The “Slack-o-latern” designed to jumpscare neighbors with notification dings terrified the internet—but it could have been worse.
Guy Dupont designed the Slack-o-lantern to terrify his tech worker neighbors. The pumpkin’s face is carved with the Slack logo and rigged with a motion sensor and speaker that emits the Slack notification sound when someone walks past.
The TikTok creator showed off the pumpkin in a video shared on October 20, 2025. Dupont explained, “They'll be walking by, thinking they're done for the day, and then…” He waved his hand over the motion sensor, causing the carved Slack logo to light up, “Bam, they're back on their phones.”
The Slack-o-lantern post garnered 3.1 million views on TikTok, eliciting reactions from commenters who said they enter fight-or-flight mode upon hearing the tiny notification noise. The pumpkin frightened social media users who use digital collaboration tools at their jobs, and many people responding to the post argued that the Microsoft Teams notification sound is even scarier.
One commenter said, “I was like, thank God it wasn't Teams.”
The pumpkin that scares tech workers
Dupont introduced the Slack-o-lantern to TikTok. He said, “I'm calling this the Slack-o-lantern, which is specifically designed to terrify my neighbors who work in tech.”
He pointed out the motion sensor and speaker and waved his hand across the slack logo carved into the pumpkin’s face to make it light up and play the notification ding. “I don't know about you guys, but this really gets the dread going for me,” Dupont said.
“I hate it. Great work.”
“The notification sound is a jumpscare.”
“This activated my fight or flight.”
“This is the scariest pumpkin you could possibly carve.”
At least it wasn't Teams...
Commenters who use digital remote collaboration tools at their jobs said Microsoft Teams is way scarier than Slack.
While “Teams-o-lantern” doesn’t evoke Jack-o-lantern the way Slack-o-lantern does, plenty of laptop workers urged Dupont to design a pumpkin that uses notification sounds from the dreaded Teams app. “I've worked in both a Slack and a Teams company before, and honestly, the Teams sounds are all way more terrifying.”
“I've worked in both a Slack and a Teams company before, and honestly, the Teams sounds are all way more terrifying.”
“A Teams pumpkin would really scare the shit out of me.”
“RIP Slack-o-lantern.”
Dupont’s viral tech pumpkin elicited a major response, prompting the TikTok creator to smash the slack-o-lantern in a video shared one day later on October 21, 2025. He explained, “It seems like we all need a little bit of cathartic release, so I’m gonna smash it.”
The apparent Slack apologist added, “Don’t blame Slack; blame your coworkers… It’s your coworkers. It’s not the app,” before putting his foot through the pumpkin.
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