An Interview With Someone Who Celebrates Halloween Year-Round
A love of fall and a lust for true crime have coalesced to create a new Instagram subculture over the last few years: the year-round Halloween fan. That’s not to say they haven’t previously existed in some capacity; there have always been the perennial Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie wearers. But as the internet does, it’s made a niche community out of something that might have just seemed like a quirky interest before.
From maximalist decor-focused accounts like @themoonlitmanor to slightly more macabre accounts like this one — even a page dedicated to the Valentine’s Day-meets-Halloween aesthetic — there are accounts for every category of the season. At the intersection of the pumpkin spice latte and the Investigation Discovery channel are thousands of people who really love Halloween. Very Famous found Cole Rodriguez Calderon, aka @halloweenhoneybat, a Halloween fan living in San Jose, California, who has dedicated her Instagram to her favorite season. Below, she tells us about the subcultures of Halloween Instagram, brawls in Marshalls over Rae Dunn’s collectible seasonal mugs, and the connection between true crime and spooky decor.
How did you get into Halloween? How did it become such a big part of your lifestyle?
It started when I was a kid. I’ve always been into creepy and Halloween-y vibes, fall in general. Once I started getting older and was able to buy my own stuff and celebrate the way I wanted to, watch the kind of movies I wanted to watch, I realized just how into it I really was.
Was your family into Halloween growing up? Or was it more of a personal discovery?
Not really. I feel like in the Halloween culture — I guess, year-round culture — it’s a mix between a multitude of things. It’s horror culture, true-crime culture, spoopy Halloween, which is cutesy Halloween. It’s not scary at all, just kiddie Halloween. I feel like, as far as my family, nobody was into anything I was. Nobody liked anything scary, horror movies, anything like that.
Once I was old enough to do my own thing and watch scary movies on my own or go and buy my own decor, I was able to really get into it.
How did you find the social media community of fellow Halloween fans?
I thought that it would be something where I posted during Halloween, and that was the only time I would get people’s attention. It’s actually been pretty successful; I guess a lot of people are into it. Throughout the year, it’s not just Halloween, like pumpkins and stuff like that. I can post about whatever documentary I’m watching or podcast I’m listening to. Where I live, there are a lot of pretty famous haunted houses and stories. I found the social media side on accident; I’m still trying to figure it out.
Yeah, that’s fascinating! I’m always interested in those sorts of online subcultures. There are a lot of Halloween accounts; it makes sense they’re divided into categories of interests like horror or family-friendly stuff.
A lot of them cross over, a lot of them are a little bit of each. I find that, a lot of the time, if you’re into the Halloween stuff, a lot of them are into crafting. They have Etsy accounts and Mercari accounts; they create things. It’s pretty cool because I find that everyone in this community is very supportive. One person will post, “I just made these new purses or prints,” and I’ll see that everybody went and bought them, which is pretty cool.
Did you have a personal Instagram account and, the more you saw the Halloween community, gear your account towards that?
No, actually, I created it with intentions to make spooky cups, which I feel like is a huge thing now. But about two or three years ago, when I made the account, the intention was just to find people who are into what I am, and then sell my cups to those people. I knew that there were people who were into Halloween year-round, but I didn’t know it had such a huge following. There are girls who have like 50,000 followers and things like that. I didn’t really understand that at the time.
When I first started posting, I was just moving into my own house with my husband. I was like, “How do I want to decorate?” and it just happened to be near Halloween time. I was buying all this different stuff, and I started posting about the stores I was finding cool things at. That’s where most of my followers came from. They were into what I was posting about how to find certain Halloween items at different stores.
Have IRL friendships developed?
Actually, yeah. A few of the girls — it’s mainly girls that I interact with in the Halloween community — but since I’ve been pregnant, a lot of the Halloween moms have been messaging me or giving me advice. Not even Halloween-related, just advice I should know. It’s been super helpful. That’s opened a lot of doors. I’ve had other girls, if I’m looking for an item, for example, I was looking for this cup that they sell at Disney World. They don’t have it at Disneyland, and obviously I’m not going to Florida. They offered to go get it for me and ship it. It was really cool.
Stuff like that happens pretty often. I’ll post “Hey, I’m looking for this!” and then if a follower is local, they’ll be like “Oh, I was at Marshalls today and I saw it, I’ll put it on hold for you,” something like that.
Shaping your account or finding things to post, does that take up a pretty big chunk of your week? Do you have a process, like I’m going to go to these stores and try to find this today?
So last year, it was definitely like that and it got super stressful. I would get up, go to five different stores and take pictures, and I’d spend the day setting them up, creating captions, all this stuff. This year, obviously with coronavirus and me being pregnant, I haven’t really been going out the way I did last year. I’ve been going to the same stores, but I feel like it’s still been pretty successful. I feel like even just by posting little things like, my husband and I had gone to Trader Joe’s for grocery shopping. We bought these little succulents, and they were sugar skulls. That’s the post everyone’s been commenting on for the last couple of hours.
It’s just stuff like that where it’s not like I went out and looked for it, I just kind of found it. This year, I haven’t been as good about it, and I’m trying to be safer with the virus. There are also subculture followings within this community too. Even smaller ones where it’s like Halloween Rae Dunn, which I don’t know if you know what Rae Dunn is.
I was gonna say, I don’t think I do.
It’s a brand of ceramic mugs, and they are super upsold on different websites. The mug is like $5.99 at Marshalls, and they sell for like $80 on resale websites. Basically people — they call them Rae Dunners — they’ll go and buy everything up and post it online. People don’t really get a chance to buy anything, so I was lucky enough a couple of times this year to find a few things and then I would post it.
If there’s something the Marshalls or TJ Maxx brand is selling, and you’re looking for it, people will post, “I’m looking for this. If anybody is willing to ship it to me or hold it in this area, please let me know.” A lot of the time, I see that people get it.
That’s cool! So it seems the decor is a really big part of this community.
Yeah, absolutely. Sadly for me, my husband is not into Halloween as much as I am. I decorate four months — August, September, October, and November — then I go into Christmas. But it’s a pretty good chunk of the year. We had to compromise because he’s not as into it as I am, but there are people who have their decorations year-round. I still like to do spooky stuff year-round, we have a bunch of different corn mazes around here or haunted roads and things like that. As far as decorations, it’s only my little stuff. My vanity is Halloween year-round, but my whole house isn’t which is sad *laughs*
A girl can dream!
I had to meet him halfway I guess. If I could, I definitely would. I tried it the first year, and he was like, “I think we gotta do something else, I think we gotta mix it up a little bit.”
So if it’s like July or March, some month far from Halloween, you’ll still find haunted attractions to visit and stuff like that.
Absolutely. There are things you can go to year-round, there are Midsummer festivals, like Halloween festivals. There are true crime pop-ups and things like that. I don’t feel like I miss out very much.
I didn’t think about the true-crime connection. Do you think that’s made the community bigger?
I would say so. Personally, I think that my phone is just geared towards that. My TikTok is all true crime; when I open YouTube, True Crime Daily pops up. I don’t know for others, but I know that there is a really big following. If a documentary comes out on Netflix, everybody in my little community will be talking about it. It’s all kind of intertwined. One day, they’ll be talking about the new Halloween Disney movie, and the next day they’ll be talking about the new murder series on ID.
On your account, do you align yourself with specific subcultures?
I don’t try to go after a specific demographic, but I feel like mine is more geared towards Halloween decor, Halloween purchases, Halloween finds. I don’t really post horror or crime scene photos, things like that. There are other accounts that do, and I don’t really post any of those things but not intentionally. Moreso, I’m just choosing from the photos I like or the items that I find and like.
As far as stores and product lines for the seasonal stuff, do you have stores that are your favorites?
Yeah, absolutely. Here, we have this store called Tuesday Morning. They always have a lot of really cute Halloween stuff and then TJ Maxx Home Goods. Ross always has cute stuff, but their supply is super limited. It’s always picked through, even if I go really early in the season. Oh, and Michael’s. Those are my top contenders.
What you said about the ceramics and people upselling them so much is wild.
If you go on Instagram and type in “Rae Dunn” there are a million accounts dedicated to people collecting it. If you look up #RaeDunnCollector, it’s insane. On YouTube, there are videos of women fighting each other in Marshalls. It’s crazy.
How do you celebrate the day itself? Obviously, I know this year will be different.
This year, it’ll just be me, my husband, and my dog. I’ve heard that you’re not allowed to pass out candy, but if a kid comes to my door, I’m giving them candy. We have a projector in our backyard, so I think we’re going to draw a name for a horror movie to watch, and I think that’s pretty much it. I’m super pregnant, so I’m over the walking or doing anything even on my favorite day of the year. I think it’s probably just better to practice what I preach as far as safety for the virus.
