A S O N ?

A post shared by Vanessa Hudgens (@vanessahudgens) on Oct 13, 2017 at 10:58am PDT

"Basic" has turned into a word that's meant to degrade women for participating in an activity they enjoy and the term is used in excess around Halloween. It's most commonly when people repeatedly see the sexy cat or The Purge, but never when we see guys dressed as the typical tropical tourist or a sports fan.

A cat and a sports fan are both simple and common costumes, but the cat outfit will be more widely criticized than a sports fan. For us to so openly degrade women for sticking to simplicity and not men is both annoying and disgusting.

First of all, using "basic" to try to put down what people enjoy is inconsiderate and to go on to explicitly use it against women when men participate in the same activity is sexist.

Wearing a simple, last-minute Halloween costume will have no impact on your night, or the night of those being critical. You probably won't win a "most creative costume" contest, but if it's a last-minute costume that probably wasn't your goal anyway.

Basically (pun intended) stop referring to Halloween costumes (and everything else, for that matter) as "basic," and just let people wear whatever costume they want, no matter how common, last-minute or revealing it may be.

You're dressed up for a Halloween party and that's really all that counts for a successful Halloweekend.

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