Hi. I have a question. What is Halloween? I’ve heard Halloween mentioned from time to time, but I’ve never understood exactly what people meant by it.
I recently attempted to find out for myself. I booted up my computer, opened a web browser, and spent the afternoon looking for answers on an internet search engine. As a naturally curious person, this is my go-to method for researching topics that I’m interested in knowing more about, so I figured it’d come in handy for learning what Halloween is (or was?) as well. Unfortunately, I found nothing. There is no information about Halloween anywhere online.
So, can anyone tell me what Halloween is? Or perhaps, whether I need a specific internet service provider to access information about Halloween? I currently have Spectrum, but I’d rather not switch providers, if I can help it.
In the past, I’ve found the internet to be a reliable, convenient resource for learning about a wide variety of different topics. You name it, and there’s probably a few articles about it on the internet. Even subjects as disparate as “apple bobbing,” “jack-o’-lanterns,” “trick-or-treating,” “holidays with pagan roots,” and “haunted houses” all instantly generated hundreds of thousands of search results when I looked them up, no problem. It took me no time at all to learn everything there was to know about those subjects. But Halloween? Zero search results. Zilch. Absolutely nothing. The internet is a total dead end when it comes to Halloween information.
And yes, I tried Google. I wouldn’t be asking for your help if there was any Halloween information on Google. Take a look.
The few times I’ve heard someone mention Halloween over the years, they are usually excited about it. It made me think that Halloween might be a popular new restaurant in town, considering that earlier this year, I heard rumors that our main street was getting a Thai restaurant. “Perhaps Halloween is a beloved Thai restaurant,” I thought. It turns out not to be the case, as you can see below.
I’m not racing to any conclusions about what Halloween is or isn’t. Just deducing what I can with what I know, since looking up Halloween on the internet turned out to be such a bust.
By the way, are there any foreign language speakers reading this? My gut instinct is that Halloween is “aloe vera” translated into English from either German or Japanese. The internet wasn’t able to confirm that hunch either, so I figured to mention it here, while I’m at it.
The fact that there’s not a single page on the entire World Wide Web with information about Halloween has only made me more curious. Whatever Halloween is, it must be a pretty new thing. I think it would be cool to amaze my teenage nieces and nephews by showing them that I know about Halloween the next time I see them. The look on their faces when they realize I’ve learned about a hip, new fad like Halloween before they did, it’s got me chuckling already. That is, of course, only if any of you are able to fill me in on what or who Halloween is or does (maybe Halloween is just a theory, and not scientifically proven yet—just thinking outside-the-box here).
All in all, if any of you can tell me what Halloween is, that would be great. If none of you know what Halloween is either, I plan to visit my local library this weekend, where I’ll do some manual research, the old fashioned way, because the internet has been no help whatsoever. Guess you can’t rely on it for everything after all. For what it’s worth, simply knowing if Halloween is a place would be extraordinarily helpful, as it would narrow down my inquiry to the library’s geography section. Or maybe Halloween is a person (say, a woman)? Or is Halloween a job? An animal? These questions were out of the internet’s scope of knowledge, hence, why I’m asking here.
Any leads at all would be appreciated. Otherwise, I’ve got my fingers crossed that the library catalog will point me in the right direction. It’s usually quite helpful. If I have any success learning about Halloween, I’ll follow up here with what I find out. Thanks.
UPDATE: No success at my local library either. I would’ve asked the librarian, but she was busy putting fake cobwebs and little pumpkins around the children’s section for some opaque reason (I researched this behavior on the internet and learned that this is likely a sign of severe mental illness). Oh well. I remain completely in the dark as to whatever Halloween is. Maybe I’ll find out one day.
