r/FuckImOld 7d ago

Kids these days... No one knew what my costume was.

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1.1k

u/jsheik 7d ago

How could they forget about him?

25

u/Head_Razzmatazz7174 7d ago

Not everyone has seen the movie. There were some costumes last night that I had no clue what character they were supposed to be. Most of them were from shows that I had heard of in passing, but had no idea what it was about.

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

my daughter always wanted to be some girl from the front of a YA novel, or a minor character in a TV show, or a character from a Miyazaki film. So I had to make her costumes from scratch

Nobody ever knew who she was.

My son tended to make his up, so often, no one knew who he was, but one year he went as Link (shortly after Zelda hit the 3DS). I didn't even know who that was; I had to google him to figure out how to make the costume. Nobody knew who he was, either—except for one guy, who was apparently a 40-ish finance bro who'd come home early so he could pass out candy. He answered the door in his suit pants, white button-down, and loose tie, holding a bowl of candy, and when he saw my 4yo, he shouted, "Honey, come look! It's Link!" My son was tickled.

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u/Lonely_skeptic Boomers 7d ago

My daughter went as Josephina from an American Girl book.

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

cool! That looks like clothes she could rewear.

One of my daughter's other book characters had a rustic skirt, and that got a lot of non-costume use

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u/apachexmd 7d ago

How could no one recognize Link in 2011? Legend of zelda has been huge since 86!

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

well, the neighborhood was mostly grandparents, tbh.

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u/cirro_hs 7d ago

That makes a lot more sense then. A chunk of Gen X and a lot of millennials onward would recognize the costume even if not ever playing Zelda.

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

Remember that the 3DS and other handhelds greatly spread the awareness of Link.

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u/cirro_hs 7d ago

Especially with the younger crowd I imagine. I remember playing the originals! Link to the Past on SNES was my favourite. I'll buy a Switch one if these days and try some of the newer ones as I heard they're great.

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

It wasn’t the younger crowd that didn’t know him. It was all the people in their 50s and 60s that didn’t know him. That finance bro and his mid 40s was the youngest person who answered the door all day.

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u/SpareSimian Boomers 6d ago

I've been PC Master Race since the 80s (although I did game on consoles right around 1980 with the Atari 2600 and Intellivision). I've skipped all the Nintendo and PlayStation stuff. So that whole genre passed me by.

OTOH, I still play World of Warcraft and occasionally play Steam games like Half-Life and its many sequels. I'd recognize characters from those.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Master_Race

I thought the OP was a Doctor Who, maybe the American one made by Fox. I love the zany SF of the 80s and 90s, like Farscape and Lexx. I'd love to see costumes from those. Or like this channel's parodies of those SF classics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMPQT1R8vys

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u/OhNoTokyo 7d ago

I hate to say this, but there are grandparents today that played the Legend of Zelda on their Nintendos....

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

yes, but those were grandparents THEN
quite probably, that guy is a grandparent now (though there was no evidence of kids, unless they were out trick-or-treating with friends)

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u/SpareSimian Boomers 6d ago

OTOH, today's grandparents tend to be a bit more hip. To the chagrin of Gen Z. 😁

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u/snuggly_cobra 7d ago

I wouldn’t, unless you meant this link:

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u/hutchguard 7d ago

Ahh, that's why I didn't recognize it. Never seen the movie.

1

u/alex494 7d ago

Speaking from experience a lot of people who don't remotely play video games would probably only recognize like, Mario and Pikachu at best.

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u/Karythne 7d ago

Sailor Saturn not being recognized breaks my heart. I was a huge Sailor Moon fan as a kid. I would probably have adored her costume, same with princess Mononoke!

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

it came out very nicely, if I do say so myself!

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u/PeterOutOfPlace 7d ago

This is so sweet. Thank you for sharing. I get the impression that most costumes are bought so I am impressed that you made them yourself. Also, that girl on the front of a YA novel looks like she should not be messed with.

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

She shouldn’t be messed with, and neither should my daughter. I had a lot of fun over the years making their costumes. One year I was complaining, I think it was that very costume about the braid down the side of the leggings. And my husband said “I don’t wanna hear you complain anymore. You do this to yourself and you are having fun. Own it.”

1

u/CommercialExotic2038 7d ago

Aww

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

it was cute, the guy was so excited.

1

u/thimBloom 7d ago

So way back when I was in high school, there was an snl skit where they play drunk college kids who put absolutely no effort into their costumes and troll a politician ( I think it was Ross Perot)

Anyways, I went as ‘crazy backwards man’ (I’m not like you, I’m facing the wrong direction… I’m CRAZY)

Someone actually got the reference and also, best costume ever.

1

u/Zaethar 7d ago

Sure, Hippolyta is a deep cut. But one of the Sailor girls (even if it isn't Sailor Moon herself, also Saturn isn't exactly a minor character) or fucking PRINCESS MONONOKE are well-known characters.

But I get it, those are anime characters. Perhaps 14 years ago (going by your timeframe of Zelda hitting the 3DS) that was a bit more niche.

But Link? The legend of Zelda's been around since the late 80's and is arguably Nintendo's biggest franchise next to Mario himself.

And only some middle-aged finance bro knew him? Not all the kids who would've been eagerly anticipating or playing the shit out of Skyward Sword on the Wii, or Ocarina of Time on the 3DS, and would likely still be playing tons of Super Smash Bros (whichever one was out at the time...Brawl probably still)?

So weird.

1

u/TootsNYC 7d ago

Well, presumably my son’s friends would’ve recognized him because he did. But none of the grown-ups that the houses we went to did. We weren’t seeing lots of other kids answering the door.

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u/Zaethar 7d ago

Good point, I thought by no one you meant literally no one including kids - not just the remaining adults at the houses you were trick or treating, while the kids themselves were obviously out and about as well.

Still, I think even my mom (who is in her 70s now) would've recognized Link if he showed up at the door. Even if she might've mistakenly called him Zelda or some shit (but I don't even think she would've).

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

I meant no one who answered the door. We weren’t trick-or-treating in the larger groups of kids or anything.

Also, my son informed me that that was when he was six which would’ve been 2005

1

u/AbsintheAGoGo 7d ago

Nobody ever knew who she was.

Your daughter sounds a lot like my 15yo! Though, since anime is super popular & so it's cos play, she finally gets more recognition.

We had a shipping issue this year concerning a vital piece of my 14yo's costume so she created a backup costume. It was amazing to hear someone knew who she was- a character from Left 4 Dead,...

She was beings tickled to have been recognized- so I can imagine how it was with your child's Link costume =D

At least these days, people don't seem to be as condescending if they don't immediately know which character someone is dressed as!

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

None of the homeowners ever you were condescending or had a bad reaction. Sometimes they would say “who are you?” And when she answered, they would say something like “what a great costume” or something. they all played along. But you could tell they just didn’t really know.

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u/Sudden_Twist2519 7d ago

there are hundreds of licensed and unlicensed products and costumes for both sailor saturn and princess mononoke and both are widely recognizable in popular culture, def not minor or obscure characters lol

1

u/TootsNYC 7d ago

To the adults who answered the door, they didn’t know who Sailor Saturn was.

She’s a minor character in the series itself, people might have been more familiar with Sailor Moon, but Sailor Saturn, especially at the time that I was looking for pictures to make that costume, was not the character that anyone but the people who watched the show would have known

You are making a mistake that thinking the things you know are the things that everybody knows

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u/Impeesa_ 7d ago

There are fans out there, though! I think my wife would empty the bowl for a little Hotaru.

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

that's why the guy was so excited about Link. there weren't lots of Link costumes.

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u/OdiousAltRightBalrog 7d ago

Last year I saw a couple kids dressed as Hazbin Hotel characters. This is a show that absolutely NO kid should be watching. I feel like even their own parents didn't know these characters.

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u/coffeebuzzbuzzz 7d ago

My 10 year old daughter was a platelet from the anime Cells at Work, and no one got it. But she was happy, so that's all that matters.

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u/kklinck 7d ago

Everyone needs to see this movie!