I’m sure at some point in time, many of you have tried using facial recognition software. However, how many of you have picked up the presence of another whilst doing so? Arsalan is one creator to capture such a spooky moment back on 8th December 2020.

Haunting History (SPOILERS AHEAD!)

Now you may be thinking, did Arsalan live in a haunted house? Well actually, the origin story of this harrowing image is a lot less mysterious than you may have originally thought.

Arsalan has stated: “I was working on a project named ‘Face Analysis Model’. I got frustrated just after I completed the ‘Face Detection’ part, which was only 10–15% of the project. As I’m good at Photoshop, I decided to make this creepy meme and share it with my circle and other AI platforms on Facebook. From there it went viral.”

The Statistics

As you can expect, such a haunting image garnered a lot of attention across social media. Here is the breakdown of exposure across several renowned platforms:

Facebook Publish Date: 8th Dec 2020
Reactions: 74K
Comments: 8.6k
Shares: 131K

Reddit Publish Date: 8th Apr 2021
Upvotes: 19.3k
Comments: 162
Shared in: r/memes group (16.5m members)

9GAG Publish Date: 9th Dec 2020
Upvotes: 6.6k
Comments: 137

This image has been used in different fan art adoptions from animes to games like Super Mario and many more.