If you are like me and live under a rock, you probably just realized that “spoopy” was not a typo and actually a word in our millennial vocabulary. I began seeing it everywhere, on t-shirts, Snapchat stories, hashtags, tweets, Facebook posts, and basically everywhere. Originally, I thought it must be a typo, because what could that possibly mean? This is why I needed to investigate. Where had spoopy begun? And how did it come to be this phenomenon?
When I started my investigation, I found It originated on Flickr circa 2009 (who knew it was that old?) with a picture of an amazingly misspelled version of “spooky.” Along with the classic ‘spoopy’ being born, ‘creppy’ and ‘doo’ made their debut as well. I remember hearing something about ‘creppy’ but that is as far as it went, so I thought.
Courtesy: 8Tracks
After circulating again in 2011 on Tumblr, the meme became much more widely spread. It began to be used in everyday language and used throughout different Halloween decorations. This common slang term had made its way from a bad Halloween decoration to an icon by us millennials! We all know we love us some irony, which is why we took one misprint and made it a sensation that has now defined the Halloween world for our generation.
In Sept. 2013, another post was added on Flickr with the title “2spoopy” and included a gif of the movie Paranormal Activity with a new addition in the background: Patrick Star. This meme went viral, and even if you had never heard of spoopy before, you have seen the meme. “2spoopy” became a common phrase expressed throughout the online world during this time.
Courtesy: Giphy
But what does spoopy actually even mean? This gif led to the common meaning of the word today, “something that is funny and spooky at the same time.” There are a few varying definitions where it also means “spooky and cute” or my personal favorite, “So spooky it makes you go poopy.” However, the most common one when referred to this is word is the first.
In 2017, though, the word has now become an icon. This is why if, again, you are like me, you just recently looked up the word. This year in spoopy fashion, it had made its way through the Halloween community and kind of taken over this month, not that anyone is complaining.
This year has been a lot of things, but at least we have spoopy to keep us going and to be consistent. Whether you are new to this phenomenon like me, or you have been with spoopy since 2009, it will continue to be a legend for years to come.