Ghost Emoji

A white cartoon ghost with a silly face, tongue sticking out, and little arms raised. It's doing three jobs at once, and it's good at all of them.

First, it's the Halloween emoji. Every October, people paste 👻 across their bios, captions, and group chats. Google Trends shows search interest spikes 50-200% every fall, peaking in October-November.

Second, it's the Snapchat emoji. The app's logo is literally a ghost (named Ghostface Chillah, after Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah), and people use 👻 as shorthand: "Add me on snap 👻." When someone drops a ghost in their bio, there's a decent chance they're sharing their Snapchat username, not commenting on the supernatural.

Third, it's the ghosting emoji. The dating term) entered mainstream vocabulary around 2015 after the New York Times used it to describe Charlize Theron's relationship with Sean Penn. It was added to Merriam-Webster in 2017. Now 👻 is the go-to for "they disappeared on me" or "I'm about to disappear on them."

Dictionary.com adds a fourth meaning: "hey, boo." The ghost-as-greeting plays on "boo" meaning both a scare and a term of endearment. "Hey boo 👻" is a pun that works in text in a way it can't in speech.

On Instagram and TikTok, 👻 spikes every October as the universal Halloween marker. It appears in everything from costume reveals to horror movie reactions to "spooky season" memes. The word "spoopy", a famous typo for "spooky" that went viral on Tumblr in 2013, perfectly captures 👻's energy: spooky but silly, scary but cute.

Outside October, 👻 floats between three roles. In dating conversations, it signals ghosting: "He hasn't texted back in 4 days 👻" or "I think I'm being ghosted 👻." In social media bios, it's often a Snapchat pointer. And in general texting, it can mean "I'm disappearing" (leaving a conversation or event), "this place feels haunted," or just "boo!"

Emojipedia's Emojiology column notes that pop icon Cher made 👻 her personal Twitter signature, using it in response to "any and all content." BuzzFeed published "15 Super Useful Ways We Can Use The Ghost Emoji Like Cher" in 2014. The Atlantic ranked it the #2 emoji of all time for being "silly and macabre" in equal measure.

Apple included 👻 in the Animoji roster in iOS 12, letting users animate a ghost face-tracked to their expressions. This made 👻 one of the few emojis that people have literally worn as a digital mask.

The concept of ghosts is as old as human consciousness, but the cartoon ghost, specifically the friendly white sheet-ghost, is surprisingly modern. The image of a ghost as a floating white figure with a silly face traces to mid-20th century Halloween decorations and cartoons, not to any ancient tradition. Japanese ghosts (yūrei, 幽霊) look nothing like the emoji: they wear white funeral kimonos, have long black hair, and lack feet. Western ghosts in literature (from Shakespeare to Dickens) are described as translucent human figures, not cartoon sheets. The sheet-ghost is an American invention.

The emoji inherited this American cartoon tradition. Apple's design, which became the standard, gives it a tongue sticking out and raised arms in a "boo!" pose, making it playful rather than frightening. This design choice locked in the emoji's personality: silly, not scary.

Then Snapchat happened. In 2011, Evan Spiegel drew a ghost logo on his computer in one evening. He named it Ghostface Chillah, a reference to Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah. The ghost represented Snapchat's core feature: messages that appear and then vanish, like a ghost. By choosing yellow for the background (no other major app used it), Spiegel created one of the most recognizable brand identities in tech. The ghost emoji became inseparable from Snapchat.

Around 2014-2015, the word "ghosting") entered mainstream vocabulary to describe ending a relationship by cutting off all contact without explanation. The New York Times used it in 2015) to describe how Charlize Theron allegedly ended things with Sean Penn. Merriam-Webster added it in 2017. The ghost emoji picked up a third meaning that had nothing to do with Halloween or Snapchat.

So a single emoji carries: seasonal celebration (Halloween), corporate identity (Snapchat), dating vocabulary (ghosting), and casual affection ("hey boo"). Few emojis carry that much weight across that many contexts.

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as U+1F47BU+1F47B GHOST, one of 608 emoji added to that release to absorb the Japanese carrier glyph sets (SoftBank, KDDI au, DoCoMo). The concept was drafted in L2/07-257 (Momoi + Davis + Scherer, 2007) and carried forward in L2/09-026, the Google + Apple batch that became Unicode 6.0. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. Part of the Smileys & Emotion category, face-costume subcategory, alongside 💀, 💩, and 😈. Apple's design (white with tongue out) became the dominant representation. Samsung's early version (TouchWiz 7.1) showed a yellow smiley peeking from under linen, more "person in a sheet" than cartoon ghost. Google went through a blob ghost, a winking wraith (Android 8.0, 2017), and its current design. Apple added 👻 to the Animoji roster in iOS 12.

1. 1939Casper the Friendly Ghost appears in a children's book by Seymour Reit (story) and Joe Oriolo (art). While Reit is away in the military, Oriolo sells the character to Famous Studios for $200, setting up every cartoon sheet-ghost that follows↗
2. 1945Famous Studios releases the first theatrical Casper short. 55 cartoons run through 1959, locking in the white-figure-with-silly-face visual that the emoji later inherits
3. 1980Toru Iwatani releases Pac-Man. He cites Casper as inspiration for Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. Namco's president wants all four ghosts red; Iwatani wins a 40-0 internal survey for multicolor↗
4. 2009The 'spoopy' typo (misspelling of 'spooky') appears on a Halloween sign at Ross. Goes viral on Tumblr in 2013 and becomes internet slang for 'spooky but cute'↗
5. 2010Unicode 6.0 approves U+1F47B GHOST via the Japanese-carrier batch drafted in L2/07-257 and L2/09-026↗
6. 2011Evan Spiegel draws Snapchat's ghost logo (Ghostface Chillah) on his computer in one evening↗
7. 2014The Atlantic ranks 👻 the #2 emoji of all time. BuzzFeed publishes '15 Ways We Can Use The Ghost Emoji Like Cher'
8. 2015NYT uses 'ghosting' to describe Charlize Theron ending things with Sean Penn. The term goes mainstream↗
9. 2017Merriam-Webster adds 'ghosting' to the dictionary
10. 2018Apple adds 👻 to the Animoji roster in iOS 12, making it a wearable digital face

The 👻 emoji depicts an American-style cartoon sheet-ghost. This specific image doesn't translate globally.

In Japan, ghosts (yūrei) are depicted as women in white funeral kimonos with long black hair covering their faces and no feet. Think The Ring or Ju-On. They're terrifying, not cute. Japanese ghost stories (kaidan) are about vengeful spirits who died with unresolved grudges. The 👻 emoji, with its tongue out and playful arms, captures none of this.

In Mexican culture, the relationship with death and spirits is different again. Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrates returning spirits with color, food, and joy, not fear. The holiday uses 💀 and skeleton imagery, not cartoon ghosts.

The ghosting meaning is most relevant in English-speaking countries where the dating term spread through apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. In cultures where online dating is less dominant, 👻 is more likely to read as Halloween or Snapchat than as a relationship commentary.

• •Snapchat's ghost logo is named Ghostface Chillah, after Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah. Evan Spiegel drew it in one evening. He chose yellow because no other major app used it.
• •Cher adopted 👻 as her personal Twitter signature, using it in replies to anything from political news to fan art. BuzzFeed wrote "15 Super Useful Ways We Can Use The Ghost Emoji Like Cher" in 2014.
• •The Atlantic ranked 👻 the #2 emoji of all time in 2014 for being "silly and macabre" at the same time.
• •The word "spoopy" originated from a misspelled Halloween sign at a Ross department store in 2009. It went viral on Tumblr in 2013 and became internet slang for exactly what 👻 represents: spooky but cute.
• •Japanese ghosts (yūrei) look nothing like 👻. They wear white funeral kimonos, have long black hair, and lack feet. The cartoon sheet-ghost is an American invention that has no equivalent in Japanese folklore.
• •Samsung's original 👻 design (TouchWiz 7.1) showed a yellow smiley face peeking from under linen, looking more like a person playing dress-up than a supernatural being.
• •Pac-Man's four ghosts) were modeled on Casper. Toru Iwatani wanted cute, non-threatening enemies and cited Casper directly. Namco's president ordered them all red; Iwatani lost that fight until an internal 40-0 survey vote swung it to multicolor. The original Japanese names translated to 'chaser', 'ambusher', 'fickle', and 'stupid'. Midway renamed them Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde for the US release, and that lineage runs straight into 👻's cartoon DNA.
• •The word 'boo' as a term of endearment is likely borrowed from the French 'beau' (handsome), which entered the Afro-Caribbean lexicon during 18th-century French colonization. It stayed regional until hip-hop slang in the 20th century made it mainstream. So 'hey boo 👻' is an 18th-century French word, a 1939 cartoon ghost, and a 2010 Unicode codepoint all stacked in three characters.
• •A New York Times article in 2019 put 'ghost kitchens' in quotation marks, signaling a new term. A year later the COVID lockdown turned delivery-only restaurants into an industry. 'Ghost' had quietly expanded from Halloween/Snapchat/dating into a semantic shorthand for 'real but invisible', and the emoji followed the word.
• •Snapchat's ghost is not a fading icon. The app hit 946 million monthly active users in Q4 2025, closing in on the 1B milestone. DAU grew from 414M in 2023 to 474M by late 2025. The ghost logo is older than most of its users and still scaling.

• •The biggest confusion: someone sending 👻 might be sharing their Snapchat username, making a Halloween reference, signaling they're about to ghost, or saying "hey boo." Four completely different meanings, one emoji. If you're not sure which one, ask.
• •Sending 👻 to someone you've been dating and then going silent is technically using the emoji correctly (you're ghosting and illustrating it), but it's still a terrible thing to do.
• •👻 is often read as "scary" but the design (tongue out, arms raised, silly eyes) is specifically NOT scary. It's the embodiment of "spoopy": spooky adjacent, never actually frightening.

• •Cher made 👻 her personal Twitter signature, using it in response to everything from fan mail to political commentary. BuzzFeed wrote a guide to using it "like Cher" in 2014.
• •Snapchat's entire brand is built on a ghost. Ghostface Chillah (named after Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan) is one of the most recognized logos in tech. The 👻 emoji became inseparable from the platform.
• •The "spoopy" meme (2009 typo, 2013 Tumblr viral) perfectly captures 👻's energy and became the defining word for internet Halloween culture: scary but adorable, like a ghost emoji with a tongue sticking out.

• •👻 is U+1F47BU+1F47B. Part of the face-costume subcategory alongside 💀, 💩, and 😈. Common shortcodes: :ghost::ghost: (GitHub, Slack, Discord).
• •The ghost was included in Apple's Animoji set (iOS 12), making it one of the few emojis that can be face-tracked and animated in iMessage.
• •If building a Halloween-themed feature, 👻 has the strongest seasonal search pattern of any emoji. Schedule content drops for early-to-mid October for maximum alignment.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.