I have a lot of pet peeves when it comes to how people act on social media.
But my biggest is probably the people that seek out accounts dedicated to fall and Halloween, and then basically try to police them about what month it is.
I honestly hate living in such a calendar-driven society. The fact that people think they should or shouldn't act a certain way because of a square drawn onto a piece of paper is ludicrous to me. What you can do on most "holidays", you can do on literally any other day of the year. And if you happen to love and look forward to one of those holidays, why shouldn't you be able to keep that alive even when the calendar has moved onto its next meaningless little box?
I was thinking about it this morning, and Halloween is actually the only holiday where people would look at you funny if you did its main celebratory pastime, trick-or-treating, any other time of the year. Every other holiday could literally be celebrated whenever. Big family dinners don't have to be reserved for Thanksgiving. You can give gifts any time. It doesn't have to be Christmas. People in the town I grew up in literally have barbecues every weekend once summer hits, and start shooting off fireworks the second Easter passes. What difference does July 4th make? Holidays and calendars are an actual farce.
I'm not saying you shouldn't celebrate holidays if it makes you happy. By all means, if you enjoy something, go for it. I just don't think it's right to force these little paper boxes on anyone who's not interested...or, to tell someone that something they enjoy, something that gets them through their days in many cases, is somehow inappropriate because of what a little paper box says.
The Halloween community is, I think, fairly well established at this point. I believe that most people who are on the internet in some capacity, realize that there is a faction of people who really love Halloween and autumn, and use their online platforms to keep the spirit alive all year round, in many different forms.
"Code Orange" posts have recently begun for the year (This means alerts of finding Halloween stock in stores, if you're unfamiliar with the term.), so I decided to check out my nearest At Home store a few days ago, given that I had actual photographic proof that they had a fully stocked Halloween section a year ago to that day. I went, found nothing but almost completely untouched summer aisles, and decided to be silly and post about how outraged I was in my Instagram story. I was getting a kick out of myself honestly, as annoyed as I was. (The story is still there in my highlights, under "Anti CodeOrange".)
The next night, I'm minding my own business trying to watch Stranger Things and suddenly I get this message in response to the story:
When I tell you my blood fucking boiled...like, you could have made sweet, tender pasta in my veins.
You chose to follow me. You looked at my page and, unless you're blind and in that case I don't know what you'd be doing on a photo sharing app, you saw what I post about. If you looked at any of the comments or interactions on my page, you had to see that I am part of a community of people who all share a love for Halloween and engage in Halloween-related things as a main hobby. On what fucking planet would you think the owner of such an account would care what month it is?! (And that's not even taking into consideration my posts about summer depression, but I'll let that slide because I don't expect everyone to read every detail under everything I post.) And anyone who claims to be in the Halloween community in any real capacity, knows that this is the time of year that the earliest stores start stocking.
The really sad thing is, I know I'm not the only one this happens to. I have a friend who runs a couple of autumn-themed pages, along with a Facebook group that obviously people choose to join, who is constantly getting comments about what month it is, or my favorite basic bitch comment ever, "StOp RUShInG tHe SeAsOnS!!!" For heaven's sake, it is a page about fall and Halloween! What do you think is going to be posted there?!?!
Not everyone enjoys the other seasons. And even those that do, sometimes want a little taste of another even when it's not technically "time". I'd be willing to bet summer people have beach photography saved and stare longingly at it during the Christmas season. We all need to escape reality sometimes, and we all miss our favorite seasons when they're gone.
Letting a calendar dictate your life, to the point where you feel like you can't have your favorite things during the layman's "off-season", is stupid. But the most stupid thing of all is going to a page that's clearly dedicated to a specific thing, only to complain that they're posting about said thing. If you don't want to see something in your news feed, then simply don't follow things relating to it. You're not the calendar police, and some of us are just trying to get through our days until the time we love most returns. When you leave a comment complaining about someone posting about something, on an account that's very clearly dedicated to said something, you look like an idiot. A really mean idiot, honestly. Is scrolling past things you don't like, or just simply unfollowing them page, really not an option for you?
It's as simple as this: If you don't like something enough to have it pop up on your social media newsfeeds sometimes, then simply don't follow pages that are clearly dedicated to that something. And don't try to police people who do like it, even if you think it's "out of season". If you think you have the right to tell people that they can only enjoy something during a specific time of year, then you need to get over yourself as much as the calendar itself does.
Stay spooky, my friends. And don't let the calendar-driven spoil your spookiness.
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