Spirit Isn’t Happy with Halloween Costume Memes, Creates ‘Review Team’
If you haven't picked out your Halloween costume yet, perhaps you could be a "Vinyl Snob," "Middle-Aged Musician" or "That Guy From Papa Roach." They're just some of the hilarious ideas from the Spirit Halloween meme dump that has taken over social media the past few weeks, poking fun at the seasonal store's very specific prepackaged costumes.
It turns out that the chain is no fan of the Photoshopped costume jokes, however. They’ve taken to take to Twitter several times to make sure everyone knows they don't really sell options like the "5'11" Twitch Streamer" in-a-bag costume. Or the more controversial "Gay Guy" costume, which they have received some complaints about, according to Rolling Stone.
"Hey! This is not something we carry or have carried before," the chain tweeted in response to one person wondering about "Gay Guy."
In another post that asked, "Seriously @SpiritHalloween?" about that same costume, which features a man with a rainbow-colored flag over his shoulders, Spirit Halloween took things to the next level. The chain now claims they have a "review team" looking over the influx of faux posts.
"This is not an officially licensed costume from our company. Photoshopping our packages seems to be trending at the moment. We will be passing this to our review team. Thank you for bringing this to our attention," they responded. Though it's not clear what legal recourse they could take, if any.
Rolling Stone shared that they contacted the Halloween chain through Twitter DMs as well as the brand's media rep to see if they might be thinking about cease-and-desist action or copyright infringement claims. "They have yet to reply," RS said in their article.
Though Spirit can't be too upset about it if they are making their own cracks at the content. Yesterday, Oct. 26, the chain tweeted a photo of a mock costume for a Spirit Halloween store that comes with a "sign for the abandoned building you take over" and asked, "Is this too meta?"
Here's a look at some of the best Spirit Halloween costume memes, from a Middle Aged Musician trash bag costume to "Old Hater DJ." The chain also is the basis of a new feature film, now streaming.