It’s October 1, which means that the spooky season has officially begun. Halloween, which was once a single day event, has taken over stores nearly 2 months in advance. The Halloween industrial complex has only grown, as adults and children alike go all-in on pumpkins, Styrofoam tombstones, and all things scary. Maybe it’s the economic downshift, which has seen countless abandoned Payless Shoes storefronts and burnt out Joanne’s Fabrics transformed into Spirit Halloween stores. Or maybe it’s our collective desperation for anything whimsical and fun after a brutal few years. And don’t we deserve some scares, some candy, and some 12-foot tall skeletons after all we’ve been through? As a SoCal resident, it’s hard to feel seasonal, considering it’s still a sunny 90 degrees here. But even I can’t resist the siren song of a plastic witch that jangles tunelessly in the entryway of a Rite-Aid.

Social media is, of course, celebrating the official start of the season, in the only way it knows how, with memes on memes on memes. So go ahead and turn on that black light, hang up some cobwebs, and watch Hocus Pocus for the 50th time. You deserve it.