Ghost Photoshoot

About

Ghost Photoshoot refers to a TikTok trend set to the 2017 song "Oh Klahoma" by Jack Stauber. The trend involves draping a sheet over yourself like a ghost and taking photographs posing in various settings. Some users wear sunglasses along with a sheet in certain photos in the series. The trend was started in September 2020 by TikToker jackjanson88.^[1]

Origin

On September 10th, 2020, TikToker jackjanson88 uploaded a video consisting of still images of himself dressed as a ghost standing on various empty pathways (shown below). The video got over 272,000 likes and 977,000 views in six days. In the comments section of the original TikTok, jackjanson88 mentions the cover of Phoebe Bridgers' album "Stranger in the Alps"^[2] as his inspiration.

Spread

On September 13th, 2020, TikToker usernamecole uploaded a ghost photoshoot of his own, tagging jackjanson88 directly. The video garnered over 889,000 views in three days. That same day, TikToker katyya uploaded her own ghost photoshoot featuring the use of sunglasses, getting over 1.3 million views in three days. TikToker jadenellison08 continued the trend on September 14th, with her video garnering over 1.8 million views in two days.

On September 15th, Distractify^[3] and HITC^[4] published articles on the trend. As of September 16th, videos under the #GhostPhotoshoot tag have been viewed over 523 million times.

Criticism

On September 22nd, 2020, New York Times editor Taylor Lorenz^[5] posted a tweet thread sharing ghost photoshoot videos (shown below). The tweet received over 1.8 thousand retweets and 15.2 thousand likes in one day.

Many commenters started criticizing the trend and Lorenz herself for sharing it on Twitter. Some claimed Lorenz failed to share enough examples of POC participating in the trend, with others claiming the trend is racist altogether. Twitter user AnthonyQuintano, for example, commented, "People walking around wearing white sheets is probably not the greatest idea ever," insinuating a connection between the sheets worn in the TikToks and those worn by the KKK (shown below). The comment received over 2.8 thousand likes and 36 retweets in 24 hours.

Despite the criticism, others defended Lorenz's position, seeing the backlash as an attempt at wrongly canceling her. Twitter user Katie Herzog defended Lorenz in a tweet on September 23rd, receiving 246 likes and 21 retweets that same day (shown below).

Lorenz responded to these accusations in a thread of comments under her original Tweet, denying the trend's supposedly racist roots and apologizing for offending anyone. She then described the long history of sheet ghosts, and ended the thread with a humorous message, saying, "Please direct all future ghost queries to @phoebe_bridgers" as her album "Stranger In The Alps" features a drawing of a sheet ghost on the cover.

2023 Resurgence

The trend made a resurgence in September and October of 2023, with TikToker^[6] @manny_boo posting a video of her and her friends doing a "Sexy Ghost Photoshoot" on August 22nd, 2023, and gathering over 4.6 million views and 500,000 likes in two months (seen below, left). A video posted by @nolatheiggy^[7] on September 24th showed the TikToker conducting a photoshoot with their pet dog, gathering over 29.5 million views and 4.5 million likes in three weeks (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References