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The Day of the Dead is Mexico's most iconic holiday. It’s celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, and honors the dead by lighting candles, setting up altars, and visiting cemeteries. To commemorate this tradition, many families build an altar where they place photos of deceased relatives along with other items that represent them—flowers, tequila, and food are usually involved, meant as offerings that guide spirits back home.

However, according to Google Trends, the popularity of Halloween in Mexico has overtaken the traditional celebration since 2011. Halloween has become increasingly popular among Mexicans because of the growing influence of American culture in the country, especially in the northern states.

Still, Hollywood has been paying closer attention to the Mexican holiday, which has also helped boost the tradition in its home country. In 2015, the James Bond movie Spectre opened with an action scene during a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City (a fictitious event that wasn’t actually taking place in the city at the time).

The scene worked so well and brought so much international interest in the celebration that the city started actually hosting and promoting it every year since. Coco, which became one of Pixar's most successful films, has also done admirable work showcasing the Day of the Dead internationally.

Even with Hollywood’s help, the popularity of Halloween is likely to remain. Catrinas were originally created by a satirist to mock the Mexican upper class, but are today an emblem of the Day of the Dead holiday.

Now, as Halloween becomes intertwined with Mexico’s tradition, many in the country and beyond make the Catrina their costume of choice on October 31st.

Source: Google Trends
Tools: Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer, Sheets

That's really offensive to people familiar with Mexican Halloween as a sexual position.

I'm not sure google trends is enough to say it's more popular. On the contrary, I'd argue more people googling it means more people don't know what it is.

There's this movie called Halloween Ends that probably had something to do with it.

I'm in Texas and was talking with my neighbor about how Dia del los Muertos has become more popular in the US versus 20 years ago.

Yes, the type of query here is important. Are people asking Google where the Halloween party is at? Or costume ideas? Etc. Just this Trendline is insufficient to support the claim the title of this post makes.

I think it has become a mix of both.

I live in the North of México and Día de Muertos isn't really a thing here.

People just eats pan de muerto and visits a loved one's grave.

But people doesn't put an altar at home like they do in the South or Center of México.

People here in Northern Europe has noticed the US influence on halloween over all saint's day. Luckily there has been rising interest about our medieval harvest celebration days, like Kekri.

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I’m confused. How did this happen? Your graph does a great job of showing when. But how? No frickin clue….

Things like this sadden me.

I think it's good that we somewhat create the basis for a global culture where we all communicate better and share some traditions and habits.

However, it shouldn't come from a framework where one holiday overpowers the influence of another culturally unique holiday.

It's the cultural variations that make the world world more interesting.

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Hallowe'en isn't an American holiday. It combines medieval Christian All Saints with a far more ancient Celtic festival of Samhein.

Thanksgiving is arguably an original American holiday.

Yeah, im not sure about this. You should travel to the south or central Mexico. Dia de Muertos is the most important celebration after Christmas. In the 90's/beginning of 00's some children started to ask for candy on Halloween, and started some controversy but it faded quickly. I live in the north of Mexico and every year I expect some children to knock my door asking for some treats, so Im prepared. 11 years in a row nobody knocks, so I eat the candy after.

Also, Dia de los muertos is NOT a really big thing in Mexico. It's popularity increased after the 007 movie in Mexico City, and even then there's only a single town/city that has always celebrated rather than the entire country. I think it was the media that made it like it was celebrated by all Mexico which is not

maybe they just all learned about Dia de los Muertos back in 2004 from Googling it and now they don't need to Google it. Instead they are now learning about Halloween /s

Well first and most importantly, I'm not sure how to take your argument as I never made any statement one way or another on what seemingly seems to be a rebuttal using a negative as a form of correction.

It's a western Christian holiday and the US is largely a country settled by western Christians in the early days, so most of the US follows the holiday. That makes it an American holiday in my book, although the US is by far not the only ones that follow it or the origin of the holiday.

The US has put its own spin on how the holiday is celebrated and spread those customs to other parts of the world too, so the topic is a bit less white or black in that there is a two-way spread of cultural customs.

Which proves that data from google trends should be taken with skepticism. A google search is not causation. It failed miserably in predicting flu season about a decade ago when data scientists misinterpreted why people were googling flu. In your case, Halloween has virtually no presence in Mexico City where Day of the Dead celebrations last for days and attract millions of the cultural center of the city.

Candy > Skeletons

Halloween is just what we call the celebration at this time of year in the US. In Mexico it's s the Day of the Dead. I know they have very different aspects and a somewhat different vibe to them, but it's not one versus the other.

People celebrate Christmas in different ways too Doesn't mean that one is going to take over the other just because some people googled it more. These types of metrics are really stupid.

The data is an aggregate but it's a very different thing for one person to travel to a specific place and observe things from the literal ground floor. But as stated the data is based on searches not people or real interest. It's possible many of those searches were conducted by the same people.

I thought the same thing about catholicism in Mexico. It seems like Mexico was already rich with their own history and traditions and various cultures, and now this religious symbol is so prominent in the country and it was because of Spanish missionaries. I'm also atheist so that's a factor.

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>Hallowe'en isn't an American holiday. It combines medieval Christian All Saints with a far more ancient Celtic festival of Samhein.

Yes. Which is very popularly celebrated in its current form in the USA and is being (to some degree) also being celebrated around the world as a result of American cultural exports.

Halloween as the majority of the world knows it is an American holiday. Other countries that have (some form of) Halloween celebrations are not doing it due to Irish influence or something.

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Have you ever been to México?

yes, that's how i know about this, it not celebrated nationwide.

You’re wrong but okay, thanks for trying. In Mexico, it has always been “día de muertos”.