Lil Nas X Jumps into Fake 'Gay' Halloween Costume Trend
Lil Nas X jumped into the gay subtrend of the "fake Halloween Costume" memes flooding social media.
Newsweek reported that the openly gay 23-year-old hip-hop superstar "slammed" a doctored image of a Spirit Costume package that used his likeness.
The meme shows Nas X dressed in an orange ensemble with the text of the package reading, "Gay Person in Terrible Outfit."
Nas X retweeted the image with the caption, "it's funny until u realize both of my dead grandmothers stitched this outfit together by hand right before passing and i wore it to go and donate to a childrens hospital after volunteering at a soup kitchen for the homeless."
"not [so funny] now is it?" the caption added.
"The rapper then reverted to his funny self and photoshopped the image of him on the costume into an image of a soup kitchen in a follow-up tweet, which may reveal he was joking all along," Newsweek added.
Gay-themed parody images are part of a larger trend making fun of various stereotypes. The New York Post reported on the trend, which includes altered images of Spirit Halloween costume packages bearing labels like "Early 2000s Avril Lavigne," "Unemployed," and "Short Blonde Singer."
"Other fake costumes include 'Graduate Student' — complete with coffee, a faulty backpack and a notebook full of 'failed experiments' — and a 'Child-hating dance teacher' meant to represent Abby Lee Miller of 'Dance Moms' fame," the Post article detailed.
As previously reported, the trend has generated a number of humorous images of fake costume packages, including the generic-sounding "Gay Guy," which shows a man draped in a Pride flag; "Gay Loser," which incorporates a photo of a man in a dark T-shirt, black sweat pants, and sky-blue socks; "Polyamorous Mixologist," purported to come with "Theater & Performance Degree" and "Mommy Issues." And perhaps most terrifying of all, "Thirty-Year-Old Twink," which is adorned with a photo of Gollum, the CGI-rendered character from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
Some on social media seemed to take the jokes at face value, or at least pretended to.
Others approached the trend through a political lens.
Most seemed happy just to go along with the joke.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Spirit Halloween responded to the trend, answering one person's query with, "Hey! This is not something we carry or have carried before."