9 Zoom Halloween costumes and tricks for your virtual party

Halloween, like most things in 2020, is going to be far from normal this year.

We've already covered how you can deliver candy to kids from a distance and outlined ways to attempt to celebrate Halloween safely.

But what if your celebrations are planned to take place over Zoom (or Google Hangouts, or Skype), like so many other events this year? Well, first: Good job, that's almost certainly the safest option during a raging pandemic. Second: You might just be struggling over costume ideas.

It's an added hurdle, trying to pull off a decent Halloween get-up over Zoom.

But don't worry, we've got you covered. We came up with 9 costume ideas and Zoom tricks to help your virtual Halloween go well.

1. Zoom within a Zoom

Screw it, go full Inception. Make a Zoom screen costume to wear inside your Zoom call. You don't have to go as hard as this dad — he made a professional-looking costume for his daughter — but some simple poster board could easily become a Zoom grid.

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2. A glitch

OK, this one requires you to wear no costume at all, you just have to be comfortable kind of being a jerk. If you freeze your face on occasion and talk in fits-and-starts, then bam, you've created a trick/costume. You're a glitch in the call! Your friends might just hate you for it.

3. A distracted kid in virtual school

As any parent or teacher could attest that virtual school is, let's say, difficult. If you dress up like a kid — a chocolate-stained shirt, silly hairstyle, undersized clothes, etc. — then you can just have your eyes wander the entire party and become a "kid in virtual school."

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4. A caller from Kim Kardashian's island

In case you missed the biggest copypasta meme of the week, Kim Kardashian West rang in her 40th birthday by flying a bunch of her friends to a private island...you know...how you do. If you're in the mood to be topical, you could go as a guest at her island.

All you'd need to do to go to your Zoom party "from the island" is make a custom background from one of the many pictures posted by Kardashian West. Here's a refresher on how to do that.

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5. A mute button

Decorate a shirt, poster board, or anything else you can drape over yourself to look like the infamous mute button. Added bonus: You can point to yourself when a friend says something dumb.

6. A contestant in The Bachelorette or Bachelor confessional booth

This one is a bit more difficult to pull off, but it would be worth it. The field of view in a Zoom call looks a lot like the camera angle of a confessional on The Bachelorette/Bachelor. If you get all gussied up in a suit or dress, then maybe throw some roses in your background, and add some mood lighting, then you've got a passable confessional booth.

7. Walk in on yourself

Remember this guy, who made a complicated background and pretended to walk in on himself during a call? What better costume-slash-trick than that for Halloween?

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It shouldn't be too hard to do.

"Honestly? I was bored," Dan Crowd, the creator of the background, told Mashable back in April. "If I’d known I could get this kind of engagement with five minutes of work, I wouldn’t have tried so hard for the last 12 years."

8. Have a creepy background

Sure, it's easy, but simply using a creepy photo as your background is festive and simple for a Zoom party. Lifehacker has some good resources to that end, including some free-to-use creepy stock images.

9. A person who forgot pants for the call

OK, this final one definitely hinges on how well you know the people on your Zoom call. But if it's close friends, it would be funny to show up in boxers, shorts, whatever (just make sure it looks odd) for the call. Remember that reporter who went on Good Morning America in a suit jacket and no pants? Maybe something like that.

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