The Most Popular Halloween Costumes of All Time and 2024 Trends

Some families dress up for Halloween as characters from a shared universe. Elsa, Anna, and Olaf. Black Widow, Captain America, and Ironman. Sadly, this is the first year even my youngest kid wants to stay home, watch movies, and help pass out candy. But, he’ll likely wear his Chester Cheetah (the Cheetos mascot) onesie pajamas—his “costume of choice”!

Jokes aside, Halloween costumes have become a kind of cultural index for us in the United States. What our children dress up as reflects the themes, trends, characters, and historical moments of the year.

This year, we’re analyzing 2024’s top costumes by pulling data via API from one of the most fascinating sources of public opinion data: Reddit.

Oh, and if you’re looking for our analysis of the top Halloween costumes ever, you can find it here. Our process isn’t exactly scientific, but it’s seasonal and fun. Enjoy!

Tracking the top Halloween costumes in 2024

Reddit is a hub for what people really think—and we thought it’d be a great place to understand the top Halloween costumes for 2024. We combed through three of the most popular subreddits for discussing Halloween costumes: r/Halloween_Costumes, r/halloween, and r/HalloweenCostume.

I used Domo’s JSON no code connector. With a little setup, I can use this connector (with OAuth) to connect to any API without needing an engineer to do the work.

Then we used Magic ETL to combine the data from the threads and then extract the keywords used in the thread titles, so we can see what’s popping. You can click on any of the bubbles below to filter down to those threads. There are also links in the table, so you can go and read the actual thread.

One of our favorites? “[Girlfriend] dressing as a Victoria Secret angel for Halloween, what is a good costume for me to complement her?” We salute all the supportive partners out there!