The satisfactions of parenthood are, reportedly, many. Watching your child grow into a complete person. Reflecting on the joys of opening a present on Christmas morning. Imagining them being crushed on all sides by the oppressive forces of capitalism, causing them to be susceptible to malevolent game show hosts offering moderately large amounts of money in exchange for putting their lives on the line. It’s a rich tapestry.
That’s what we can infer, anyway, from a new Variety report this morning that asserts that—in addition to its popularity among the “on solid foods” set—Netflix’s Squid Game has also dominated the rankings of Google search results for baby costumes this Halloween. (Squid Game is actually topping the rankings for all Halloween costumes, but it’s the baby ones that are really licking our mental honeycombs right now.)
To claim this crown, the series—which is getting ubiquitous enough now that it’s getting banned from schools in various forms—had to defeat a whole host of more classic costume searches, including “Little Red Riding Hood,” “spider,” “Peter Pan,” and “Addams Family.” (Are people dressing their kids up as Pubert Addams from Addams Family Values? That’s fantastic.)
Now, let’s be clear: Baby costumes are rarely, if ever, suggested, purchased, and executed by the actual infants wearing them. (Their reference pools, buying power, and hands are just too small, more’s the pity.) But if an enterprising parent wants to use your gestating person as a billboard for their own personality/Netflix queue, more power to them, we guess.
The real issue here is that Squid Game only started popping off in the public consciousness a couple of weeks ago, which has apparently not given even the most relentless trend-chasing costume companies much time to put something together that really make you think “murder marbles!” when looking at a pre-verbal child. The best result most people are getting is apparently just a onesie with a Squid Game character on it—the modern equivalent to a Spider-Man costume that just has pictures of Spider-Man on the chest piece—which is especially tragic because this beautiful nightmare creature is right there:
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Just Dune it
Play the game based on the new book the movie is based on.
That being said, if you really want to tap into the most horrifying moment of Squid Game, we bet you can still find a few bright red fright wigs that you could cut into a boy band haircut somewhere on the cheap.