The Backrooms: This Place Will Eat You
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2023
- 80,000 HOURS ➤ 80000hours.org/talefoundry
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The Back Rooms are one of the strangest internet phenomena in the last decade. Why are people so gripped by this yellow, parallel dimension office-labyrinth? Why is it so scary?
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80,000 HOURS ➤ 80000hours.org/talefoundry
Please, please take this opportunity to check out 80,000 Hours. They exist PURELY to help you find a job that will enable you to change the world, and they're offering all their resources to you entirely for free! At the very least, it's certainly worth giving a look!
I'm definitely going to check that out.
What if i didn't graduate from a university?
@@catattack88580,000 hours is rooted in ‘effective altruism’, and is basically a way for very wealthy and highly educated people to soothe their conscience. It’s not feasible or intended for normal people. The vast majority of ‘effective altruists’ are young cishet white wealthy men from elite schools and there’s a reason for that.
In my view, EA is cold, detached, and elitist, and usually disregards present suffering, only focusing on what optimal far off future hypothetical people could benefit, in the broadest terms, with no consideration for the small scale, or indeed, for changing actual systems at all- rather, working in them.
It has really surprised and disappointed me to see tf accept them as a sponsor twice now. Makes me wonder if I have misjudged who the main target audience of these videos actually is.
80,000 hours sound exactly like the type of organization I dream to make one day, and like one I so desperately need help from. I will definitely check them out!
Amazing video! Was hoping you've mention Michigan Blue Hell, but it's niche. Regardless, loved this video, and it's very useful to me!
HUGE thank you for bringing this our attention, I'm in the tech industry and I was looking for an effective way to use my education to help the broader world and I really hope this will aid me in doing so - thank you!
My family once took me on a cruise. Our room was multiple hallways deep inside the ship. There were no windows. We called it 'the sleeping cube' because there was no sense of time in it. No light from the outside. I think there's something immensely grounding about having a connection to the outdoors-a sense of implicit escape that makes liminal spaces uneasy. How comfortable a constructed space might be is often defined by its relationship to the outside, and when we take that away, it becomes uniquely uncomfortable.
WoW that’s really true man your future you gonna be proud !
My Dad works as an electrician in a hosptial which let to me being there a lot as a kid.
Seeing the hospital, normally a light, sterile place with lots of people waiting and moving around from the other side felt really weird.
Usually only few people are around there, windows in the halls are used really spareingly and the lights there usually had to be turned on, unlike in other parts of the hospital, with gave it a really eerie vibe...
Oh, also once came with him inspecting pipes, there are a lot of really tight, hot spaces were you can barley fit
I can see why that would be creepy even if you are not in any real danger just though thought Is scary.
Been in the same situation and clostrophobic to many. Submarines are more so underwater.
I didn't get it there, I did in a main battle tank.
Edit: note I was not in the army, this was a tank factory.
Oh hey, it's Hello Future Me! Your stuff is awesome :)
I´ve always found Liminal Horror to be a quite primal form of horror. You are forced to be completely alone with your Thoughts.
Yeah, I feel that! More like the fear of something, it's the fear that there might be something...
Tbh I would enjoy having that unlimited alone time.
and being alone is probably one of the greatest fear anyone can have because at the end of the day we need human interaction of some kind
@@DrinkYourNailPolish Same. My toxic trait is thinking that I would love Liminal Spaces.
Only zoomers are scared of their own thoughts.
“Stare long enough into the void, and the void starts to stare back.” I know that quote wasn’t referring to liminal spaces, but it just fits so perfectly.
Ah yes the empty hallway is staring at me aaaahhhhhh!!!
It's great because when there is nothing, the mind will just create the illusion that there is just to comprehend it. Humans inherently don't want to be alone, so if we are, we'll just get the feeling that there is someone or something with us.
@@Mediados It doesn't help that the mind can "disassociate" (the cause of the "out-of-body experience") and lose the feeling of being part of your body. Instead of feeling like what is deciding the body's movements, the mind can feel like just a passenger watching the body make those movements on its own. So when disassociate, instead of feeling like nothing else is around, you would feel like there are 2 separate entities: your mind, and your body.
This made me think that maybe part of the uneasyness or fear doesn't come from being alone in those spaces but also being seen alone by those spaces. As if the emptyness itself looks at you and mocks you for being afraid.
I remember being a small child in an unfamiliar apartment building, we were playing hide and seek with some kids and my dumb ass thought that going around a staircase I'd be in the same floor because they all looked the same. Turns out I was on another floor, thinking I was hiding so well no one could find me. I thought this for hours until I realised I was alone, not only in the game but it looked like I was alone in the floor and felt like in the building too. I eventually figured out that that's not how stairs worked but every time I look at the backrooms it gives me that same feeling I had that time: you're alone and you're scared, and this is funny to us. Whoever "us" is.
I thought that was referring to black cats?
I find the Backrooms a sort of sub genre of eldritch horror. It’s obviously unnatural, it’s impossible to comprehend, and most important of all, it relies upon the fear of the unknown.
I think the backrooms are a perfect example of an eldritch entity. It's unnatural. It's not even alive, yet its inhospitable and hostile, and completely unfathomable.
@@citizenerased7214 And of course, like with anything vaguely connected to lovecraft, some dude was like "this needs a monster in it".
Truth is whatever inhabits the backrooms can only make it less. Consider this:
Upon arrival, the place immediately hits you with a 1-2: a familiar feeling in it's surface architecture before your mind starts filling in the gaps, and the unease starts. It looks like a transitory space that would therefore have an exit, but no matter how much you look for it you can't make sense of it's layout. The more you search, the less you find, and the sights start blurring together: "Does this resemble a place I have been at yet? Have I been to this corner yet?". You try your best to remember where you are passing through to find a point of reference but you never do, your thinking gets sharper and sharper but it always feels like the answer is around the corner. Your brain gets overworked, your eyes dart around fast as you sprint through empty stretches of yellow walls.
The dawning question of "is there even an exit?" is the seed that makes your will start to crumble. As it grows through the walls of your resolve, you start doubting yourself. "Am I dreaming?" "perhaps I've made a mistake somewhere along the path". You try to deny the crawling sense of doom that creeps up your spine. There's not only no escape, there's *nothing* there, *no-one*. There never was, and there never will be again, and the fact you are there is an error you can't understand. You don't even know how you got here.
"How much time has passed?". Time dilates to the point it feels like days, but you're not hungry. You don't need to relieve yourself either, making you question just how far can your mind dilate time. You start counting, convinced you can't possibly have gone insane yet. "Time *is* passing" you tell yourself. You count it meticulously from 1 second up, but the higher you count, the worse you feel. You become sure days have gone by, weeks... but you feel no hunger still, you are not tired, yet you become more and more unwilling to go on as you piece together that this place won't let you leave even through death. Even when you stop breathing you realize you never had to to begin with, you were going through the motions of needing to because you did so, but no longer. Driving your nails into your own skin yields no blood; the skin mending itself at an impossible speed leaving horrible scars behind. Time is moving faster than you thought, and finally you lose yourself. What felt like the period with the most anxiety you've ever felt in your life was only the first digit in an endless sequence, an eternity of nothing but your thoughts in the emptiness of the infinite backrooms with an immortal body and a broken mind.
One of Lovecraft's stories is about a lost city whose architecture makes no sense, found deep in the desert
@@miles3101 I'm not reading that no matter how interesting it may be, TL;DR.
@@swaghettimemeballs4420 don't sweat it 👍
Woah.... 😮
"A disquieting mockery of nostalgia."
I have NEVER heard a more poetic, accurate, and succinct description of liminal spaces. THIS is why I love this channel!
Carry on, Bard!!🙏
A good one indeed 😊
Even after watching soo many liminal spaces videos I don’t think one has put it all into a single sentence so perfectly.
Liminal horror is probably the best type of horror
I prefer "less is more" when it comes to horror. I would rather have the bavkrooms completely empty with zero sign of humans or cretutes so that the only monster you face is the one your imagination cooked up from you being there so long completely alone.
I agree with one exception, that exception being symbolic monsters like that of silent hill
Creatures that can be argued are or aren't there, but regardless they're born from the very circumstances that pertain the purview of the victim of said horror
Backrooms are just better without monsters
im pretty sure thats even more true ("less is more", specifically) when using the fear of the unknown. There are no answers for how or why (for the original backrooms post), and what little details you are given only serve to raise more questions. And in this possibly hostile environment theres nothing stopping you from assuming the worst, fueled by your own creativity and irrational fears.
Adding and even explaining monsters is a cowardly tactic to ground yourself. Monsters are a clear threat that force your attention away from the existential horror of the backrooms as a whole, to merely avoiding something hostile to avoid an assumed harm it will cause.
this but you hear a stumble or you see something out of the corner of your eye but nothing ever apperes
yah but after a while youll realize your alone, and that's boring.
When I first saw the Backrooms, I was immediately reminded of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a sad and horrific short story of a young lady from the 19th century who was practically locked up in an ugly deuterating room by her loved one to "cure" her depression (the room, as you can probably guess, was an ugly yellow wallpaper).
I really like your interpretation of the backrooms being unnatural entities of their own-capturing the shape of humanity, and yet void of it at the same time. The walls don't have to breathe and become all veiny, like it's actually some fleshy monster disguised as a liminal space. Their unexplainable, yet alluring existence is enough to make one believe that it is some kind of "creature", but one that's too unfathomable to understand.
Your analysis also helped me realize why I personally don't care much for the monsters that reside in the backrooms. Yeah, they can be counted as the extra frosting and sprinkles on the cake so to speak, but focusing too much on them as the main threat oversimplifies the real horror of the backrooms.
tl;dr another 10/10 great video, will save it for any future world-building projects~
But what if YOU came here to become THE soul of this place? Alone in this infinite sameness being the only living thing here only to forever possess it waiting for newcomers that will never come...
yooo i read this for school just last year lol
Reading this, I'm reminded of the game called Anatomy. What an excellent game about houses.
love that shortstory
what if staying for too long made you the monster? what if the monsters didn’t attack out of malice?
A scarier concept to me is the idea that the backrooms are meant to house some unspeakable horror-- even worse to be honest is if there's nothing at all. A grisly death is one thing, but dying alone or living an eternity alone is one of the scariest things I can think of.
I mean if you didn’t have any food or water then you would immediately die of hunger or thirst in the backrooms.
@@theblackswordsman5039I mean the Backrooms don't work with natural rules. It can just be that death by starvation or thirst is impossible.
How long until YOU become the horror? Or maybe you were the monster all along...
That isn’t “a scarier concept,” that’s the original concept, before unoriginal shitty “writers” through all these boring monsters into thr place.
@@coadacatalin4510immerge with the place itself to forever wander through endless hallways looking for the meaning of you being there, slowly transforming into the mix of carpet and wallpaper to eventually stop and forever become one with the walls, becoming the soul of this endless trans-dimensional space... Truly an eree fate
Two decades ago i worked in maintenance on a decommissioned air force base that had quarter mile long warehouses that had been converted into offices that were left vacant when the civil service people moved out. One of these had nothing inside but huge areas of modular furniture for call centers and offices in random hallways that just looped back on each other. Since they would occasionally rent out small portions of the building we had to do upkeep on the entire thing. This meant working thru each side of the hallway going room to room and space to space checking lights, ceiling tiles, inspections for leaks and power outages. For events we had to go in and move furniture from one side of the building to the other. To a man, all of us at one time or another heard voices when no one else was in the building, doors closing on their own and chairs randomly appearing in the hallways and always the feeling of being watched. Some guys just flat out refused to work there on their own but not my dumbass, I liked the overtime to much, lol. Now after all these years I come across the Backrooms and luminal spaces and laugh because I literally can say I have been as close as you can to this phenomenon in real life. Man I miss those days.
Yeah, I've also been in some kind of that situation. Imagine: July evening, strong wind, relatively small (unmarked for some reason) town, you walk into a public pool wanting to get a good swim. A lonely night shift guard approaches you, warns you that the building is closing in a hour and a half, but still sells you a ticket and tells you the directions. You walk into the giant empty pool room, alone with a giant pit of water, the only light sources being the light at the bottom of it. The night rolls over, it starts raining outside as you enter the water... Those were one of the most surreal 45 minutes of my life until the guard came in and told me the time is up and he's gonna close the building in 20 mins.
It's amazing that such an obvious occurence as someone leaving a chair in a corridor can be so easily dismissed simply by how much you are drawn to the place and how much you can get lost in it that it becomes terrifying to see, or hear one imperfection in the structure of the building.
@@BLET_55artem55 It sounds wonderful👍💘 That sounds surreal but not sinister like the Backrooms since you knew the Guard was there.
But you made your personal "I'm the only person here" experience easy to imagine which is to your credit. I can envisage the dim light beneath the rippling pool water combined with the beating drum of the rain.
It sounds special and intimate. I can imagine at the time it felt significant.
I knew a guy who was the night watchman at a living history museum. During the day it was full of teachers, students, volunteers and tourists. At night it was completely silent and he was the only one there. So as he passed each building the ticking of a clock or rustling of an animal could be clearly heard. One night he heard a thud thud thud like footsteps down a stairs. When he investigated there was a broom lying at the bottom of the steps. A person with less humor and courage might have found the job a little freaky.
To be honest, as someone who doesn't believe in the supernatural and who enjoys being alone, I totally feel the last part of your comment. I would enjoy the hell out of a setting like that (obviously knowing it's reality and not some cosmic horror like the Backrooms, which you know you can't escape.)
As a custodian I was recently cleaning out our gym lockers in the back behind the gym and I know I’m not the only one in the building but being far away from anyone and feeling so closed off with just the sound of fans and the sound of water dripping to keep me company and it’s really terrifying if I’m being honest.
This is what feels uneasy for me in single player sandboxes like Minecraft. Sure, you can make whatever you want, and the world is filled with life, but nobody will truly admire or dismiss your actions, nobody won't praise your creations, nobody will ever even see them...
@BLET_55artem55 That's why multyplayer is an option or making videos on your creations, otherwise it would drive you mad wouldn't it?
An aspect of the Backrooms that I don't see discussed anywhere is the fact that they have electricity, which implies maintenance, and thus people. But in the Backrooms, there just aren't any. It's something other than humans that's supplying electricity there, and I find that really creepy and unnerving.
@@acridyd It could very well be that it's just there. It's a part of the "place". There's nowhere where the energy comes from and it's nowhere where the energy goes.
And that's why I love backrooms - it's so illogical and unexplainable that "it's the perfect creepypasta - it's like sandbox, you can make your own one" ©some YTber
@@BLET_55artem55 Oooh, that's good too. I like that idea.
"Every place tells a story, and every place is alive with attached emotions." Searched for a video that could explain how to write and describe atmosphere, and this might just be the best lesson I've learned so far.
Amazing video.
“Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring houses were not alike, but different one from another, because they held different dreams.”
― Lord Dunsany, A Dreamer's Tales
My favorite version of the backrooms is where there are no 'entities'. Instead, the backrooms themselves try to kill you. A hallway slowly shrinking in size until you are crushed, or maybe a rusted ladder that breaks the moment you put your full weight on it sending you into oblivion. I find that so much scarier.
Thank you for addressing the "monster" in the Backrooms. To me, adding a monster or some threat always undercuts the true horror of the spaces. I imagine wanderers feel threatened not because there's something in there, but because their mind imagines there to be simply because we can't fathom how something could be so sterile and empty. Im reminded of The Sandman story "A Tale Of Two Cities," in which the protagonist accidentally finds himself in the dream of the city he lives in, almost totally empty, and fears what might happen if the city wakes up. As you put so well in this video, the space itself feels alive and dangerous just as it is dead and harmless.
The thing that I love about the Backrooms is that it's unexplainable. Even in the new version of the Backrooms that's getting a movie, it's still not explained why the Backrooms are there. It's just there. Even if we know what the entities are and what the levels are, we still don't know how it existed. That's why it's scary.
now i’m imagining a caveman accidentally noclipping through his cave and then dying at the mere sight of the backrooms
Yes, it's like you have fallen into a space not meant to be seen by humans, let alone experienced by them. It was created by something, so it is there. Or at least you think you are there and you certainly exist as Descartes taught us. You are right, the Backrooms are beyond comprehension, suddenly just 'there' like a life size lego house in the middle of a normal street.
It's not natural, it has no origins you comprehend , time has ceased to exist and now you are stuck in the Backrooms neither do you.
I mean that's no different than the regular universe.
@@MrNote-lz7lh Well it is. We may not know the origins of the world but we have plenty of distractions and life events to think about on our journey.
In the Back Rooms..every strained silent minute would seem like an hour.
I think trapped there without explanation, stimulation of any kind, water or food the person would be petrified, in deep denial, desperate for answers or even angry. That strength wouldn't last .
Then they would become weak emotionally and physically, primarily through lack of fluids, and would accept and surprisingly welcome their fate.They would eventually perish and what was left of them would silently slowly merge with the indifferent yellow walls.
The back Rooms could be seen as a metaphor of human denial about our own mortality and it would be a very effective, if stark, tool of exposing us to our deepest fears..Personally I wouldn't be brave enough!😋
And the lack of purpose even dismisses the existence of a creator for it, whatever it may be.
Liminal spaces don't scare me but give me a feeling of comfort. I don't know if that's weird but it's how I feel about it.
You're not alone. I feel the same way. I like being alone a lot so for me this would be so relaxing. I could finally be left alone with my thoughts.
same, but I thought it's micro panic attacks that releases stress, probably wrong though
Yeah, that’s weird *pat pat*
I get the same vibe from the backrooms, I just wish I could get lost in them and wander rather then deal with life.
This is probably unhealthy.
@@YellowToad128I don't think it's completely unhealthy... Sometimes we would rather deal with the past instead of deal with the present... Though I remember someone saying something about something similar to this and they said "no you don't, you don't miss the old times you miss how you felt, before you grew up and got a job, and a car and a family, you miss a life you had when you didn't have responsibility and were able to do things that you were not able to now...
The thing I absolutely LOVE about Kane Pixels monsters in particular, is that as the series has gone on and we’ve learned more about them, you slowly come to a dark realization about what they really are - they are what’s left of people who fell in there.
Every time one of the monsters appears, it’s always after our doomed protagonists find some sign of human activity - writing on the walls, a backpack and makeshift camp, or a car crashed into a wall. We see a video where a body is recovered from the Backrooms, and the regular processes of decomposition are not happening as they should. We even get a hidden message in one episode from some government document stating that the Backrooms is a reality antithetical to human life.
The worst realization of all is when you go back and listen to the noises these monsters make after you’ve learned this information… you realize they’re saying things. They beg for help, and they plead for the cameraman not go. Even from the start, there’s a clear and undeniable desperation to the noises those creatures make.
The thing that gets to me about these monsters, is that they WERE humans… But they aren’t anymore. Even though some can still speak, the Backrooms has transformed them into something alien, dooming them to fall into that same uncanny valley as the architecture of the Backrooms themselves. But despite it all, they STILL remember - in Found Footage #2, as the camera girl passes the rusted old car she notes the rooms beyond “look more normal” - and when you check the video in the description, we see family photographs of people in those exact same rooms, only filled with furniture, people, and life. Yet in the Backrooms, the rooms are empty and silent, occupied only by the monster and a single painting on the wall.
Somehow, the creature recreated imperfect copies of the home it once knew, only now cavernously empty without their family. The monster in Pitfalls likely did the same and tried to recreate the neighbourhood street where their home once was, only under a pitch black sky and cast in an ominous red light. They’re constantly trying to remember who and what they were, and what the world beyond the Backrooms was like - and yet they always fall short. Their copying, just like their memories, are imperfect. They are broken humans, warped by the Backrooms until everything they were is just a fading memory they desperately cling to.
And once you fall into the Backrooms, then sooner or later, you’ll be just like them.
I like the idea that the monsters are friendly and just are seeking help in your take. Maybe you befriend one, and over time you morph into something like it, but you and your friend don’t stop evolving, you start to evolve into something inferior to your past form, all the way to evolving into the walls. That’s how the back rooms eats you.
@@RandomCommenter-qu2oc Oh they absolutely are not friendly. Like I said they WERE human… but they aren’t anymore.
The Backrooms also seems to play on our desires for stimulation. Being trapped in a single room with little or no stimulation at all would be bad enough, but multiply that into endless rooms and hallways can bring a sense of dread. Those areas that _do_ present some form of stimulation also tend to present a high chance of being deadly, as if the room itself was predatory.
The backrooms to me are a twisted version of the mythical labyrinth of the minotaur. The only difference is that they took away the hope that comes with the killing of the monster.
Since there is no monster, your mind tries to find a monster. Everything becomes the monster. There is no story without the monster. Even the monsters inside the backrooms are not real monsters. They're obstacles. There is no big monster that would signify the continuation of the story.
And even if the whole place is the monster, what are you going to do about it? Kill it? Conquer it? Why do that? Who are you trying to save or defend? There is nobody to fight for. It's just you and it, nothing else. The whole universe is just rooms. There is no meaning, no entropy, no reason to do anything. It's even worse than living in the emptiness before existence because at least that has a chance of creating something to give you purpose. The backrooms are the worst case scenario. Absolute disconnection.
Even worse is if the place is just a place, there's nothing above not beyond it besides you and the place. You are the only thing in there. YOU are the place and the PLACE is you...
II agree , excellent analysis 👍It's a fitting idea of what Hell would be (in my personal view). The unnatural light and pulsating silence would slowly drive you mad, the human brain at even create monsters just to have stimuli and purpose.At least if you were fleeing a terrifying foe, you would be doing something, anything and were distracted from reality which is far worse, something beyond comprehension.
The brain would attempt to create such things as shadows, whispers, to tell itself "you are not alone" no matter how chilling the entities are that the brain conjures up. The brain may even try to create a foe to delete itself, at least then you would have peace, closure. But since the creations of your withering mind were not real, just meaningless mists within the dismal.enclosure you find yourself.
I mean, you would starve to death, so there's that.
No entropy sounds pretty good
@@Georgia.J Move, keep changing.
The more you change, the more the things around you will be forced to change.
The reality around you shifts with every movement.
Nothing lasts forever, and there will be an end.
You only need to be strong enough to continue moving until then.
You stop, and things will stagnate once more.
You give up, and all things become meaningless.
If you want a purpose, then you must seek one out yourself.
@@drifter2391 Maybe I'm being a tad dim witted 😁 (it has been known..!) But unless you are applying these statements to real life self help then I don't see how they apply to relative mental wellness whilst in the Backrooms.
I have changed my mind somewhat regarding the Backrooms. I have always assumed the Backrooms were on a different dimension, a place someone falls into somehow not knowing how or why. There is no how or why of course with the Backrooms, there just is. But now I don't feel this is a place for mortal dwelling.
I doubt you can be alive in the traditional sense when you encounter the Backrooms, perhaps you enter it at the time of deletion when the car strikes for example.
I 'm not sure what it's purpose is, but it feels sinister, almost deliberately mockingly empty. It may be a Hell of some kind but only the basic essence of you remains whilst you dwell within it, your body was deleted in what you thought was and what we know as real life.
However you don't know that, so you would crave water , have brief episodes of hallucinating, run around in vain trying to find escape (or at least meaning to your destination) not knowing that a camera would show the same empty Backrooms while you run past in desperate confusion. When you eventually give in and believe you are passing, a wispy plume of the self would just fade into the walls joining all the others that have faced the Backrooms before. I believe the Backrooms can only exist while the souls within the wall continue to hold it up. It's a graveyard that doesn't look like one.
Sorry for long comment! 🌺 I didn't understand the relevance of your reply tbh which is my failing and my mind just meandered. I do believe lthat though truly.
Once worked as an intern at a retirement home.
My dressing there was in the basement.
Everything had a platic looking floor and they painted the walls yellow, it was about the closest you could get to real life backrooms, especially if you had the afternoon shift and went home after stuff like the laundry closed for the day and you were alone in a silent, sterile part of a building you usually never see
My father in law had to recover in a rehab center/nursing home. The patients were wildly varying. They were rated very low for staff numbers. Only a couple people were there in the evening, night nurses in the nursing home area, but the rehab halls were empty. The door was locked promptly at 8pm. The iron gate around the facility was locked then as well. My father in law would call us past midnight complaining everyone had abandoned him and no one came when he called. He was scared. We told him we couldn't get in at that hour and called the night nurse desk for him. I stayed past time once and got locked in. Went up and down the halls, yelling for help. It was uncanny. There were people in the rooms, but they were very out of it, on painkillers, unresponsive. The quiet was oppressive somehow.
I eventually called the night nurse desk to come and unlock the door, but I was more understanding of my father in law's fear after that. He began suffering a sort of amnesia when he woke up at night. One day I stayed with him for 22 hours, and when he woke up, he could not remember how we'd gotten there. All those hours were gone in his mind. That was part of why it was so frightening to him to wake in the middle of the night, with no one near. He died a few months ago, but he wasn't alone, so at least there's that.
Something i feel kinda exemplifies the kind of feeling the backrooms is supposed to invoke was my experience with a VR chat map of all things
The map in question was a recreation of a K mart. I worked at one when i was a teenager, and when i first decided to explore the map the server was completely empty of other players.
It was a surreal experience. Not only was the store devoid of life but the layout was also different, and of course most of it was poorly rendered giving this strange sense that i was in some alien interperation of the real thing.
*If I had a nickel for every time a very popular scary story evolved into an entire universe of similar scary things, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice.*
SCP and the Backrooms, right?
@@CRios25Slanderman?
@@CRios25 Yep
Me ?
I think the analogy of being hungry spaces is quite good.
An empty room wants attention, it wants to be inhabited almost. The backrooms however simply cannot be sated. They discourage even trying to live in the space, yet they don't let you out. You couldn't possibly expect to find enough furniture to fill the backrooms, and even if you could, you couldn't escape to bring some back and do so. It even slowly "digests" you by starving, dehydrating, or driving you mad.
The backrooms are a being hungry for habitation, but the backroom's metabolism burns away all life that tries to live there.
The Backrooms has some earlier corollary with Stephen King's The Langoliers. A group of passengers fall out of the present timestream to arrive on an empty flight in an empty airport. The feelings of not knowing how to get back to where you're supoosed to be is quite strong throughout. It even has a "monster," the eponymous Langoliers, whose job it is to eat anything and everything in this snapshot of the past.
While the original description was quite eerie, all the subsequent add ons, lore and creatures just turned the Backrooms into a substandard Endless Ikea clone
My thought excatly
It's even worse then that. They made it into a video game complete with its own monster manual and factions you can join. Sure, new levels are cool but when you get to the point where areas are outside and populated you are missing the point.
Like reading the add ons make me less afraid of the backrooms.
People are unable to just leave something be and have to add clickbait for little kids. Idk I guess people don’t understand the idea that it’s because it’s empty is why it’s compelling.
I Will admit this isn’t the most charitable evaluation of those who add to the back rooms, and perhaps it is, but I feel it’s just my thought and all I can think when I see it is comparing it to kid clickbait,
@@bigblue344 I agree with you. Though, it seems only natural for people to try and fill the empty space with something. I can't blame them for trying.
I personally have nothing *against* the idea of a monster living inside the backrooms, but the way it's always executed leaves A LOT to be desired for me. It's so often just some other random internet spookem that they copy paste into the backrooms and that just does not work on any level for me. If the monster was more bespoke I would enjoy it more, either a being that evolved to make the backrooms look the way they do as a hunting strategy, or maybe even another person who has been trapped there so long they have been twisted into something unrecognizable. 99% of the time it's just siren head.
Agree, *the soul of the place,* the first to ever *possess* these corridors being the one who tries to help you to comprehend the fact that you can never leave but being so distorted that he looks like he's the monster that wants to kill you... It's kind of basic because it kinda still is a monster, but really interesting because there is no monster, just a misunderstood helper...
@BLET_55artem55 wow that's by far the best monster idea for the backrooms, holy shit! A tragic monster!
What you said about the monster being a human once… isn’t that what was Kane Pixel’s monster? One of his videos confirmed it, the one with the crashed car in the thumbnail.
The Insanities and Partygoers sort of fit this. The former are something that just kind of happens to people who spend too long in the Backrooms. Going too long without food, water, sleep, and/or human contact won't kill you. Instead, you'll end up a mindless, murderous, red-skinned monstrosity with a permanent sick grin. This can be delayed indefinitely as long as you get those things... but that's difficult, particularly when Insanities are hostile to pretty much everything that isn't another Insanity. There's a substance that can cure early onset of the symptoms(the origin being unclear, like most of the Backrooms) but the Insanities will die if they're exposed, meaning that it's basically death in every way that matters.
Partygoers, meanwhile, are a sort of zombie. They have a thorn on their arms. If they jab a human with it, they will swiftly become a Partygoer themselves. They retain their intellects, but are murderous, human-eating, and sadistic.
The Hounds are similar to the Partygoers, having been mutated by a rabies-like virus via another Hound's bite. They are animalistic, but not utterly mindless.
I'm a fan of most of the monsters in the Backrooms being human-derived in one way or another.
I thought I knew most of the popular creepypastas, but I've honestly never heard of the Backrooms before. Fascinating. I actually believe that such a place is scarier without monsters wandering around it. The emptiness creating a sense of profound dread. You can escape a monster, at least for a time, but you can't escape the place.
If anyone is interested in exploring some adjacent themes to those of this video, I recommend "Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House" by Jacob Geller
I love this channel. Such a calm, relaxing voice, talking about fascinating, and often scary, things. The gentle, soft tone, precisely conveying such chilling ideas... I could listen to these videos with my eyes closed, except the art style and animation is exquisite as well!
Kinda sounds like Lore Aaron Menkie
liminal spaces or areas of the backrooms always made think how something other than human would try and replicate the habitat of humans without really knowing why we designed certain things the way they are. like not making chairs the right height, furniture where it shouldn't be, or doorknobs way to low to grab. It makes me think of how we give extending structures for small pets like rodents for their cages such as; tunnels, hamster wheels, plastic domes, etc.
When I saw that drawing which looked suspiciously like the House from the game 'What remains of Edith Finch' earlier in the video I was already like "hold up" And then you segway into talking abotu this wonderful, amazing story driven game. Thank you! I can see this game being right up their alley for many in your audience.
I remember being under anesthesia and seeing this exact place. Not going to lie, it was weird.
was it like a dream or is anesthesia dreaming weirder or normaler
Okay but the artwork at 55 seconds in is a direct call to House of Leaves and I love you for it.
Whenever I’m having a ton of difficulty sleeping I get weird out of body experiences where I fly endlessly through spaces that look like the backrooms and I phase through walls like a ghost and spin uncontrollably and can’t control my movements or direction at all. It’s pretty scary.
I've always been afraid of the backrooms but this video gave me an entirely new picture of fear and liminal spaces
Liminal spaces are really weird to me, not always scary, but really off putting, like there are people that are supposed to be here, but there are not... And that's what makes it so disturbing, it's that you know there are people that are supposed to be here, but there are not, so they must be hidden and that's what you're telling yourself subconsciously, and the fear of the unknown is stronger than any others!
I saw that little reference to "what remains of Edith Finch" very good example too, the home itself has a lot of personality and you can almost feel the moments that mustive happened there.
Edit: I dident realize you would litteraly talk about it hot damn
Same; it's been one of my favorite games ever since SuperHorrorBro played it
You should do a video on House of Leaves. It's a lot like the back rooms and I wish it got more love.
It's in this video :)
@@rmb6037 lol that's what I get for commenting before finishing
Been reading the book recently! While I'm not finished with it yet, I'm already really invested with it!
@@Liscinov my roommate 12 years ago (damn I'm old) recommended it to me and it was a real life saver since we didn't have internet. All we had for entertainment was books, a Sega Genesis, and Blockbuster lol.
@@nicholasgarrett742That actually shows that you’re very knowledgeable and book smart!
You thought of that book before they mentioned it! Good job!
Your videos are honestly the best thing I've seen in a long while. I really love your voice, animation style, and the opening intro.
I wonder if the back rooms always looked like an office building? Like would they have looked different in the 1300s? Maybe a castle? I know it’s just a fictional dimension thing, but it’s fun to speculate about. Imagine some random peasant no clipping into the back rooms and just ending up in a modern office building, it’d be an entire different kind of horror than what the back rooms is supposed to be, more akin to an alien abductions than standard liminal horror.
And alien abductions are just updated technological version of fairy abductions, and trips Underhill.
I feel like these could be related... my the Backrooms are part of the faeries' Underhill thay they abandoned and left to themselves, letting them slowly sleep to oblivion over the millenia...
i like to project the extrapolation the other way, because those offices aren't built like that anymore. while kane tries to pean away from uaving said noclip the simulation hypothesis in this context gets some horrifying legs.
the backrooms of any establishnent is where the behind the scenes work is done for the purpose of the front of house (the mundane world in this case) so was the simulation constucted in the seventies? is the very notion of the present just a projection of what seventies minds think makes sense for the future to look like, could everything you think of as normal actually be the crazed delusions of an updated Jenson's fanily cartoon.
or it could apply to the layers, where your castle would be about 15-20 layers down depending on how many aesthetic changes over the years got represented woth a new layer. which also poses the question of why stop where it did? where is the information age layer?
and of course the premise itself, if you physically traveled downwards the same distance as one of the noclips you would find a real space with solid rock, the rock is fine but thats two areas of space occupying the same position meaning there is both other dimensions to have properties contain within and potentially limitless layers of reality to noclip into, there is no guarantee (outside of narrative trappings) for why any one backrooms is actually the same one as any of the others.
the thing about find evidence of being in a simulation is you don't actually have any evidence that real is a concept with any specific meaning at all at that point.
sure your definition of real changes what your opinions are massively but it has no actual effect on your situation.
if everything is simulation and there is no evidence of a distinctly different "real" world thaen sufficiently advanced simulation is exactly equivalent to being real.
so having dug all the way down to that little nugget of existential (crisis? depends on your perspective) spook ill iust ask:
how many simulations did you hurt? or how many npcs did you kill/torment/tease at the limits of their perception?
hmmm interesting.
The idea of the backrooms seems to rest on three pillars:
1 - Isolation. There is absolutely no one else, and even the roaming monster is never seen.
2 - Exposure. There are plenty of walls, but no doors, no way to barricade or hide oneself.
3 - Lack of activity. There is absolutely nothing to do in the backrooms.
These conditions would be satisfied by having the peasant lose track of time while working outside the town walls. The gates are shut and will not be opened, and the rest of the town's residents are safely inside. Now he's stuck by himself, with no protection against bandits and wild animals. The walls are right there but offer no means of concealment or protection. He can't even pass the time working, as it is too dark to see. With nothing to do, and every sound being a fearful harbinger of attack, he wanders endlessly around the town walls. Throw in the supernatural freezing of time and the lack of biological needs, mix in the frantic need to escape back to a populated place, and our lonely peasant will be as screwed as any modern day resident of the backrooms, just with the layout turned inside out and darkened.
Can’t wait to rewatch this video in my living room, with my dog, with all the lights on, in broad daylight
Honestly, my favourite definition of liminal space was coined by a TH-camr called polygon donut. “A place where the expectations of reality are broken”
Such as a dark living room, you’re not supposed to be there at night, you’re meant to be asleep in your bedroom. Or an empty hotel, hotels are meant to hold guests, but with nobody there the familiar becomes alien and that created caution.
Dude I love that opening animation! Has such a beautiful feel to it, just like this channel ❤
I've always found liminal spaces strangely comforting. When you're feeling hollow, they make it feel like your life could just stop as you blink, and the world would just forget you.
I love how small the characters are compared to the backrooms in this, often people have the hight of it as around the same as the height of a normal office space, but the idea of it being twice or even three times that, so everything is an uncomfortably long walk away and it feels like you need to keep close to just one of the walls, i love it
I’m a security guard and this scares me
it's funny actually, I always wondered why liminal spaces never creeped me out, but this made me realize something
Liminal spaces don't creep me out because I'm so used to seeing these familiar spaces devoid of people
The population density in Canada is so low that it's incredibly easy to find these empty spaces, so instead of my brain going "where's the people" it just goes "oh there's nobody here at the moment"
Seeing these places devoid of people is almost MORE comforting, because *thats how I've always remembered them*
If I somehow noclip into the backrooms, I'd simply lay down and die.
Yea the situation is undesirable no matter how much effort you put in.
death is an escape, there is no escape
you cannot die
yeah that the scary part about it
sometime your mind wander and thought "this place isn't normal, what if death is something else? something more
horrific" and that thought alone give me enough reason to try to survive at least to a save level where i get to sit down and think about future thing and making decision
@@Sammmliu”safe level” this is the back rooms no level is safe. In the monsters and levels canon even if there is a level with no monsters it would be inherently horrifying because there is no people and you’re trapped with just you and the level
@@simplylight4916 I aren’t be beggars, at least there no monsters that would pop out one I sat down, that why it counts as safe level because at least I can just think about what I would do next there, just wether or not it worth to continue to live like this
This reminds me of the feeling when i look at two mirrors opposite to each other in a public bathroom, endless hallways extending farther than an eye can see, sometimes I wished to walk through them and get lost for a while, but not forever. I want to be eaten, but like everything that is eaten, it comes out the other side. (Ok rereading that , it's disgusting 😅)
I can't say enough good things about House of Leaves. It really takes me back to the time me and my friends explored a cold, dark corridor that mysteriously appeared in my house, with terrifying consequences...
one of the best and most interesting books ive ever read
The indie horror game Anatomy by kittyhorrorshow is a fantastic exploration of space as antagonist. A house is haunted not by the things that happened in it, but by the things that did not happen in it. As you explore it, the game starts unmaking itself much like the house does over time. It's one of the best horror experiences I've ever had, and a masterclass in conceptual horror.
that sponsor transition was actually really great, actually directly tying the sponsor into the story and themes of the video
that intro was truly beautiful, as someone who enjoys the liminal horror of the backrooms and has for years, that gave me goosebumps.
I think lighting plays an important role in the backrooms and liminality too. In every picture I've seen that gave me a liminality vibe showed artificial light. Even in those levels that take place in an "outside" scenario during the day, the sun light felt... fake, as if it came from a lightbulb. The only exception would be some poolrooms. There the light feels natural, but it comes from translucent glass windows.
In the end, it makes you feel like the time has stopped, it also creates some sort of confusion. You can tell it's daytime but... something is off. I think it also gives you a feeling of eternity.
Of course lighting on itself can't create a liminal space, but it helps a lot
Nice to see you explain that the emptiness is what makes those places special.
This is my favorite channel, and not just because of the content. The script writing, topics, and execution have all the elegance of someone opening their favorite book and sharing it with a close friend. Thanks for caring as much as you do.
“Not even a soulless work of art work to break the monotony”
OOOOOOOH THE HUMANITY
The Backrooms is probably one of the scariest creepypastes because there is no exit. There is no true end. Even if you make to a sorta good room you will never make it to a sorta good room you will never get out. Well if you are perso that nocliped or got lost from your team their is no true exit and that’s what is scary about it.
You practically become the soul of the place
@@BLET_55artem55Yeah that is terrifying.
i miss the old days of the backrooms. no poppy playtime, no memes, just a scary atmosphere.
Liminal spaces give me a weird feeling--like I don't want to be alone but I also don't want anyone or anything near me.
Honestly, as soon as liminal spaces became popular, I fell in love with them instantly and I never understood why. Only recently did I finally remember that when I was younger, I would hide behind the sofa, close my eyes, and I'd fall asleep/daydream about a secret hatch that would lead to a place that was EXACTLY like all the liminal spaces you see online, including the lack of people, but I think because I was so young, I never found any of it creepy or unnerving, in fact I loved being there and would go there whenever I could. Until one day I realised it wasn't real and ever since then I've never been able to go back.
I love the animations of the little guys, and the background effect of words being read behind the animation, great job.
I'm so hyped. One of my favorite comentators discusing several constructs of life that I hold dearly (and referencing several pieces of media that I know about) out of the blue and beyond my expectations whilst giving it a description which breeds new life into the ideals and inspiration. In other words, I like the Backrooms and I like this channel so this video's existance is giving me dophamine.
The backrooms hit a very visceral note because since I was very little I've had dreams about wandering around in these vast, weird, empty spaces. The first time I saw the short, I felt chills.
I did wander around in a closed Boscov's a decade ago, specifically in the storage area. Got a good jumpscare when I turned my phone light toward a bunch of mannequins. Wish I still had that phone!
I've always found a sense of calm in liminal spaces that I rarely find any other place.
Its soothing, and warm, and known.
But without the turmoil that people always add to the mix.
They are quiet, silent, beautiful...
I've never heard it described so fucking well!! God damn!! That was fucking amazing!!
Rooms so desperate for purpose and meaning they consume you to fill the void. Now they have purpose. Now they have meaning. Now, they have...you...
I used to work night shift at an airport, and I would sometimes take a walk through the terminals on my breaks. An airport terminal (especially a big international airport that's normally packed with people) is a very eerie place at 3 in the morning, for a lot of the same reasons you talked about.
I might occasionally hear a passenger snore or a janitor working, but mostly it was just these gigantic hallways that were empty and dead quiet.
The people at the tale foundry are some of the most philosophical, yet listenable at the same time.
The writing is impeccable, but what makes it better is the speaker, putting in their emotions.
Keep on making your best works!
Sure, I love Backrooms with monsters. _Buuuutttt_ my favorite part about Backrooms' without monsters is specifically that it doesn't have a monster. The only thing there to "destroy" you is yourself. In a way, _you_ are the monster. Another great thing about the original 4Chan post is that this whole notion of anything you hear is just you.
I love your channel, your art and your story telling. I can only hope for more like this. 🙏❤
i think its best when you explicitly dont or even cant know if a monster truly exists or not. you have the best (worst?) of both worlds that way, complete and utter loneliness, but at the same time paranoia and the sense of a looming threat
This was a wonderfully perceptive video , Mr Foundry.🤗🌺Albeit on a chilling subject. I agree that The Backrooms have never needed a monster to chase the unfortunate lost soul within them because as you state the backrooms are the monster.
It's always been a concept that I found interesting and sinister, even though it could be said it's pretty easy to work out why such spaces bother us, there is meant to be people there and the fact there isn't create a sense of unease and mild distress. This is true of many different templates, empty theme parks and parking lots etc. (I'm from the UK and have just realised from my American descriptions I may want to curtail my TH-cam viewing and book choices!😋)
To be brief the Backrooms are worse than other abandoned locations.There is something deeply unnatural about them and it's as if they know it and are you taunting you with their strangeness..This may appear to be a place for humans to dwell but none have, or will, and were ever meant to except you and so again, you know it's a phoney. And it knows you know. The pulsating silence would become an entity in itself , not literally , but the weaker and more hopeless you inevitably became. The lack of natural light and oppressive stillness would drive a person to madness.. and the rooms would be watching. As your energy withered like a parasite the rooms would feed on your energy and become stronger. To me it is truly horrifying and a depiction of Hell that feels fitting. I can't imagine a person would mercifully pass from lack of water or food, the normal rules are dismissed in such a space and that would be a kindness.
What we can be certain of when just glancing at the Backrooms kindness could not exist in such a place. The rooms were borne of fear and even the concept of kindness is not known to the room.
Sorry for such a long comment 🌷 But your video was exceptional as you described the unsettling feeling of the Backrooms so well. I agree they are hungry but to me their hunger for the lost person is almost leisurely. The person isn't going anywhere,even if they spend all day trying, and the room savours every last crumb of lost hope as the human diminishes. I feel the human slowly becomes one with their captor. It's as if eventually the rooms steal so much of the persons essence, of what made them human, and the person that they were ,that they slowly seep into the walls and are at one with their captor no longer visible.
I've gone off on a tangent again, I apologise!. The animation was also beautiful, I love the scene at the end.🤗 Thankyou so much for such a detailed wonderful video.🌺 xx
7:25 This idea perfectly encapsulates empty Gmod and TF2 servers. It feels like there's meant to be stuff going on but there just... isn't... it produces a feeling of eerie stagnation.
I had an overwhelming "liminal space" experience once walking through my now-abandoned former workplace one night. It was a call center, and the place where I'd spent more waking hours than any other location in my life (including every place I'd ever lived). For over 20 years, I'd known it as a living place bustling with constant activity.
I have countless memories of my own experiences and of the lives of the people there who were like an extended family, but now it was deserted. Not deserted like the dim quiet when i had to do overnight work alone (which i kind of loved). It was abandoned. The cubicle desks were still there, but the computers and personal effects and posters & signs on the walls were gone, with no hope of life returning in the morning. The occasional scraps and mementos and photos and office supply bits left behind only hightened the sense of loss, making clear that this dead and forgotten place *used* to be alive.
And here I was, moving through this dead place that I've always felt a part of, now the sole steward of its memories and its history and the sounds of work and life and laughter that once filled the now tomb-silent spaces, and i understood what it would feel like to be a ghost. I was literally the lonely spirit haunting an abandoned place. And I honestly feel like a part of me never left that night.
The liminal space is where it all begins. Only when we are alone and present in the abyss, we began to truly see the fabric of time and space through our reflections. To the unseasoned it is surely horrifying, but once one get use to it. Once one master the ability to harness the void, the nostalgia, and fleeting memories. The unseen no longer owns you as you are the non existence itself. You are not in the room, you are the room. That’s when it becomes the fundamental empowerment of one’s existence. It is perhaps, the true freedom, and one with the universe. 🌌
This may sound undated, but I recommend that you go caving at some point in your life.
Being one with nature in a cool rock labyrinth, full of fun things to climb and pretty speleothems.
You can sit on a rock in a dark stream, listening to rushing water, letting unknown time pass, and feel truly content :)
I find they're the good opposite of liminal space, since there is 0 nostalgia, and 0 artificiality.
It's ok that there are no people, because there was never meant to be people, and that's alright
If you work night shift at a large facility, wandering the warehouses, cubicle city, docking bays, operations equipment… at 3am while everything is undergoing maintenance… It’s a trippy experience. Games can reference the feeling but if you haven’t wandered around an empty sprawling complex, I highly suggest you do it at least once in your life.
"as if someone went into your memories and edited the humanity out of them"
This is a fantastic line
So to describe the Backrooms itself: The Backrooms wanted to get back to life. And to do that, it must eat. But the more it eats, the hungrier it has become.
Ah the backrooms,it became less scary the more things people add to it
Also the fact you talk about one of my favorite horror games in this makes this video EXTRA AMAZING
I started cheering when you said you were going to talk about What Remains of Edith Finch. 😆That game is one of my top 5 favorite games of all time.
More like "were".
*Used to be terrifying
1:11 I love the little animation you have at the start of your videos tale foundry.
The iconic photo gives me chills each time
I just love how you reference games and books or movies in your videos, like the Finch's family house
Liminal horror is now one of my favorite types for some reason. Thank you for covering it!
1:00 dude i just love that perspective of level 0 and how WELL ITS DRAWN!
The first episode of yours I've seen in a while! And with the new opening animation! So lovely!
i was waiting for you to mention house of leaves, such a perfect example and amazing book.
In love with the relaxing, welcoming, and comfy commentary! And absolutely the artstyle too! You doing great guys Keep at it!
"Sometimes, the notion of there being a monster is less scary than the lack of one"
First time I actually watched the TF intro (I usually have this playing in the background). Really cool visual art and music! Great job!
This is only the second video I've seen on your channel and your already my new favorite TH-cam channel.
I love the reference to "What remains of Edith Finch". It's one of my favorite video games.
I made the Vince McMahon "way too excited" face when you mentioned Edith Finch. That's one of my favorite story games!! ❤
Game Theory actually made a video on "What Remains of Edith Finch" , the video actually makes a theory that there was no curse, but the grandmother was actually a sadistic murderer, blaming her kills on a made-up curse.
I only found your channel yesterday, but as soon as I saw a Backrooms video I immediately clicked lol. Really great analysis! I also agree that while Entities in the Backrooms can be cool they are not needed.
My grandmother, as of today is being moved into a memory care facility, the scent is sweet when you walk in, and every single surface is painted in this drab beige of alternating shades. It makes my skin crawl and it heavily reminds me of the backrooms.
kenopsia
n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet
The audio drama "I am in Eskew" is an amazing series that uses this liminal/ spatial horror exceptionally imo