The majority of Americans cite fall as their favorite season, and I was among them until several years ago, when I started realizing that each Labor Day weekend was bringing me ever closer to becoming Andy Rooney. I had questions, and they were cranky: Why are my algorithms clogged with identikit white women with barrel-curled hair flinging decorative gourds and strings of plastic leaves all over their kitchens? When did Halloween expand into two months of “spooky season,” and does spooky season overlap with “cozy season,” or is that a completely separate thing? Why are Target and Walmart and Michaels full of shabby-chic wall art announcing “OMG fall” and “#fallvibes” with the same energy as they might elsewhere proclaim “Live Laugh Love?” Why are otherwise normal people acting like they’ve just been sprung from some malign summer lockup in which they were physically prevented from wearing soft pants or drinking tea?
Fall is no longer the nostalgic, sweet-smelling transitional zone between the begrudging end of summer and the bombast of the holiday shopping season; it’s a shopping season in itself.
In a just world, fall influencers would have no impact on my ability to enjoy this time of year. But in a really just world, fall influencers wouldn’t exist at all. So far, only one place in the United States has managed to make this a reality: Pomfret, Vermont. Two years ago, the citizens of this postcard-perfect town, a favorite of New England leaf-peepers, closed the winding road that leads to a private residence called Sleepy Hollow Farm after years of disruptive annual infiltration by fall girlies, #autumninspo moms and tour buses hashtagging and TikTokking through their once-chill community. The story made international headlines because, well, examples of public shunning undertaken early enough for it to reduce harm measurably are depressingly rare, and this one had a David vs. Goliath quality to it.
And yet: At the Walmart or Target closest to Pomfret, there is still a shelf holding Mr. Clean Spiced Harvest Multi-Purpose Cleaning Liquid. There is still a pyramid of Pumpkin Spice cat litter. There is still an endcap display of orange toilet paper and “Dumpkin Spice” Dude Wipes.
The Fall Aesthetic as profit generator can’t be contained. What arguably began in the early 2000s, when Starbucks decided that two limited-availability seasonal beverages were better than one and debuted its Pumpkin Spice Latte and intensified with the advent of visual social-media platforms, has now attained its final form. Fall is no longer the nostalgic, sweet-smelling transitional zone between the begrudging end of summer and the bombast of the holiday shopping season; it’s a shopping season in itself.
@leanne.rod_ Since it’s August 1st and national GF’s day, remember what’s coming up 🎃👻#boobasket #fall #girlfriendsday #autumn #boyfriend #couple ♬ just a bunch of hocus pocus – mia🍂
Recent years have seen a dramatic ramp-up of fall as a consumer mood that spins coziness and nostalgia into a glut of ghost-shaped mugs and spiderweb bathmats, velvet pumpkin throw pillows and seasonally shaded kitchen appliances and cookware. Retailers begin displaying Halloween candy, Thanksgiving pantry goods and pumpkin-spice everything earlier — this year, as early as July, when Home Depot and other stores advertised “Summerween,” presumably because otherwise people might wonder why there were 12-foot skeletons lurking around displays of gas BBQs and patio furniture.
Retailers, bless their grubby hearts, put the onus for this on their customers. Lance Allen, Home Depot’s Senior Product Merchant of Decorative Holiday, told USA Today in 2024 that “Our Halloween launch is strategically timed to match the growing excitement among our dedicated fans . . . With trends like ‘Summerween’ gaining popularity, it’s evident that customers are enthusiastic about planning their Halloween displays well in advance.” As though Home Depot has absolutely nothing to do with Summerween gaining popularity — it’s not like the chain actively markets it with special promotions. What, are they just supposed to stop all those 12-foot skeletons from loping out onto the sales floor in mid-July?
The phenomenon of “Christmas creep,” a contrived lengthening of the holiday-shopping season, is already entrenched. The introduction of “Summerween” serves a similar purpose: Prompt shoppers to start buying earlier, and retailers increase the total amount of time seasonal products are on the shelves; it not only encourages them to buy more over time, but also reduces the amount of stock that has to be discounted on November 1. Goosing consumer demand is incredibly easy: Most of us welcome the chance to luxuriate in coziness and homey-ness and the Great British Baking Show energy of it all — especially when it offers some respite from the chaotic precarity always hovering just out of frame. The result is an onslaught of marketing messages and shopping cues crafted for maximum emotional resonance. What started with Pumpkin Spice Lattes has, more than 22 years later, led to boo baskets.
If you hate me for making you learn what a boo basket is, I get it, and please know that I hate myself a hundred times more for foisting it on you. As much as I want to say that we’re all just trying to muddle through, so let people like things, I’d also argue that boo baskets are exactly the kind of thing that makes fall feel less and less special.
@kaitlin_p123 The original made me sad 😩 #pov #boobasket #halloween #boobasketideas ♬ original sound – Kaitlin P
Searching the term #boobasket on TikTok or Instagram results in a mosaic of thumbnails with titles like “Everything in my viral basket” and “A boo basket . . . but make it pink” and accompanying videos that range from the dreamy to the frantic. Boo baskets are a social-media phenomenon that involves shopping for, arranging and presenting a basket or bin full of seasonally appropriate gifts to a loved one. In a typical video, a generally young woman records a journey through Target or CVS or HomeGoods as she fills a container with a range of spooky-season/cozy-season products: Halloween socks, some kind of mug or drinking vessel, candy, slippers, a plush ghost or gourd, a few beauty or grooming products, etc. Sometimes they are assembling the basket for their bestie, sometimes for a boyfriend, and occasionally for a boo-basket exchange for which they are given a list of prompts.
As much as I want to say that we’re all just trying to muddle through, so let people like things, I’d also argue that boo baskets are exactly the kind of thing that makes fall feel less and less special.
A quick check of Google Trends reveals that boo baskets emerged a couple of years ago, but the language used by people either creating them or longing to receive one suggests that they’re a long-running fall tradition familiar to everyone. (As opposed to a phenomenon that fills comments sections with questions like “What the f**k is a boo basket?) A TikTok titled “You NEED to make your bestie a boo basket” positions this act as a friendship-defining norm rather than a viral trend performed in the service of likes and views and money made by way of affiliate links. And because fall commerce is driven by strong emotions, so are boo baskets: These are gestures of care and love — Valentine’s Day, but make it pumpkin spice. Influencers deliver hard sells (“If your wife hasn’t divorced you yet, lemme show you how to make her a boo basket”) and softer ones (“I want you to think about your girl’s vibe: Is she more of a fall cozy girl or is she a Halloween girlie? Because that’s going to tell you what kind of plushie you should get”); they offer dollar-store boo-basket advice or, alternately, assemble enormous hampers of high-priced product that’s often used to promote the video itself. (“Surprising my sister with a $1,500 boo basket”)
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A 2024 report from “Today” traces the rise of boo baskets as the outgrowth of a festive version of ding-dong-ditch shared among suburban neighbors, per lifestyle reporter Rosie Colosi. “I was delighted when I first heard about boo baskets. I had two kids under 3, I was completely overwhelmed and I desperately needed some joy in my life,” she wrote in 2024. “I learned that in the suburbs, families were secretly leaving boo baskets on their neighbors’ doorsteps along with notes that said, ‘You’ve been BOOed!’ There were also instructions for paying it forward by leaving a boo basket for another neighbor.” Colosi writes about subsequently helping to organize a yearly boo-basket exchange for the other mothers in her building, but adds that as her kids grew up, started school, and began accumulating stuff, boo baskets began feeling increasingly unnecessary.
Social-media influencers, however, are trying their best to make the case that they are not only necessary but urgent. TikTokkers are fretting about how to make sure their boo baskets pass muster at the boo-basket exchange; boyfriends and husbands are seeking counsel on creating a boo basket that lives up to their girlfriend or wife’s expectations; there are scattered rumors of intrigue playing out in suburban enclaves where mothers of middle schoolers are outspending each other in a kind of boo-basket arms race. A TikTok user posts a fake-out heralding “The Boo Basket My Husband Gave Me” before lifting an enormous laundry hamper into the frame; the caption is a series of weeping-laugh emoji that suggest this is much less of a joke than she would like it to be. A brisk trade in premade boo baskets peddled on Etsy may at first glance seem to go against the spirit of boo baskets, but let’s remember that there is no spirit of boo baskets. Trends are not traditions, and we don’t have to pretend they are — especially when those trends are steeped in hyperconsumption.
@caseydelorenzo It’s boo basket season and with Halloween less than two months away, you still have time this fall to make one 👻🎃🍂 #boobasket #boobasketideas #fall #couplecomedy #relationship ♬ Mary On A Cross – Ghost
There’s nothing inherently wrong with making your loved one a basket of things you know they’ll appreciate. But as with so much other #fallvibes content on social media, there is a prevailing aesthetic to boo baskets, a repetition of the same brand names and generic emblems of coziness that result in an algorithmically rewarded feedback loop. Duplicated endlessly, the combination of throw blankets, Ugg slippers, seasonally hued Stanley tumblers, Bath & Body Works candles, Sol de Janiero body mists, and Jellycat plushes in a fabric-lined basket normalizes the boo basket into a standard to aspire to. And, as with Valentine’s Day’s long-stemmed roses, teddy bears, boxes of chocolate, and diamond engagement rings, making it a standard creates a reliable market with a built-in sales pitch: If you are truly loved, the boo basket, either given or received, will not fall short of the standard.
It sounds dramatic to say that the things that make fall such a beloved season are exactly the things that are being snuffed out by profit motive, but it’s not inaccurate. A consumer society thrives by continuously innovating ways to keep shoppers thinking ahead to the next set of things that need to be bought and alert to what will be available only for a limited time. The market benefits when consumers don’t live in the moment, when they see years in terms of holiday preparations and seasonal social-media engagement. Everything that makes fall beloved — the excitement of a new school year, the beauty of nature, the memories attached to Halloween, the satisfaction of creating a cozy home — remains. But enjoying it requires prioritizing a human, rather than a consumer, timeline.
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