While the spookiest of holidays doesn’t have the largest spend or participation, Halloween lovers are arguably the most passionate, outside of the heavy-hitting winter holidays.

Per NRF’s 2019 projections along with the number of people posting about these holidays on Instagram, you can see the disproportionate passion for Halloween in comparison to the rest of the holidays—participation is the third lowest but ranks the highest for the number of social posts using the holiday's hashtag.

Which got me wondering, why is that? Is it because of the costumes, the scary movies, the candy corn (ew), the haunted houses? Let’s start creeping on the data.

First and foremost it’s because there’s something for everyone. As you can see from the chart below, different age groups all have their own way of celebrating.

18-24-year-olds are the biggest group planning to dress up in costumes and throw or attend a party. 25-34-year-olds are dressing their pets up in a costume or carving pumpkins, 35-44-year-olds are taking their kids trick or treating, 55-64-year-olds are decorating their house or yard, and 65+-year-olds are the biggest group handing out candy.

Speaking of pet costumes, almost one-fifth of Halloweeners are dressing up their puppers, which equates to $490MM in spending, more than double that of 2010. Who can blame them?

If you want to stay on-trend, here are the most popular costumes this year. But if you want some major inspo, check out the East Village’s annual Halloween dog parade, a must-see spectacle that I highly recommend.

Although there are some obvious, overarching reasons why people like Halloween, there are also some more specific motivations for celebrating that contributes to the disproportionate social volume.

If you look at the most common social conversations from 2018, it starts to reveal key themes: some are in it for the thrills (#spooky, #horror, scary), some love the creativity (#art, costume, #halloweenmakeup) and others still are in it for the social aspect (parties, friends, kids).

For those of you who love a scare, kudos to you because I’m a scaredy-cat. These people can’t get enough of haunted houses, scary movies and scaring other people too.

Haunted Houses first came onto the scene in the 1960s when Disneyland opened Haunted Mansion and then became an even bigger attraction in the 80s and 90s when Six Flags opened Fright Fest and Universal Studios Florida started Halloween Horror Nights.

American Haunts estimates that there are now over 1,200 haunted houses charging admission across the country and around 10MM people who visit one each year.

2017 was dubbed the “biggest year in horror history” according to the NYT’s analysis of top-grossing horror movies since the 1970s. In 2017, horror movies raked in $733.5MM thanks to the likes of Get Out, Happy Death Day and It. Apparently Get Out was fantastic, so I've linked the trailer for you below. Enjoy some scares for me :)

Since I can barely watch the trailer of a scary movie, I had to understand why people like them so much.

There are many theories posited by psychologists in this article, but the most succinct explanation comes from Junkee: “Basically, psychological thrillers let us feel fear in a controlled way, reeling us in slowly by deliberately building suspense. We go inside the heads of morally ambiguous characters as directors create moods of anxiety, fury and confusion. Like the characters, we struggle to figure out what’s really going on. And with a final shocking twist, the tension gives way to exhilaration.”

What's interesting about the desire for thrills is that it is just as much about scaring other people as it is about being scared. Halloween obsessive Strange1 from the Halloween Forum (a community of 64.7K members and 1.7MM posts dedicated to Halloween all year long) says he is truly happy when “someone drives by [his house] and has that shocked, open mouth, brain dead, strange look on their faces”.

For the creative folk, Halloween is an excuse to get crafty and let their imagination run wild.

Spookineer from Halloween Forum says it best: “For me, it's that one night of the year when I let outsiders experience the 'world' that I spend all year creating.”

The level of commitment to creating fang-tastic costumes, ghostly makeup and scary treats is incredible. According to Pinterest, here are the top costume trends to expect this year across the country.

Characters from TV shows take the cake with Powerpuff Girls (+379%) and Stranger Things (+653%) ranking the highest in almost half the states. Specifically, Scoops Ahoy Steve Harrington (+538%) and the disgusting Demogorgon (+380%) are the top trending characters from Stranger Things.

I find this particularly fascinating because Halloween has clearly become a culture-reflecting mirror. In an interview between Business Insider and Halloween expert, Lesley Bannatyne, they discuss this further: “Popular culture went from radio to television in the '50s, and all of a sudden everybody is on the same page. You couldn't have standard Halloween costumes that everybody knew about until we had a common culture.”

Pinterest's predicted makeup trends match the costume trends but also expand outside of that with the likes of cute clown makeup (+370%), alien makeup (+146%) and mime makeup (+153%). I've never seen a cute clown, but good luck.

Here are some crazy cool makeup tutorials Cosmo compiled for you in case you are up for the challenge.

To get into the Halloween spirit further, you can whip up some tricky treats like Jack-O-Lantern chips and dip (+57K), white chocolate skulls and brains (+15K) or poison apples (2K).

Finally, Halloween is also a time to be with friends and family—to make new memories and remember old ones.

According to Etsy's 2019 Halloween trends, "retro-ween" is top of mind as people are feeling nostalgic: "Searches on Etsy for vintage Halloween decor has increased by 35% in the last three months (compared to the same time last year), telling us that shoppers are taking walks down memory lane and remember the Halloweens of their childhoods."

What does this all mean? Halloween is a multi-faceted holiday that allows for all age groups and walks of life to take part. Although it's not the most celebrated holiday, the passion runs deep. If you've never considered aligning your brand with this holiday before, there's a chance you can take part in a festive way that your audience will love.