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Halloween

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admin
By admin | Oct 30 2014 1:06 AM
Trick or treat edeb8ers!

This year everybody seems to be talking about over-sexualized halloween costumes? Is this true or is it just my circle of friends? And are old hags,witches and ebola nurses really that sexy or has society just become oversensitive?
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admin
By admin | Oct 30 2014 1:07 AM
admin: PS do you like the pumpkins in the logo?
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Let's revive the forums!
Blackflag
By Blackflag | Oct 30 2014 2:32 AM
admin: Halloween is tommorow here.
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sea_shell
By sea_shell | Oct 30 2014 5:16 AM
admin: There is nothing I like about Halloween and plenty of things I dislike about it.
I'm not sure if I trust anyone who doesn't have their face as their profile.
Blackflag
By Blackflag | Oct 30 2014 5:20 AM
sea_shell: Why? Halloween is an awesome tradition. Especially in larger cities.
sea_shell
By sea_shell | Oct 30 2014 5:47 AM
Blackflag: Here, it's not a tradition. Here, it's a silly event that people only get from American TV and it promotes bad eating, a sense of entitlement (give us crappy food for no reason other than we knocked on your door), and destructive behaviour (if you don't give us something for nothing then we are justified in damaging/littering your property.
It's only been around in NZ recently, I wish it had of stayed away.
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I'm not sure if I trust anyone who doesn't have their face as their profile.
Blackflag
By Blackflag | Oct 30 2014 9:11 AM
sea_shell: Halloween was invented in Europe, and has been celebrated in Christian countries for centuries. It is a surprise to hear that it is only now just reaching New Zealand.
I agree that there are some bad things regarding Halloween. There are also some good ones. The greatest part about Halloween, are the numerous children who have a blast dressing up and having fun at night with their friends.
Blackflag
By Blackflag | Oct 30 2014 9:13 AM
sea_shell: Isn't it up to parents to be responsible for their kids anyways?
There are mandatory protocols for police on Halloween too, so that solves one of your problems.
nzlockie
By nzlockie | Oct 30 2014 11:03 AM
Blackflag: Nobody is disputing the european origins of the original festival that it's based on, but you should understand that the Americanised version of Halloween is NOT a tradition in most of the world.
By this we mean, children dressing up and going door to door to ask for lollies and teenage girls having competitions to see who can wear the skimpiest outfits.

This Americanised version of Halloween is a cultural thing. There's nothing wrong with other countries adopting it, but as Shelley said, in NZ and Australia and even the UK where it has only been around for a short time, it's generally considered to be a pain.
If I reflect on exactly why it seems to work in the US and not down here there's a few things that come to mind:

1. It's been around in its current form for a long time. That means that certain protocols have been long observed. Case in point, in US, trick or treaters know that certain houses don't participate and so they avoid them. It also means that the homeowners all KNOW that halloween is around. In NZ, my street today, (Halloween) looks exactly the same as it does every other year. There are no decorations, and I'll bet that most people have no clue that it's actually today that we can expect these kids to come knocking.
Given enough time in NZ, I expect that we WOULD start to adjust to it, the question is why would we want to?

2. In the Southern Hemisphere, the days are now longer and the nights are far warmer. In the Northern Hemisphere it is starting to get colder and the days are shorter. Tonight I expect to have annoying 5-8year old kids knocking on my door until after 9pm. In the US, the length of trick or treating time for this age group is much shorter. (in my limited experience)

3. In NZ and Australia, the holiday has been sold as a chance to get lollies. The dressing up part is understood but not really adhered to. As a result, I expect that only about 10% of the kids that knock on my door will have actually made an attempt to dress up. Those that do, will literally be limited to a handful of boys, still in their school uniform, wearing a pirate eye patch backwards on their head and 100 girls in Frozen outfits.
Most of the time, when I open the door, the kids will just stare blankly at me until I ask them what they want. They don't carry bags or anything. When I ask, they'll say, "Can we have some lollies?".
In the US, there is more detail to trick or treating than there is here. Both the kids and the homeowners are willing and invested participants in the game, so it works.


I think the single biggest reason we resist it down here is that we are around at the beginning of, what is clearly, a "Hallmark Holiday". As in, a holiday which has been purely driven by the retailers. That's annoying. Rest assured, I'd be protesting just as strongly at Valentine's Day if they were trying to get that one over the line today as well.
Also, as a small proud country, it annoys me that so many of the Kiwi Kids seem to mimic the worst aspects of American culture and none of the good.
If you came to NZ and saw our street gangs, you'd feel right at home. Except for the fact that they don't carry guns and the bullet holes on their cars are just stickers, (really) they walk, talk, dress and act exactly like some gangbanger in Detroit or LA. They use American slang and even say tings in an american accent. It's rather pathetic.
It's totally acceptable in most NZ schools to use American spelling now - probably because most of the teachers can't spell themselves and don't know how to change the default spell check dictionary to UK English. Whole American words are being adopted now, like "Sidewalk", "Elevator" and "Trunk".
Our government uses America as an role model for many of our institutions, despite the fact that our local systems have been consistently outperforming them for decades!
Fortunately most of our creative exports are still kiwi - although even that's changing... we get fed a steady diet of Top Model, Top Bachelor or whatever it is, CSINCISBTWFML and even those insipid Housewives-Dlist-Celebrity-watch-me-and-my-boring-life type programs. That's annoying. Even Anna Paquin has lost her accent, although Cliff Curtis still keeps it real.

It's just a little sad to see it happen. Even our classic kiwi christmas, which is all BBQs and Beach days is starting to get more Northern Hemisphere-ish. As soon as we starting celebrating Thanksgiving or the 4th of July, I'm out of here!
sea_shell
By sea_shell | Oct 30 2014 11:15 AM
nzlockie: Maybe we should go to mamacitas tonight and aid the whole thing.
I'm not sure if I trust anyone who doesn't have their face as their profile.
admin
By admin | Oct 30 2014 11:18 AM
nzlockie: This all depends on the community.

The town I used to live in, near Auckland, had a huge Halloween festival. Well, the town had like 50 houses and like half participated, but it was awesome.

For avoiding non-participating houses the town put out a flier roughly a week before and told everyone who didn't want to participate to leave the flier in their mailbox. Kids would check the letterbox before knocking. The flier also had safety information and protocols for kids on it. It was really well organized and co-ordinated.

The one thing I definitely agree with is that they could have dressed up more. I think this was because people in that town tended to be busy and didn't spend a lot of time with their kids in general. But I suppose put another way, this makes it less of a Hallmark holiday, as you call it.
I'm the main developer for the site. If you have any problems, ideas, questions or concerns please send me a message.
Let's revive the forums!
sea_shell
By sea_shell | Oct 30 2014 1:01 PM
sea_shell: Avoid*
I'm not sure if I trust anyone who doesn't have their face as their profile.
nzlockie
By nzlockie | Oct 30 2014 6:21 PM
Not a word of a lie, the first two trick or treater's to come to our door tonight?
A Pirate AND Princess Frozen.
#calledit
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admin
By admin | Oct 30 2014 10:16 PM
nzlockie: I got none at my door tonight.

Awesome, I get to eat all this candy myself!
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I'm the main developer for the site. If you have any problems, ideas, questions or concerns please send me a message.
Let's revive the forums!
Pinkie
By Pinkie | Nov 1 2014 11:53 AM
admin: Candy is fun.
Please excuse me as I'm not super creative when it comes to forum signatures.
Pinkie
By Pinkie | Nov 1 2014 11:57 AM
nzlockie: There were like a few hundred Queen Elsas from Frozen and only one or two Princess Annas here.
Please excuse me as I'm not super creative when it comes to forum signatures.
Miles_Gonzalez
By Miles_Gonzalez | Oct 23 2018 12:05 AM
Pinkie: 2018 halloween is coming. don't miss these top 10 best spotify music playlists . You can listen to them on this spooky holiday.