With Kane Parsons’ A24 film scaring and impressing critics in preparation for what should be a strong theatrical run, millions of people are about to be exposed to The Backrooms. Originating in 2019, the creepypasta absolutely exploded in popularity and exposure, eventually transforming into something entirely different through participation by other people. The concept essentially birthed a new subgenre of horror games, with the likes of Escape the Backrooms, Inside the Backrooms, and Backrooms: Escape Together, dragging massive audiences to unsettling spaces that seem to exist in their own reality.
A24’s Backrooms pushes this idea into the mainstream, or at least more so than ever before. By the end of next week, most people in the world might be familiar with Backrooms; to be exact, they might be familiar with the movie’s interpretation or perhaps one of the game’s versions. Due to its explosion, the creepypasta’s origins can sometimes be overshadowed. So, let’s change that by diving into the genesis, evolution, and schism of the Backrooms.
Like all great and horrifying internet legends, our story begins on 4chan…
My primary goal is to chronicle the development of the Backrooms creepypasta over the years, rather than explain it. Why? Because there isn’t actually that much to explain, at least when it comes to the original post.
The Original Backrooms Post – The Birth Of A Creepypasta
A Disquieting Image That Feels Off
Anybody who stumbled into a yellow maze of rooms after Backrooms morphed into a blob of lore might be surprised to know that the original post was incredibly simple. The 4chan prompt asked for images that felt off, and the creator contributed a weird mono-yellow room with fluorescent lights, damp carpet that surely stunk to the high heavens, and seemingly endless empty rooms. Later on, a different anonymous commentator added a phrase that would really kickstart the Backrooms phenomenon.
If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms…
The image captured a sense of psychological dread from not only isolation, but also the paranoid belief that something might be nearby. That’s really it. There was no extensive story, characters, monsters, twists, shocks, world-building, or anything else. The Backrooms creepypasta became massive because it tapped into an inherent fear of the unknown.
Although not a video game creepypasta, Backrooms immediately connected to the medium thanks to the use of “noclip,” an experience every Bethesda fan should be intimately familiar with. Basically, it just means clipping through a wall or floor.
Scariest Analog Horror Series
These analog horror series are the most frightening shows the genre has to offer.
Collective Fear – The Horror Of A Creepypasta
Liminal Spaces & Kenopsia
Before exploring the Backrooms’ history further, we need to go a bit further into why this particular creepypasta became such an integral part of internet subculture. The original image’s foundation lies in two concepts with extensive legacies in horror and fear in general.
- Liminal Spaces – This term refers to places defined by life and activity, and they are often transitional in nature. You know, places like school hallways, malls, hotel corridors, and office buildings; you expect to see people coming and going. Locations become liminal spaces when they are empty and devoid of humanity. Dead places.
- Kenopsia – This ties directly into liminal spaces, but refers specifically to the eerie atmosphere of an abandoned place that should be filled with crowds. Have you ever been to a mall on a day when all the shops are closed? Or, maybe, a school or office at night? They feel incredibly off, like you stumbled into an alternative dimension where things aren’t quite right.
The Backrooms effectively weaponized this strange feeling, one that most people likely experienced in some form or another.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
The Expanded Universe – The Evolution Of A Creepypasta
Going Beyond The Minimalist Original
The Backrooms discussion can be divided into two opposing forces: Minimalists and, well, Wikis.
- Minimalists believe the Backrooms is only the original yellow maze with no monsters. The horror comes from the isolation, desperation, and deafening silence. (Full disclosure, I would consider myself part of this group. Nothing that came after sent a chill down my spine quite like the original Backrooms photo.)
- Wikis, aka the Expanded Universe, refer to all the community lore that exploded after the Backrooms became an inescapable part of internet culture. If somebody wants to dive into this side of the creepypasta, they should start with the Backrooms Wiki, although other Fandoms exist.
The Expanded Universe spawned so many different branches, ideas, and tangents that covering them all would be a fool’s errand. However, a few key concepts were introduced that need to be mentioned.
- Levels – With the yellow rooms representing Level 0, each floor introduces a new type of setting, be it a warehouse, hotel, electrical station, or more cerebral concepts that dominate the deeper levels. As of right now, the Wiki lists 999 levels, even if not all of them have been outlined.
- Factions (Or Groups) – I mean, are you surprised we have factions? This category refers to organizations that operate within the backrooms, be it to contain, research, or weaponize. The ADF and MEG are probably the most powerful, but many others exist.
- Entities – On the surface, this classification might simply seem to include monsters that live within the Backrooms, but that description doesn’t cover all of them. Creatures like Smilers, Hounds, Skin-Stealers, and Deathmoths are “classic” aggressive monsters; however, Entities also refers to passive, uncanny beings like Facelings. Certain Entities are even helpful, like Jerry or Partypoopers. Finally, we even have non-biological anomalies that are essentially glitches in the Backrooms’ matrix.
Now, the Expanded Universe contains hundreds of pages of fascinating lore, and the community’s efforts to create a layered world deserve endless praise. However, this direction altered the very core of the Backrooms, morphing it from a cerebral, otherworldly horror feeling to a sci-fi universe with borderline RPG elements.
Basically, the Backrooms became SCP.
6 Creepy Games To Trigger Pareidolia
These games play on the human tendency to see faces and other patterns in their surroundings, using it to send shivers down players’ spines.
The Point Of No Return – The Viral Revolution of a Creepypasta
Kane Pixels’ Road To A24
By early 2022, the Backrooms had spread throughout the internet, becoming fairly well-known… but it didn’t fully explode until Kane Parsons, as Kane Pixels, released “The Backrooms (Found Footage)” on YouTube. This would go on to attract the attention of A24, resulting in a highly-regarded film that marked this creepypasta’s global mainstream peak. The Backrooms might refer to an endless maze that leads you nowhere, but it led Kane Pixels straight to Hollywood. Fully deserved, too, as the short is brilliant.
Presented as found footage, Parsons used Blender to turn the abstract text of the Backrooms into a pure example of analog horror, crafting something genuinely terrifying in the process. He also combined the creepypasta with corporate sci-fi by introducing the Async Research Institute, the company that opened the portal to the Backrooms, calling it “The Complex,” in an attempt to fix the world’s overcrowding issue.
The Gaming Boom – The Commercialization Of A Creepypasta
Many, Many Games Set In The Backrooms
Even if its origins only used a related term, the Backrooms almost instantly attached itself to gaming culture (or the other way round), to the point of nowadays being synonymous with the medium. Once Kane Pixels’ video went viral and opened the dam, an influx of Backrooms games flooded Steam, many of which were clearly quickly stabled together to try to make a quick pick. Most didn’t seek to add anything to the lore, but rather just stuck to the original’s premise or utilized the material already available.
As samey as many of these releases tend to be, a couple of fantastic games spawned from this movement, and we need to take the positives with the negatives. Even before standalone games began to drop, players created Backrooms maps in Garry’s Mod, Roblox, and Minecraft, so the Backrooms were already inspiring people to create and adapt its lore.
The Final Validation – The Hollywoodification Of A Creepypasta
The Modern Mythos
Kane Parsons being chosen to direct a Backrooms movie at the age of 20 is, naturally, an incredible personal achievement for the creator; however, we should take into account just what this means.
A concept that started as a throwaway photo and text on 4chan led to the manifestation of a Hollywood movie that seems likely to be box office gold. With Slenderman coming out a year before the Backrooms’ origin, other creepypastas have been turned into movies, but their impact on our collective imagination was nowhere near as powerful. Rather than a creature in the wood, the Backrooms is terrifying because it is well-lit, clean, and utterly ordinary. It is horrifying because it presents an infinite architecture designed for humans, but completely devoid of them.
The Backrooms’ evolution shares more in common with folklore or campfire stories than other creepypastas. Through forums, wikis, games, and now a movie, its myth grew and shifted, all the while staying with us.
11 Most Legendary Video Game Creepypastas Of All Time, Ranked
Video games have not been spared by the eerie creepypasta phenomenon. Here are some of the most famous examples.
