A Year So Spooky, No Halloween Costume Is Needed

One of the joys of working in editorial for a media outlet is receiving email pitches for stories that have absolutely nothing to do with what our publication covers. Here are a few examples, just from the past few weeks, of story pitches Editor-in-Chief Michael Ogden and I got from public relations individuals who either did not realize a credit union industry trade publication was on their list of media contacts, or completely misunderstood what a credit union is:

• An announcement from New York City entertainment tour company On Location Tours about the launch of a new tour for fans of the Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Guests of the private tour will ride in a 1957 Studebaker Commander with a guide dressed as Mrs. Maisel and visit some of Midge’s favorite haunts on the show.
• An invitation to an Oct. 10 voter registration drive at The Cottage, an artisanal market in Jersey City, N.J. Attendees received a free cookie from The Cookie Cake Co. upon completing their registration.
• An alert stating that Mitchell & Associates Talent, a talent agency with offices in New Mexico and Los Angeles, recently launched a voice over division with over 50 of the industry’s top voice actor talent specializing in video games, promotional advertising, narration projects, animation and Spanish-speaking roles.

But the one that really almost made us spit out our coffee – and came just in time for Halloween – was a scholarship announcement. Yeah I know, scholarships fit perfectly well into CU Times, with many credit unions supporting students in their communities with scholarship awards every year. But this one wasn’t quite the right fit for our generally wholesome Community News page – it revealed the winners of the Satanic Temple’s (TST) Devil’s Advocate Scholarship.

Four high school graduates, identified only as “Aubin” from New York, “Hannah Rice” from Arizona, “Hedera Belmond” from Iowa and “Soda Lightful” from North Dakota, each received a trophy and $666 to use toward their future plans. They were selected for their outstanding responses, which were accepted in any creative media form, to one of two prompts: “What initiatives have you undertaken that are consistent with TST’s tenets and mission?” or “Please discuss and describe in detail any one of the teachers who crushed your spirit, undermined your self-confidence and made you hate every minute you were forced to be in school.”

“Every single day that I walked into the school, I felt the urge to hide and cry … every second I was confined within those walls were torture, and all I wanted to do was escape,” one applicant wrote. Another, who claimed his teacher routinely locked him in a closet, wrote, “Eventually they decided locking me in a closet for hours on end would be a better idea than repeated insults and threats. I felt like a neglected pet.”

My first thought was the same as what yours probably is now: Is this for real?

So I explored TST’s website, and having just completed a horror movie marathon that prior weekend that ended with Ari Aster’s “Hereditary,” I half expected to find images of decapitated corpses and demonic possession how-tos. But based on the site’s descriptions, the temple’s members did not appear to be as “evil” as one might assume, and may in fact be widely misunderstood.

“The mission of the Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice and undertake noble pursuits,” TST’s About Us section reads. The group engages in regular advocacy, publicly confronting hate groups, fighting to abolish corporal punishment in schools and applying for equal representation when religious installations are placed on public property, according to TST.

The website also lists the group’s official holidays, which have purposes ranging from “a celebration of bodily autonomy” to “shedding archaic superstition” and, naturally, include Halloween. “Halloween is consistently described as evil, demonic and satanic by those steeped in religious dogma,” TST’s description of the holiday states. “Costumes, candy and facing fears are to be embraced.”

I certainly won’t be joining a chapter of TST any time soon, but that last statement in reference to Halloween is something I can get behind. Ignoring our fears is a bad idea, because we as humans feel fear for a reason. It’s what keeps us from jumping into a swamp filled with alligators or onto the tracks at a subway station, for example. It’s also what’s kept a lot of people – those who didn’t want to become ill, make others ill or even cause others to die – at home for the better part of 2020. Can you imagine if more people who said they “didn’t want to buy into the COVID fear-mongering” had instead paid attention to the instinctive anxiety that comes along with spreading a deadly virus and decided against going to that Lake of the Ozarks pool party, crowded bar in Sturgis, S.D., or Trump rally? We actually might not be looking at celebrating Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas on Zoom this year.

We unfortunately have plenty to be fearful of as we inch closer to 2021. Just to name a few scary news reports from the past few weeks, two-thirds of U.S. hotels believe they won’t last longer than six months at their current occupancy levels without further aid, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association; two major airlines have begun furloughing 32,000 employees; and eight million Americans have slipped into poverty since May, the New York Times reported.

It’s going to continue to be a bumpy ride, but one way we can cope is to tune into our fears, and channel them into good decision-making and preparations for our personal worst case scenarios. For example, I came close to buying a new car for myself this month. As badly as I wanted that shiny new Lexus NX in my driveway, I decided against it in favor of holding onto the cash because my 2007 Beetle still runs and I rarely drive anyway. Some think I’m being overly cautious, but at least I have the peace of mind that if something goes terribly wrong financially, I’m covered.

And by all means, lean into a spooky aesthetic and celebrate Halloween this year. Just, please, skip the crowded costume parties and trick-or-treating this year. Host a small outdoor gathering under some heat lamps, or better yet, binge watch horror films with a big bowl of candy.

That reminds me of one more off-topic story pitch I recently received that I must share – a report on America’s favorite Halloween candies by state. A few surprising insights: Salt water taffy is favored by Washingtonians and Nebraskans, folks in Georgia and Utah prefer Jolly Ranchers, and West Virginians love Blow Pops.

My only question: Where are the booze-filled candies (and candy-flavored booze) in this report? Because come Halloween night, just three days out from the election, we’re going to need something much stronger than sugar.

Natasha Chilingerian is executive editor for CU Times. She can be reached at nchilingerian@cutimes.com.