America’s Most Searched Halloween Costumes Over the Years

What is America dressing up as for Halloween this year? How about for the past 6 years? This animated thematic map, created by DATABAYOU, shows what the most Googled Halloween costume was for every state since 2014. The animation plays through each year, displaying the name of the costume that was the most searched in each state, color coded to the “class” that each falls into. With 14 different classes of costume to assign to these searches, it’s interesting to see how the trends change year-by-year, and state-by-state. The color-coded classes include: toy, cartoon, Disney, book/tv/movie character, comic, video game, Star Wars, character (such as a clown, ninja, or pirate), mythical/ religious, food, animal, politics, activity/profession, and time period. While some of the costumes that appear on the interactive map could fall into two different categories, the creator classified them according to their own personal experiences.

Click here for the original animated map.

Click here for the original animated map.

Watching the costume timeline play across the map, it’s easy to see the trends that were popular for each particular year. You can tell that 2016 was an election year with New York’s most searched costume being Hillary Clinton while Florida dominated the searches with Melania Trump costume ideas. One fifth of the country wanted to get decked out in 1980s attire in 2017, while searches for Batman and Black Panther costumes surged in other states. In 2019 it seems that everyone felt like being a creepy clown as searches for IT appeared the most, showing up in fifteen states. What sort of costumes can you expect to see this year? According to the map there will be plenty of witches and dinosaurs out roaming the streets in search of candy. What were some costume trends that stood out to you over the years?