This Dad's Brilliant Zoom Halloween Costume Sums Up 2020

When people look back on the events of 2020, they'll undoubtedly talk about the COVID-19 pandemic and a major election. But there's another aspect of everyday life that they'd be remiss not to address: Zoom, obviously. Being that so many of us have spent so much time video conferencing this year, it's no surprise a dad is getting a round of applause for his super 2020 costume idea: a spooky Zoom conference.

According to CNN, Greg Dietzenbach is an Iowa-based creative director at an advertising and marketing agency who has a rep for creating unusual, entertaining Halloween costumes for his son and daughter every year. He told the outlet that every year his kids challenge him to make a unique costume. Two years ago, he made a Transformers sock robot for his son, and it "almost broke" his brain, joked Dietzenbach. Another year, his daughter Ada dressed up as their neighbor's front door.

This year, he wanted to "make it a lot simpler." But the Zoom-inspired costume he created is still incredibly impressive. Using a large format printer, he created the Zoom interface, filled with nine participants. Seven are his daughter in costume as the Invisible Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Wolf Man, Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy and Blair Witch. The eighth participant is Ada, poking her face through a cutout in the poster, labeled "The Masked Murderer." And then, the ninth participant is whoever is in front of Ada, like someone opening the door for a trick-or-treater. And their name in the Zoom conference? "Next Victim."

But those aren't the only spooky details. The proud dad also tweaked some of the buttons you'd normally see on a Zoom call, replacing "End Meeting for All" with "End Life" and "Share Screen" with "Share Scream" as well as "666 Participants."

Dietzenbach shared a glimpse of the hilarious costume on Twitter, joking that he made a "killer Zoom Meeting costume" for his daughter.

He also shared a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube, which illustrates how the father-daughter pair created the uber-creative costume.

Dietzenbach explained to CNN that he's inspired to go all out because Halloween was one of his favorites holidays as a kid. "I'm happy to share my love of Halloween with my kids," he said. He's also especially happy to spread that love this year, noting, "2020 has been tough, it's nice to know we'll be giving some joy to others (at a safe distance of course)."