I'm not sure if there's a Halloween version of a Christmas Scrooge, but I found one. On Reddit, a guy who aptly goes by the username HalloweenAsshole asked the internet whether his distaste for kids from non-affluent neighborhoods is wrong and, well, I'll let you see what happened.
First, here's HalloweenAsshole's story in his own words: "Within the past year, my girlfriend moved in with me into my home in an affluent neighborhood. For the past few years, the neighbors and I have seen a growing amount of people come to our neighborhood for Halloween. This has caused a lot of people to 'turn off' for Halloween, which you'd think would get the crowd to lessen, but it keeps growing."
"I was openly annoyed with this leading up to Halloween, and my girlfriend would condemn it every time I brought it up because 'Halloween's all about sharing.' She said it shouldn't matter whether the kids are from the neighborhood or not."
"She'd also point out that many of these children probably live in bad neighborhoods where it's not possible to trick-or-treat."
"Not surprisingly, this year at both entrances to the neighborhood, cars lined the streets. Some with out of state plates. (I live in a suburb of a city that is just over the state line.) Am I the asshole for getting annoyed with parents who truck carloads full of kids to a neighborhood they don't live in?"
Unsurprisingly, thousands of commenters weighed in to call HalloweenAsshole out in varying ways. With 15,000 upvotes, the top comment simply reads: "Yep, and sorry about your privilege," user PreOpTransCentaur said.
Not only could people not believe how cheap someone from a supposedly "affluent neighborhood" was acting...
"If you’re doing well enough to live in an 'affluent' neighborhood, you can certainly afford a few bags of candy for the kids from the bad neighborhoods," user cubs_070816 said.
...they more importantly couldn't fathom discriminating against children who may or may not come from families with less money than him.
"These kids are not less deserving of the candy from your neighborhood than children who have parents in a higher income bracket. The fact that you seem to think they are hints at a bias that you probably haven’t examined too closely but probably should," user SleepUntilTomorrow added.
Excluding children is truly bizarre behavior, people reasoned, especially when considering how many of these kids may be coming from communities where there are more apartments and therefore less formal houses to knock on.
"Sorry kids," user GuyNoirPI hypothetically posed in HalloweenAsshole's logic. "We live in an apartment complex that doesn’t allow trick-or-treating so you’re never going to be able to experience a cherished American tradition.”
Besides, the joy of giving out candy should come from seeing children happy and excited to celebrate. Who cares where they come from?
"You're the asshole," user sjsyed said. "Where is the rule that says kids have to trick-or-treat where they live? ... On my street, there are very few trick-or-treaters. Last year, I was giving out double handfuls of candy to the kids, because barely anyone showed up. I would be THRILLED if I got a ton of kids. If I knew that kids were coming to my street on purpose, that would actually encourage me to step it up a notch. If it bothers you so much to give candy to poor children, then just don’t give candy at all. Stay inside, turn off your porch light, and count your money or something, you Halloween grinch."
Even other redditors who live in affluent neighborhoods weighed in to say that they not only accept trick-or-treaters from other communities, but embrace them.
"You're the asshole," user Cross55 said. "I used to live in an affluent area of town, and people would drive from the other side of town to this area every year during Halloween because it was a pretty nice place. You want to know what the owners there did? They embraced it and went all out. Hell, they basically turned an entire street into Halloween Street, where up to 1,000+ kids would show up to trick-or-treat, their parents would get free cider or wine, and people would make their own haunted houses just because they could. So yeah, suck it up, or actually have fun with it, your choice."
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