Overview

Skeleton War is an annual online event popularized on Tumblr in which skeleton-related media is posted in various online communities during the month of October leading up to Halloween.

Background

On July 27th, 2013, Twitter user @dril^[5] posted a tweet saying "if your grave doesnt say 'rest in peace' on it you are automatically drafted into the skeleton war." Over the next several years, the post gathered over 8,900 retweets and 9,900 likes.

Developments

On October 1st, 2014, Tumblr blog technicolour-tendencies^[2] posted a picture of Skeletons tagged "Let the Skeleton Wars begin!" Within two weeks the post gained over 800 notes.

On October 4th, the Tumblr blog theskeletonwar^[3] published a post which explains:

"the skeleton war is slowly becoming a meme and I have to say I am extremely disappointed in all of you. this is incredibly disrespectful to the brave skeletons who are fighting for our lives and freedom
Seriously stop fucking this up"

Within two weeks, the post gained over 30,000 notes. On October 6th, Buzzfeed's official Tumblr^[4] posted a question they had received from Tumblr user 10scompanion who asked, "what's your opinion on the Skeleton War," to which Buzzfeed replied the site "welcomes our new skeleton overlords." On October 8th, Redditor SbenjiB posted a question to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[1] subreddit asking about the Skeleton War. Several days later, Redditor Hitandrun127 posted a reply explaining the event:

"This time of year, tumblr has an infatuation with skeletons. You're probably familiar with the '2spooky4me' meme. That meme originated on tumblr last year 4chan and was adopted by Tumblr. This year is the "Skeleton war".

Later that month, Urban Dictionary ^[6] user Brian McBrian defined the skeleton was as "a century-long siege against the fuckboys. many skeletons have fallen in the war, but the battle rages on." The post (shown below) recevied more than 600 upvotes in three years.

On October 31st, The Daily Dot^[9] published an article, "The strange and frightful tale behind Tumblr’s Skeleton War."

In October 2015, the Skeleton Crew released a third-person party game titled Skeleton War. The game's official trailer (shown below) received more than 12,000 views on YouTube within two years.

On September 26th, 2016, Redditor^[7] asked the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddt, "Could Somebody please explain the Skeleton War everyone on Imgur is preparing for?" Within one year, the post received more than 1,600 points (88% upvoted) and 120 comments.

The following year, on October 8th, 2017, YouTuber^[8] Rehvion posted a video featuring footage from the game Dark Souls entitled "Dark Souls 3 PVP – Skeleton War." The video (shown below) received more tahn 18,000 views in three weeks.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References