Mystery Skulls

About

Ghost is a electro synth-pop single produced by American indie pop / electronica musician Luis Dubuc, who is better known by his stage name Mystery Skulls. Originally Ghost was released on May 8th of 2012 but an official live action video was released on February 6th of 2014 he song gained much of its online traction following the release of an animated version of the music video in October 2014.

Origin

Dubuc’s “Ghost” was initially released as a preview on the Mystery Skulls Tumblr on May 8th, 2012.^[9] The song was later on remastered and released as a single via iTunes on January 31st, 2014, followed by the YouTube debut of the live action music video on February 4th (shown below, left). However, the song didn’t receive much attention until an animated version of the music video, commissioned by YouTube animator Ben Mangum (a.k.a MysteryBen27), was released on October 26th (shown below, right). Within a week, the animated rendition of the music video^[3] drew more than 750,000 views and over 25,000 up votes.

Prior to their collaboration on the music video for “Ghost,” Mystery Ben, who first rose to YouTube fame through his 2011 fan music video tributes to My Little Pony, had produced a fan music video for Mystery Skull’s “Money,”^[1] which featured various animated characters from the Phoenix Wright Attorney video games (shown below). Upon its debut in May 2012, Mangum’s music video tribute to “Money” quickly became a hit, garnering nearly 1.6 million views in the following three years. Having taken note of the music video’s success, Mystery Skulls then contacted Ben Mangum to commission an official animated music video for his single Ghost.^[2]

Spread

On October 27th, Redditor GamingAnarchy submitted the animated music video to /r/animation. On October 29th, Kotaku user PrinceofTheUniverse submitted the music video in a post titled “Animation Underground: Mystery Skulls Animated – Ghost.” On October 30th, BuzzBandsLA highlighted the animated music video in a blog post. In addition to the music and animation blog coverage, some of the characters featured in the music video quickly inspired a series of fan art illustrations on DeviantART and Tumblr. On November 5th, the Tumblr music staff announced a Q&A session with artist Mystery Skulls scheduled for the following day to answer questions about the success of the music videos and his music in general.^[10]

Notable Examples

Lewis The Skeleton

Lewis The Skeleton is the name given to the fictional skeleton character in the video that subsequently became popular on DeviantART and Tumblr through fan art, cosplay and plush toys since the video was first posted on YouTube. In addition, people have taken to calling him ‘Bara Skeleton,’ which is a reference to his masculine size and shape. As of October 31st, 2014, DeviantART host hundreds of original sketches and drawings related to Lewis.^[4]