From Samhain to Silicon Valley: A history of Halloween and its link to the IT sector

The evolution of Halloween is a story of extraordinary adaptability. A holiday that was once a sacred, liminal festival marking the boundary between seasons and worlds has transformed into a global, multi-billion dollar phenomenon, now deeply embedded in the digital fabric of modern life. This report aims to trace this path from ancient Celtic bonfires to the glowing screens of the 21st century, where the holiday finds new expression in video games, e-commerce, and even the latent space of artificial intelligence.

The analysis consists of two parts. The first part explores the centuries-long history of Halloween, uncovering its Celtic roots, Christian transformation, and commercialization in the New World.

The second part analyzes the holiday's symbiotic relationship with the modern IT sector, demonstrating how its themes and traditions have been not just borrowed, but integrated into business models, marketing strategies, and even the realm of cybersecurity.

Together, these two parts paint a complete picture of a phenomenon that continues to change, reflecting the cultural and technological shifts of society.

Part I: The making of a modern myth – A cultural history of Halloween

1.1 Echoes of antiquity: The Celtic roots of Samhain

The foundational layer of Halloween's history is laid in the Celtic festival of Samhain. It was one of the four major seasonal festivals of the Gaelic calendar, marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, or the "darker half" of the year. The festival was held on November 1st, with celebrations beginning the evening before, on October 31st, as the Celtic day began at sunset.

Central to Samhain was the belief that at this time, the boundary, or veil, between the world of the living and the Otherworld (the world of spirits, or Aos Sí) became extremely thin. This threshold state, or liminality, was a source of both awe and fear, as it was believed that the spirits of the dead and other supernatural beings could freely cross into the human world.

Complex rituals were performed to interact with these forces. One of the key rituals involved large communal bonfires, lit by Druids.

Before this, all other fires in homes were extinguished and then relit from the sacred flame, symbolizing purification and community renewal. To protect themselves from evil spirits, people wore costumes made of animal skins and heads, hoping the spirits would mistake them for one of their own and not harm them. It was also customary to leave food and drink as offerings to appease the spirits and the souls of deceased ancestors. Historical sources, including Geoffrey Keating's 17th-century "History of Ireland," confirm these ancient practices, lending them historical weight.

The key concept of Samhain is not just "spookiness," but precisely liminality—the state of being "in-between."

It was the threshold between summer and winter, light and dark, life and death.

This fundamental theme of blurred boundaries is the cultural DNA that has allowed Halloween to be so adaptive in the future.

It is not just a set of traditions, but a conceptual framework for exploring transitions and the unknown.

It is this very idea of a temporary suspension of normal rules and realities that explains the costumes (blurring identity), the bonfires (blurring light and dark), and the appeasement of spirits (blurring the line between the living and the dead).

Understanding this as the central engine of the holiday, not just a historical detail, allows one to grasp why it resonates so deeply and can be reinterpreted in new contexts, including the digital world.

1.2 Appropriation and adaptation: Christian and Roman influence

The history of Halloween is also a story of cultural layering. After the Roman Empire conquered Celtic lands around the 1st century AD, Samhain traditions began to merge with Roman festivals.

Two festivals had a particular influence: Feralia, a day in late October when Romans commemorated the dead, and a festival honoring Pomona, the goddess of fruits and trees. The integration of Pomona's symbols, particularly apples, is likely the origin of traditions such as apple bobbing.

The holiday underwent a more profound transformation with the advent of Christianity. The Catholic Church employed a strategic process of syncretism to facilitate the conversion of pagan peoples. In the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV established All Saints' Day on May 13th.

However, a century later, in the 8th century, Pope Gregory III moved its celebration to November 1st, directly superimposing it on Samhain. The Church later also established November 2nd as All Souls' Day—a day to commemorate all the departed souls. Thus, the evening before All Saints' Day became known as All Hallows' Eve, which eventually shortened to "Halloween."

The holiday did not just "survive" Christianization; it was actively reformatted by it. The Church's strategy was not to eradicate, but to absorb.

By placing its own holy days on top of Samhain, it co-opted the festival's energy and timing, ensuring its core temporal and thematic elements would persist, albeit within a new theological framework.

This act of strategic cultural layering made the holiday resilient enough to last for centuries.

At the same time, it is important to note that while the popular version emphasizes a direct pagan lineage, recent scholarship points to stronger Catholic roots, suggesting the holiday as modernly understood may be more a product of early medieval Christian piety than a pagan survival. This debate is itself significant, as it reflects modern cultural tensions around secularism, religious identity, and the "ownership" of tradition.

Those who emphasize pagan roots often do so to frame it as a pre-Christian, naturalistic festival, while some religious groups opposing it also use this narrative to label it "satanic." The scholarly view of a Catholic origin, in contrast, reframes it as a fundamentally Western, Christian tradition.

Thus, the history of Halloween is itself a battleground for modern identity.

1.3 From "soul cakes" to candy corn: The birth of signature Halloween traditions

Modern Halloween traditions have deep and layered roots that evolved over centuries.

A detailed analysis shows an evolution from ritualistic practices to playful customs.

The precursor to modern trick-or-treating was several European traditions.

Starting in the Middle Ages (around the 15th century), the practice of "souling" emerged, associated with All Souls' Day.

Poor people, especially children, would go from house to house, offering to pray for the souls of the hosts' deceased relatives in exchange for "soul cakes"—small round pastries. In parallel, the traditions of "guising" and "mumming" existed in Scotland, Ireland, and Britain for centuries. People in costumes would go door-to-door, performing short scenes, songs, or poems in exchange for food, drink, or money. This practice, recorded as early as the 16th century, is a direct ancestor of the modern custom of wearing costumes and receiving a "reward."

The symbol of the carved pumpkin, known as the Jack-o'-Lantern, originates from an Irish folktale about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to legend, Jack tricked the Devil multiple times, and so after his death, he was allowed into neither heaven nor hell.

He was doomed to wander the earth forever, with only a single burning ember, which he placed in a hollowed-out turnip, to light his way. This gave rise to the Irish tradition of carving demonic faces into turnips, beets, or potatoes to frighten away Jack's wandering soul and other evil spirits. When Irish immigrants arrived in America, they found the native pumpkin to be much larger and easier to carve, leading to the substitution that created the modern Jack-o'-Lantern.

The transition from "souling" to "trick-or-treating" marks a significant shift in the tradition's social contract.

Souling was based on spiritual reciprocity: prayers for food. Guising was based on entertainment reciprocity: a performance for a reward.

The modern phrase "trick or treat," first recorded in Canada in 1927, introduces an element of playful threat or extortion.

The "trick" is a threat of minor vandalism if a "treat" is not provided. This reflects a broader societal shift from a community bound by shared religious belief to one oriented around more secular, transactional, and individualistic relationships.

The phrase emerged as a way for communities to manage youth pranks, which had become particularly common during the Great Depression, by channeling the real threat of vandalism into a ritualized, playful one.

1.4 The New World and the making of a commercial giant

Halloween traditions were brought to North America en masse by Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 19th century. Initially, celebrations were confined to immigrant communities.

However, by the early 20th century, Halloween began to be associated with nighttime vandalism and pranks, which sometimes turned dangerous, especially during the Great Depression. In response, community leaders and organizations made a conscious effort to "domesticate" the holiday, promoting organized, child-safe activities like trick-or-treating to divert youth from destructive behavior.

The holiday's modern form was definitively established in the post-World War II era.

The end of sugar rationing made candy widely available, and the rapid growth of suburbs created the perfect environment for safe door-to-door trick-or-treating. Pop culture played a crucial role in popularizing the tradition: a 1951 "Peanuts" comic strip and a 1952 Disney cartoon with Donald Duck helped cement the phrase "trick or treat" in the American mass consciousness. Candy companies began to actively market their products specifically for the holiday, turning it into a commercial machine. In the late 20th century, thanks to American cultural exports, Halloween began to spread worldwide, gaining popularity in countries like Ukraine after its independence, and becoming the second-largest commercial holiday after Christmas in many Western nations.

The history of Halloween in America is a microcosm of the nation's own development. Its initial association with immigrant groups reflects waves of migration.

The period of vandalism reflects the social unrest of the Depression era. Its transformation into a suburban, child-centric ritual reflects the post-war economic boom and the rise of the nuclear family.

Its mass commercialization reflects the dominance of consumer capitalism. And its recent globalization is a mirror of the spread of American cultural influence.

One can trace the major socio-economic shifts of the 20th century simply by observing how Halloween was celebrated.

Stages of Halloween's evolution

Before 1st Cent. AD

• Key Development: Celebration of the Celtic Samhain
• Dominant Form/Tradition: Agrarian festival with ritual bonfires and costumes
• Cultural Significance: Marking seasonal change, interacting with the spirit world

7th-8th Cent.

• Key Development: Christianization of the holiday
• Dominant Form/Tradition: All Saints' Day moved to November 1st
• Cultural Significance: Religious syncretism, absorption of pagan traditions

Middle Ages

• Key Development: Emergence of "souling" and "guising"
• Dominant Form/Tradition: Ritualized begging and performances in exchange for food
• Cultural Significance: Formation of prototypes for modern traditions, social interaction

19th Cent.

• Key Development: Mass immigration to the US
• Dominant Form/Tradition: Transfer of Irish and Scottish traditions, substitution of turnip with pumpkin
• Cultural Significance: Spread of the holiday in the New World, adaptation to local conditions

1927

• Key Development: First recorded use of the phrase "Trick or Treat"
• Dominant Form/Tradition: Nighttime pranks and vandalism evolving into a ritual
• Cultural Significance: Taming youth unrest, transition to a playful threat

1950s

• Key Development: Post-war boom in the US
• Dominant Form/Tradition: Suburban child-centric ritual, mass consumption of candy
• Cultural Significance: Cementing of consumer culture, idealization of family values

Late 20th - Early 21st Cent.

• Key Development: Globalization and digitization
• Dominant Form/Tradition: Commercial holiday spread through media and the Internet
• Cultural Significance: Americanization, integration into the digital economy and culture

Part II: The digital haunting – Halloween's pervasive influence on the IT landscape

2.1 The gamified ghost: Halloween as a pillar of live-service gaming

Halloween is no longer just a theme used in video games; it has become a fundamental and structurally important component of the "Games as a Service" (GaaS) business model.

Annual Halloween events are a key tool for achieving core Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for top gaming projects.

Developers use Halloween to launch large-scale Limited-Time Events (LTEs), such as "Fortnitemares" in Fortnite, "The Haunting" in Call of Duty, "Doktor's Curse" in Rainbow Six Siege, and "Festival of the Lost" in Destiny 2. These events introduce new game modes, spooky map variations, and unique challenges, creating a sense of urgency and leveraging FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) to bring players back into the game. The tradition of wearing costumes translates directly and seamlessly into the sale of digital cosmetic items: character skins, weapon charms, and other accessories. Examples include crossovers with horror movie franchises in Fortnite (Jason Voorhees, Scooby-Doo) and Call of Duty (Chucky, "Friday the 13th"), which are significant revenue streams. Furthermore, these events are designed to be accessible to players of all skill levels, fostering a sense of community and shared experience, which in turn increases long-term player retention. Even the tech giant Google has used Halloween-themed games, releasing the "Magic Cat Academy" doodle series (2016, 2020, 2024).

This is a prime example of using a simple, accessible game to engage a massive global audience during the holiday, reinforcing its brand as playful and culturally relevant.

The connection between Halloween and the GaaS model is not coincidental; it is symbiotic. The holiday's core themes perfectly match the mechanics of this business model.

Transformation (costumes) maps directly to cosmetic microtransactions.

Liminality (a special, temporary period) maps directly to limited-time events.

Rewards (treats) are transformed into event-specific loot and progression systems.

Halloween provides a culturally resonant justification for the very mechanics that make live-service games profitable and engaging.

The holiday is not just a "skin" for the game; its themes are woven into the very fabric of the business model.

2.2 E-commerce and algorithmic treats: Marketing in the digital Halloween era

Halloween has become one of the main sales drivers in the fourth quarter, and IT services and platforms are the backbone of modern marketing campaigns.

Brands use multi-channel digital strategies to engage consumers.

This begins with the "Halloween-ization" of websites: brands transform their digital storefronts with thematic aesthetics, including color palettes (black, orange), spooky fonts, and animations (like flying bats), creating an immersive shopping experience. Special landing pages are created for SEO optimization around Halloween keywords. Gamified promotions, such as "mystery discount wheels" and "Trick or Treat!" options at checkout, are used to increase engagement and conversion. Urgency is created through flash sales with names like "Midnight Madness Deals."

Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram become the stage for costume contests, hashtag campaigns (e.g., #HowlOWeenPets), and challenges that encourage User-Generated Content (UGC). Brands create branded Augmented Reality (AR) filters that turn users into spooky characters, generating organic reach. Influencer marketing plays a vital role: brands collaborate with micro, mid, and macro-influencers to create themed content, such as unboxing videos, makeup tutorials, and recipes, leveraging their authenticity to drive sales. Streaming platforms like Netflix have institutionalized the Halloween season with campaigns such as "Netflix & Chills," curating horror content to boost views, engagement, and retention throughout October.

Modern digital marketing strategies are not inventing new behaviors but are creating digital analogs of long-standing physical Halloween traditions.

The "Halloween-ization" of a website is the digital equivalent of decorating a house. Running a costume contest on social media is the digital version of a neighborhood party.

An interactive "Trick-or-Treat Map," like Reese's, digitizes the very route of trick-or-treating.

This shows that technology is not replacing tradition but providing a new, scalable medium for its expression.

The core human desires and rituals remain the same; IT services and platforms simply become the new venues for their execution.

2.3 A new kind of trickster: Cybersecurity in the shadow of Halloween

The heightened online activity and emotional engagement surrounding Halloween create a fertile ground for cybercriminals.

The holiday's themes are actively used for social engineering, leading to a significant increase in cyber threats.

One of the most common attack vectors is phishing campaigns. Attackers send out "phantom" emails disguised as costume delivery notifications, special discount offers, or e-vites to parties. These emails use urgent, festive themes ("Spooky Savings Await – Open If You Dare!") to lure victims into clicking malicious links designed to harvest credentials. Statistics show a significant spike in such attacks in October, with seasonal phishing attacks increasing by 70%.

Another threat is fraudulent e-commerce sites. Attackers create temporary websites offering popular costumes or decorations at significant discounts.

These sites are designed solely to steal payment information and personal data. Malicious advertising on social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, is used to distribute malware disguised as shopping tools or other desirable software, often using fake Halloween-themed cryptocurrency giveaways. Furthermore, the increased use of "smart" devices for Halloween decorations (lights, speakers) with default passwords creates new entry points for hackers into home networks.

Halloween-themed cybercrime is a perfect, albeit malicious, manifestation of the "trick or treat" concept.

A phishing email offers a "treat"—a discount, a free item, an invitation—but delivers a "trick"—malware, credential theft.

Cybercriminals exploit the very psychological framework of the holiday—the expectation of rewards and the playful nature of pranks—to lower their victims' guard.

This is social engineering in its most culturally resonant form. The attack fits perfectly within the context of the holiday, when people are primed to look for "treats" (deals, entertainment), making it more likely to succeed.

2.4 The artificial ghost: Generative technologies and the future of Halloween

The newest frontier of Halloween's digital life is the integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

This technology opens up unprecedented possibilities for creativity, personalization, and immersion in the holiday spirit.

AI image generators (such as Pixlr, Google Gemini, and others) are used to create a vast amount of themed content—from marketing visuals and party invitations to costume concepts and horror movie posters. Users can generate hyper-realistic or stylized images with simple text prompts, such as "an enchanted pumpkin patch under a full moon." AI models trained on horror literature are capable of creating unique, spooky stories, as demonstrated by the "Welcome To Sand Hands" project from Botnik. AI is also used for personalization: applications exist that recommend costumes based on facial feature analysis, generate complex pumpkin carving patterns, and even create interactive web apps that turn selfies into Jack-o'-Lantern designs. In the realm of immersive entertainment, AI sensors in "haunted house" attractions are used to create personalized scares that react to visitors' movements and emotions in real-time.

The original concept of Samhain involved the thinning of the veil between the human world and the spirit world.

Generative AI represents a new kind of liminality for the 21st century: the thinning of the veil between human creativity and machine generation, between the real and the synthetic.

Halloween, with its inherent themes of transformation, masquerade, and the supernatural, becomes the primary cultural arena where society explores, normalizes, and plays with this new, technologically-mediated reality.

The act of entering a text prompt and "summoning" an image is a modern form of technological magic, perfectly suited to the spirit of the holiday.

It is not just a tool; it is a new kind of "otherworld" to interact with.

Conclusion: The enduring power of the threshold

Halloween's journey from a sacred Celtic festival to a digitally-saturated global event is a testament to the enduring power of its central theme—the exploration of boundaries.

Initially, it was the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

Today, it is the boundary between the physical and the virtual, the authentic and the artificial, the human and the machine.

The holiday has demonstrated a unique ability to absorb and reinterpret cultural and technological changes, from Roman rituals to Christian theology, from the whims of American consumerism to the algorithms of artificial intelligence.

The analysis shows that the IT sector is not just using Halloween as a seasonal marketing opportunity.

Instead, a deep, symbiotic integration is occurring, where the holiday's core mechanics (transformation, reward, temporality) align perfectly with the business models of gaming services, e-commerce strategies, and even the tactics of cybercriminals.

As long as technology continues to create new liminal spaces—metaverses, augmented reality, human-AI interactions—Halloween will undoubtedly find a way to haunt them, constantly reinventing itself while remaining true to its ancient, mysterious spirit.