Halloween is a time for candy and cute or super-cool costumes for kids, but for many young adults — and some older adults still clinging to their youth — Halloween means parties. With the advent of YouTube and the on-the-spot amateur cell-phone camera operators, people today have access to all sorts of constantly updated scandals, political events and other embarrassing hilarities.

These occurrences fuel the conversations of our day-to-day lives and can make for some pretty interesting costume ideas.

I am as bad as the rest of you, checking my Facebook account whenever I go online, and watching all of the dumb videos people send my way. I like to keep up-to-date so I can make fun of what happens in the world and pretend to be an insufferable jerk. OK, fine, I’m not pretending.

I have always been an avid fan of the month. This year, Halloween falls on the terrible evening of a Saturday. I’m a party fanatic, so I prefer Halloween to fall on any day except Friday or Saturday, so the Halloween festivities last nearly a week and I can wear four or five different costumes.

This year, to your benefit, I am going to share the favorites and lamest from my potential costume list in case you don’t just feel like being a slutty version of some normal costume or dressing up as something unfunny.

Favorites:

President Barack Obama and a Nobel Peace Prize — Nothing says ‘I support you’ like mockery.

Alternative — T-shirt with only these words on it: “Obama costume not needed; It’s the potential that counts.”

Kanye West and Taylor Swift — Be sure to bring a microphone or bottle of Hennessey for red carpet appearances.

Alternative — Have a Beyonce come with you for more comedy.

Zombie Michael Jackson — Any outfit from his career is acceptable to add zombieness to, except for the “Thriller” costume … It’s already zombified.

Alternative — Michael Jackson with his hair on fire … WARNING: this would be dangerous; please do not actually light your hair on fire

Balloon Boy — Silver balloons look cool and are shiny, so the throngs of intoxicated ADD college students will pay attention to you.

Alternative — Wear a cardboard box. You’re still the Balloon Boy … technically more accurate than the balloon version.

Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley zombies — Remember the skit from “Saturday Night Live” in which the two are auditioning to be Chippendales dancers? Well, take that and make them undead. This costume can be very cold, so be prepared with coats as you party hop.

Lamest:

Swine Flu — Putting on an allergen mask and attaching a pig snout is dumb. Get more creative.

Wolverine — Your adamantium claws will look even worse than his in the movie; that and you can’t smoke a stogie in bars anymore.

Twilight — Vampires shouldn’t sparkle when they go into daylight! At least go with a more traditional and sexy, slutty vampire costume from “True Blood.”

Billy Mays — This wouldn’t really be that lame if you had a bunch of his products to try to sell to people, but most likely people will just wonder what your costume is.

John and Kate Gosselin — Seriously, folks, why do you give these people attention? Their lives are not more interesting than yours. Also, unless you have eight little dolls to lug around all night, people will probably not make the connection with your costumes.

There you have it: My top and bottom picks. Just remember to have fun and be comfortable. After all, this year’s Halloween could be considered to be 25 hours long. Thank you, daylight savings!