Spirit Halloween scene report
I visited the store to check the supply of pop culture, meme-y, and other internet-related costumes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I left disappointed.
Today’s issue of PHONE TIME includes: The state of Spirit Halloween, the Internet Archive celebrates one trillion webpages archived, and I touched some grass (and trees).
I hope everyone had a great Halloweekend. While many were spending Friday evening trick-or-treating or pregaming with spooky cocktails, I was waiting outside the Upper East Side Spirit Halloween with the rest of the last-minuters. But while my fellow line-goers chattered about their costume ideas or what parties they were going to in the October chill, I was there on strictly business.
Spirit Halloween has been a central character in the holiday’s meme landscape for years. I wrote about the store back in 2021. One recurring meme format involves the Spirit Halloween sign superimposed on stores or institutions going out of business; another involves making niche parodies of Spirit Halloween costumes. This year, I wanted to survey the state of costumes to find out whether the IRL Spirit Halloween lived up to its online counterpart. Broadly, I was looking for anything zeitgeist-y, weirdly niche, or otherwise interesting to PHONE TIME readers.
I should note that my assessment will be incomplete, given that many of the costumes had been snapped up by the type-A Halloween planners. The scene reminded me of a Target on the last day before school starts. I noted a few broad categories of aisles: Fortnite, Wicked, Vampire, Princess, Clown, and various miscellaneous items that seemed to be under the banner of “Sexy.”
With the obvious pop-culture phenom, “Wicked,” being plentiful—I can’t remember seeing any “Barbie” costumes—I still left empty-handed and disappointed. Sure, I didn’t expect anything as niche as the “Gay Halloween” references that filled up my social feeds, but I think the creativity dial could nonetheless be turned up a notch.
For due diligence, I also looked at Spirit Halloween’s online store. Additional findings included: Adult Sperm Donor 3D Costume, Adult Stallion Condom Wrapper Costume, and Scrub Daddy and Scrub Mommy costumes. I’ll let you be the judge.
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One trillion webpages archived
“Imagine a world where every word ever written, every picture ever painted, every film ever shot could be be instantly viewed in your home,” starts the trailer to “The Archive,” a film that will be released in 2026.
The trailer was played at the beginning of “The Web We’ve Built,” a celebration the Internet Archive hosted on Oct. 22 to celebrate one trillion web pages archived. You can view the recording here; it’s a joy!
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Welcome to the intersection of art and technology
This issue of PHONE TIME includes: a look inside tiat, “the intersection of art & technology,” started by Ash Herr, which hosts salons for creative technologists in San Francisco. Plus, I spoke with Herr, who also goes by EMPOWA online, about some of her own projects.
Touch grass (or trees)!
In non-tech news, I covered the 34th Avenue tree walk that happened on City of Forest Day, Oct. 4.
The tree walk, a self-guided tour on 34th Avenue, was part of City of Forest Day, which included more than 120 events across the city’s five boroughs. This was the fourth annual City of Forest Day, hosted by Parks and Open Spaces NYC, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and Forest for All NYC, a coalition of more than 200 organizations that aims to protect the city’s urban forest. In Jackson Heights, the walk emphasized trees’ benefits to the local ecosystem, especially in a neighborhood with limited park space. Read more