My Culture Is Not Your Costume

Submission 9,992

Part of a series on Halloween. [View Related Entries]

About

My Culture Is Not Your Costume, also written My Culture Is Not A Costume, is a catchphrase related to Halloween costumes that are perceived as cultural appropriation and racist. The primary example is Native American Halloween costumes, which inspired the initial viral tweet that coined the catchphrase in October 2016. Thereafter, the phrase was used to caption image macros showing satirical examples of costumes that are culturally insensitive. This occurred on Twitter going into 2022.

Origin

"We're a Culture, Not a Costume" Precursor

We're a Culture, Not a Costume was a poster ad campaign that featured students of various ethnicities holding photos of people dressed in Halloween costumes that could be perceived as culturally insensitive. The campaign inspired a series of photoshop parodies depicting animals and fictional characters with photos of people wearing their respective Halloween costumes.

The original ad was shared in late October of 2011 by a student organization at Ohio University named "Students Teaching Against Racism in Society"^[1] (STARS) which launched a campaign to raise awareness about racially insensitive Halloween costumes. On October 21st, 2011, the president of the organization posted several images of awareness posters on her Tumblr ^[2] blog.

The notoriety of the ad's phrase most likely inspired the later "My Culture Is Not Your Costume" catchphrase on 2010s Twitter.

My Culture Is Not Your Costume

On November 21st, 2013, the Tumblr^[3] blog monishaholmes posted an excerpt from their class paper titled, "My Culture Is Not Your Costume," earning 13 notes in nine years. The blog post received cross-platform attention on Twitter.^[4]^[5] On October 31st, 2014, Twitter^[6] user pale_teen tweeted, "I am a ghost year round my culture is not your costume," gaining over 50 likes (shown below). The tweet is the first known satirical iteration of the phrase.

Spread

Roughly a year later, on October 27th, 2015, Twitter^[7] user WereABetterShan tweeted a little girl in a trash can costume, captioning it, "Remember everyone my culture is not your costume please be respectful when dressing for Halloween this year," and gaining over 30 likes in seven years (shown below, left).

On October 2nd, 2016, Twitter^[8] user queenmahala tweeted, "Halloween is coming up, so everyone please remember that my culture isn't a costume 😊 Thank you," captioning an infographic that said, "Culture Not Costume" in text overlay. In four days, the tweet received roughly 4,600 likes and 5,000 retweets (shown below, right) and also earned a news article from Culture Trip^[9] titled, "My Culture Is Not Your Costume."

Following the virality of queenmahala's tweet, satirical usage of the phrase became commonplace in memes. For instance, on November 1st, 2016, Twitter user anthoniexg tweeted a video in which he did "white face," captioning it, "My culture is not a costume," and received roughly 127,700 likes in six years (shown below).

On May 8th, 2018, Twitter^[10] user KevinBuffalo tweeted a photo of vegetable mascots paired with the phrase, gaining roughly 1,400 likes in four years (shown below, left). On June 8th, 2019, Twitter^[11] user freaky_walrus paired the phrase with a screenshot of a fake foreskin, gaining roughly 3,100 likes in three years (shown below, right).

Close to Halloween 2022, the phrase peaked in engagement and usage on Twitter following multiple viral tweets. On October 18th, 2022, Twitter^[12] user ripseraphim tweeted a most likely photoshopped Halloween costume that showed a "Polyamorous Mixologist," gaining roughly 128,300 likes in two days (shown below).