Halloween is a festival celebrated on the 31st of October and, as quoted from Wikipedia, "activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Of that long list of activities, the one that Singaporeans are more actively participating are the costume parties.
Well... there is a cultural history behind the origination of Halloween but that will hardly ever concern Singapore since it relates to agriculture, a field we do not place a lot of emphasis on. Thus the only reason the youths in Singapore are embracing this festival is most probably due to the fact that for one night, they can dress up (or down, depending on who they are modeling) and act all stupid. If you ask me, I think its all Groupthink.
Groupthink is actually the mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. In my opinion, this is highly prominent during Halloween because there will be groups of friends who want to dress in a particular manner to achieve optimal costume effect. Girls may want to dress as a house of fairies like Winx Club and boys may want to dress up as a battlion of terrorists or army fugitives. One example can be seen in the above pictures where a trio dressed up as the game blocks for Teris. The togetherness in their costumes may not appeal to one or two members who may prefer uniqueness. However they may practise self-censorship and follow suit just to please the majority because there tends to be pressure on the dissenters. There is an illusion of unanimity as we can clearly from their uniform dressing however there is stifling of personal opinions which we are unable to grasp. Thus it becomes a pity because for all we know, the few personal opinions that are left unsaid may be more eye-catching ideas.
Even though Halloween has hardly any cultural relation to Singapore, let us all embrace this new tradition and just have fun.
4 comments:
HAHAHAHA those costumes are cute! It is interesting how you bring about groupthink in deciding what costumes to wear for Halloween. It is a very subtle yet common thing. My clique, for instance, is going to do a princess galore so all of us are going to be princesses. I'm not too sure if we indeed stifle anyone's opinions but I doubt so because we all like being princesses. I guess there is no groupthink here then?
This is a scenario where Groupthink is subtly being played. Perhaps there isn't an illusion of invincibility like one of the symptons of groupthink but I do believe that there is an illusion of coolness or stupidness, whatever the groups of people want to portray.
Speaking of which, join Tom and I as PacMan characters?
i think that halloween is a waste of time. Although it provides people with the opportunity to be creative.
oh well.. halloween is definitely not for people like me, who prefer to stay at home.
It seems like Halloween in Singapore is digressing form its original culture and turning more into a new one? or is Halloween in Singapore becomeing juts a cosplay party where people once in a year can dress up in whatever they want?
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