(Halloween) The story behind this trend in Social Media today
01-10-2026
The Halloween trend taking over social media today is the side-by-side “September 30th / October 1st” format that marks the calendar flipping into spooky season.It took off from a post on the last day of September that used two stills of Salem, the talking black cat from the 1990s show Sabrina the Teenage Witch. On the left, labeled September 30th, Salem sits on a wicker surface looking like an ordinary black cat. On the right, labeled October 1st, the same cat is under a white sheet with eye holes cut out, posed as a ghost, with the caption “Boo.” The image is a classic gag from the show in which Salem dresses up for Halloween.The joke is the abrupt mood switch: one day you’re still in ordinary late-September life, and the next morning the whole feed is pumpkins, ghosts, and costumes. People have been remaking the template all day with their own pets, characters, cosplays, selfies, and memesnormal version on the left, Halloween version on the rightso the phrase and the two-panel layout have become the day’s running joke for the start of October. Halloween itself falls on a Saturday this year, which has only pushed the early-season costume and decoration posts harder.