Nowadays, Halloween is characterized by skimpy outfits and spooky alcoholic concoctions.

A culture shock has altered how people celebrate Halloween. No longer do we see young people dressing up as power rangers or witches. Instead we see scanty and sexual outfits that would even scare away Freddy Krueger.

Halloween’s roots extend way back to the Celtic festival of Samhain, which celebrated the New Year. The Celts believed that on the night before their new year, Oct. 31, the boundary between the worlds of the living and dead blurred together, allowing for ghosts of the dead to return back to earth.

To appease and commemorate the spirits, the Celts would build bonfires and dress up in costumes made from animal heads and skins.

This tradition evolved over time as Christianity spread across the region, and the church sanctioned the Celtic holiday to become All Saint’s Day, also named All Hallows’ Eve. The name eventually shortened to Halloween and spread to America as the European powers expanded their empires.

Halloween festivities in the second half of 19th century America included Americans dressing up in costumes and going house to house asking for food or money, a tradition that later became known as “trick-or-treating.”

By the 1950s, Halloween celebrations were directed more towards children, and trick-or-treating became popular as it was a low-cost way to engage in the Halloween celebration. This trick-or-treat tradition remains an integral part of the Halloween festivities, but the celebration of this meaningful Celtic ritual has gone from saintly to slutty.

The vast majority of American society likely has no knowledge of the origins of Halloween and the original meaning behind it.

Today, we have established our own meanings that involve scanty costumes and drinking. Of course, my perception of America’s second-largest commercial holiday has changed as I have aged, but the promiscuous new nature of Halloween is all-reaching and different than what I grew up with.

I remember my young Halloween adventures of running into princesses, superheroes and zombies on neighborhood streets. Just last Halloween, my parents gave candy out to Snooki, Miley Cyrus and a banana. Among trick-or-treaters you will find kids with traditional costumes, like pirates and witches, but there is a new trend of humorous pop culture costumes.

While it is understandable for people to turn towards pop culture for innovative new costume ideas, I’m sure the old Celtic spirits wouldn’t be thrilled when they see thousands of young Donald Trump’s flooding neighborhood streets scavenging for candy.

The most dramatic shift I’ve noticed in the celebration of Halloween is in costumes selected by my fellow young adult peers. It’s become a competition for people to get as creative and humorous as possible when finding a costume. Recent examples could include Lonely Island dick-in-a-box outfits or makeshift human breathalyzer outfits. For young women it seems the more skin your costume shows, the better. Halloween has become a time for ladies to let loose and get sexy without the shaming from peers.

Halloween has become a time to wear as little clothing as possible and go drink as much as you can. We no longer acknowledge the spirits of the dead, but rather the spirits of Captain Morgan and Jack Daniel. Of course, as a college student I do enjoy the Halloween dressing up and parties, but I can’t help to notice the drastic change of what the holiday has come to symbolize in American society.

Ryan Smith ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in strategic communications.