What Houston Is Wearing Tonight: Michael Jackson Is the City's No. 2 Trending Costume, Google Says
Google's Frightgeist map puts a sequined glove near the top of Houston's Halloween: Michael Jackson ranks No. 2 among the city's trending costumes - and No. 1 in San Antonio - while a horror-movie unicorn named Buddy tops the national list.
If Houston's sidewalks look a little more sequined than usual tonight, Google saw it coming. The company's annual Frightgeist map, which ranks the Halloween costumes with the biggest increases in search interest in every local TV market, puts Michael Jackson at No. 2 in Houston, Men's Journal reported from Google's data. He ranks No. 1 in San Antonio, and Google said searches for Michael Jackson costumes are at a 10-year high nationally; he also sits in the top five in Atlanta, Detroit and Kansas City.
The national winner is stranger. Buddy the Unicorn, the colorful mascot from the horror film "Buddy," tops the 2026 trending list across the country, followed by NeeDoh, a squishy stress-relief toy, and Nikki from the horror movie "Obsession," according to Google's rankings as reported by The Journal News. City by city the picks scatter: in Dallas the top trending costume is Kill Bill, in Chicago an M&M, in Phoenix Napoleon Dynamite, in Pittsburgh Willy Wonka and in Indianapolis a mime.
Frightgeist measures momentum, not headcounts. The Google Trends Data Team ranked the costumes by comparing search interest in September 2026 with September 2025, so the list catches what surged this year rather than what most people will actually wear - the witches, skeletons and superheroes that fill every Houston street regardless of trends.
For Houston, the local headline is the King of Pop's staying power in a city that will also fill its porches with unicorns by sundown. Trick-or-treating runs into a warm, clearing evening - the midday showers in today's forecast give way to partly cloudy skies by 5 p.m. - so whatever the costume, it should not need a raincoat over it.
