Senior Staff Writers Sam Losee and Daniel Ortega-Venni have gotten you covered with costume ideas for this unusual Halloween holiday.

Unfortunately for all us Halloween-lovers, we won’t be able to showcase our amazing costumes in quite the same way as we usually do this year. However, with a little bit of Zoom magic and some improvisation with household items, there’s no reason why you all can’t still dress up! Here are som fun Halloween suggestions to bring to your spooky Zoom meeting:

  • Joker – This is an easy one, because half of the costume is just the face paint. So put on the face paint, make a deranged face and sit in front of your camera. Add some laughter every so often to really sell it.
  • Ghost – Put an entire sheet over your head. Done.
  • Invisible Man – Turn your camera off. Alternatively, check the “I have a green screen” on Zoom and put a picture of your room as the background. You will basically look invisible.
  • Mad Hatter – Find a good background that screams tea party and complete the look with a top hat.
  • Little Red Riding Hood – Wrap yourself up in a red blankie. Extra points if you can find a background of a scary wolf.
  • Your nosy neighbor – Gather all of your houseplants onto your desk and peer out from behind them.
  • Charlie Brown – Shave your head like you’ve been wanting to do all quarantine and find yourself a yellow shirt. Stress about having to be zooming on Halloween for the perfect anxious/vexed/existential Charlie combo.
  • Charli D’Amelio – Put on a full American Eagle outfit and get moderately stoned so it shows in your face. Sip a Dunkin iced coffee and gracefully do a Tiktok dance every so often, smiling sweetly like the unproblematic queen that you are.
  • Cat – Wear a headband with cat ears on it. Put on some whiskers via makeup to complete the effect.
  • Totoro – Wear a gray hoodie and smile widely at the camera. Roar really loudly when things get tense.
  • Witch – Sit in one of the darkest corners of your house and occasionally unmute yourself to cackle menacingly at the people in the Zoom meeting. Bonus points if you have a witchy-looking hat.
  • Matilda – Give yourself some cute quarantine bangs, wear a red headband and a cardigan, and sneakily knock things off your shelves while you pretend to have moved them with your mind.
  • Muppet – Put a sock with googly eyes on your hand and lie down for the remainder of your class while your muppet persona collects your participation points. We guarantee your professor won’t know the difference!
  • Mickey Mouse – Find a picture of Mickey Mouse, put it as your Zoom background and position yourself so that your face is right in front of the ears. Try to copy his laugh as well.
  • Mime – paint your face white, wear a beret and a striped black & white shirt, and disconnect your microphone from Zoom. Pretend you’re trapped in your little Zoom box and hope your video doesn’t get pinned.
  • Inflatable Waving Man – Make your background a used car store and use hairspray to make your hair stand straight up. Hold little ribbon or paper strips in your hands and wiggle ferociously for the duration of the call.
  • Dust Bunny – Wear all gray and crawl under your bed. Do not move or speak; just lie there quietly in the dark and hope there aren’t any spiders.
  • Zombie – Hop on Zoom 6 hours before your class and there you go!
  • A Hot Mess – Show up to your meeting five minutes before it ends with your hair all over the place and waste everyone’s time apologizing.
  • Moth – Wear a brown shirt, fairy wings, and little pipe cleaner antenna attached to a headband. Make your background the night sky, and turn your brightness up as you press your face up to your computer screen, trying to soak up the light.
  • Pinocchio – Whenever you lie (e.g. “I did do the reading for today, I am not lying in bed”), add a piece of clay to the end of your nose. See how long you can make your nose before the meeting ends.
  • Mukbang YouTuber/Twitch Streamer – Have all your food in front of you and when you’re called on, talk about what you’re eating before you answer the question. Also interrupt the call every so often to thank people for the bits and resubs.
  • The Incredible Shrinking Man – As the meeting continues, slowly sink down in the chair until you are completely gone from the video.
  • Orchestra Conductor – Dress in black & white and wave a pencil around in time, pretending to cue in everyone who speaks as if they are following a musical score. Make your background a concert hall and make sure to bow before you exit the call.
  • Angel – Cut out two wings from a piece of paper and attach them to your back. Find a heavenly Zoom background and you’re all set.
  • The Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth – Draw eyes on or attach googly eyes to your hands. Enter the meeting with your eyes closed. At some point, hold up your hands to your eyes with your palms facing out. Stay like this for the rest of the meeting.
  • A Horror Movie Cliché – Enter the Zoom room with your camera off and sound off. Every so often, unmute and reveal yourself and SCREAM. Points if people get tired of it since it is a cliché after all.
  • First Death in a Horror Movie – Around five minutes into the call, whip your head around to somewhere off-screen and run away from the imaginary villain while screaming bloody murder. Staying outside of your webcam’s field of view and continuing to shriek, make your way back to your computer and leave the call abruptly.

Image via Flickr