Left your Halloween costume to the final hours? Toronto has you covered — the city's meme history alone is a costume shop. Curiocity rounded up ten hyper-local ideas you can pull together with stuff you already own, and most of them will land instantly with anyone who's lived in or followed the 6ix.
For duos, the creators behind Slushy Noobz, Hamzah Al-Emad and Martin Andrijasevic, are a timely pick: white button-ups, a shared white hoodie, black latex gloves and a bag of fake seafood basically turn you into their famous king crab mukbang. If politics is more your thing, recreate Mayor Olivia Chow's surprise appearance at Citypoolwarrior's Pride rave — white tank, star-covered black vest, chunky silver necklace, and the bob.
A few ideas need one quick errand. The Kensington Market Garden Car — a rolling garden installed in 2007 by the advocacy group Streets are for People and now a genuine tourist draw — just takes neon layers, dollar-store foliage and a wheel accessory. The 'I HATE RUBBER BOOTS' guy requires a same-hour T-shirt print job and, of course, rubber boots. And Sareem Rahma's Toronto edition of SubwayTakes, which replaced the New York MetroCard with a PRESTO card, is a full conversation starter: thrifted suit, shades, and you spend the night collecting hot takes.
Singletons have options too. Drake's 'Strong Women, Stronger Drinks' party at Casa Loma — where invited women walked away with Birkin bags and luxury gifts from a $500k spend — translates to a fur coat, sunglasses, fake cash and as many bags as you can carry. Plushh, the Toronto-accent viral moment from August 2023, needs only a black crop top, pigtails, big lashes and a memorized monologue. The 2012 IKEA monkey Darwin, now living at Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary, is DIY monkey ears plus your best shearling coat. Uncle Crawfy, the Line 2 TTC driver whose on-board pep talks went viral in August, calls for a driver's outfit and thick-rimmed glasses — then hand out compliments all night.
One idea we'd approach with caution: 'Pee Pee Poo Poo Man' Samuel Opoku, who lobbed liquefied feces at five victims across the U of T and York campuses. An empty bucket and yellow hard hat get the point across; the city would rather you not go method.
Why should a traveller care? If you're visiting Toronto around Halloween, this list is a crash course in the city's internet folklore — Garden Car, Slushy Noobz, Uncle Crawfy and all. And if you're already here when October 31 rolls around, you can assemble a costume in an afternoon that locals will actually applaud.
Curiocity
