Google Trends on Tuesday released its 2022 FrightGeist, which is a list of the year’s top Halloween costumes compiled from search results in the United States.
At the top of the list this year was “witch,” followed by Spider-Man and then “dinosaur.” Costumes related to Stranger Things came in at No. 4.
Those top picks could have netted a lot of searches due to what’s been popular in 2022. Disney’s Hocus Pocus 2 came out last month to much fanfare, which could have helped play a role in this year’s top costume on the list. However, “witch” was also the top costume on the FrightGeist list last year. (The specific phrase “Hocus Pocus” for costumes came in at No. 14 on this year’s ranking.)
Spider-Man: No Way Home may have come out in December 2021, but the film continued dominating the box office into the new year and had a brief return to theaters in the summer. Meanwhile, dinosaur costumes could have a strong showing due to the popularity of June’s Jurassic World Dominion.
Stranger Things returned for its fourth season after a long break, and the show continued to be a major hit for Netflix. Many people looking for costume ideas turned to Google for Stranger Things inspiration, as the show was No. 4 on the FrightGeist list.
Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Other popular films seemed to make an impact on this year’s list. Batman came in at No. 19—Robert Pattinson portrayed the superhero in a film released in the spring—while Buzz Lightyear came in at No. 40 and Top Gun costumes made the top 50 at No. 44.
On the 2021 FrightGeist, “Cruella De Vil” came in at No. 5. Earlier in the year, the Emma Stone film Cruella was a box-office hit. This year, searches for De Vil costumes dropped all the way down to 73.
Fairies, pirates, cowboys and cheerleaders were all top searches for costumes in both 2021 and 2022. Harley Quinn also remained popular, coming in at No. 10 this year after placing at No. 7 last year.
The Joker, Star Wars and Beetlejuice were also popular searches, while other people sought out costume ideas by entering in decades in the search bar.
The 1980s were the most commonly sought-after decade for costume ideas, coming in at No. 13 on the list. The 1990s followed at 58, and the 1970s was at 64.
FrightGeist also included a map to show where costumes received the most searches. Witches, for example, were most searched by people in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Boston and Atlanta. Spider-Man was most searched in Tallahassee, Florida/Thomasville, Georgia and Mobile, Alabama/Pensacola, Florida.
Newsweek reached out to Google for comment.
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