Backrooms Creepypasta, Explained

With Kane Parsons' A24 film scaring and wowing critics in preparation for what should be a strong theatrical run, millions of people are about to be exposed to The back rooms. Originating in 2019, creepypasta absolutely exploded in popularity and exposure and eventually transformed into something completely different through the participation of other people. The concept essentially gave birth to a new sub-genre of horror games, with the likes of Escape the Backrooms, Inside the back roomsand Backroom: Escape togetherdrawing massive audiences into unsettling spaces that seem to exist in their own reality.

A24s Back room pushing this idea into the mainstream, or at least more so than ever before. By the end of next week, most people in the world may be familiar with Backrooms; to be precise, they might be familiar with the film's rendition or perhaps one of the game's versions. Because of its explosion, the origins of creepypasta can sometimes be overshadowed. So let's change that by diving into the genesis, evolution and schism of backrooms.

Like all great and terrifying internet legends, our story begins on 4chan…

The Original Backrooms Post – The Birth Of A Creepypasta

A disturbing image that feels disconnected

Image via archive.4plebs.org and 4chan

Anyone who stumbled into a yellow maze of rooms after Backrooms turned into a ball of lore might be surprised to know that the original entry was incredibly simple. The 4chan prompt asked for images that felt off, and the creator contributed a strange mono-yellow room with fluorescent lights, damp carpet that must have reeked to high heaven, and seemingly endless empty rooms. Later, another anonymous commenter added a phrase that would really kick-start the Backrooms phenomenon.

The image captured a sense of psychological fear from not only isolation, but also the paranoid belief that something might be nearby. It really is. There was no overarching story, characters, monsters, twists, shocks, world building or anything else. Backroom creepypasta became massive because it tied into an inherent fear of the unknown.

Collective Fear – The Horror Of A Creepypasta

Liminal Spaces & Kenopsia

Before we explore Backroom's history further, we need to go a little deeper into why this particular creepypasta became such an integral part of the internet subculture. The foundation of the original image lies in two concepts with extensive heritage 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 corridors, malls, hotel corridors and office buildings; you expect to see people come and go. Places become liminal spaces when they are empty and devoid of humanity. Dead places.
• Kenopsia – This links directly to liminal spaces, but specifically refers to 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 stores are closed? Or maybe a school or office at night? They feel incredibly off, like you've stumbled into an alternate dimension where things aren't right.

The Backrooms effectively weaponized this strange feeling, one that most people probably experienced in some form or another.

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The Expanded Universe – The Evolution Of A Creepypasta

Going Beyond The Minimalist Original

The backroom discussion can be divided into two opposing forces: Minimalists and, well, Wikis.

1. Minimalists believe that Backrooms is just the original yellow maze without monsters. The horror comes from the isolation, the desperation and the deafening silence. (Full disclosure, I would consider myself part of this group. Nothing that came after sent chills down my spine quite like the original Backrooms photo.)

2. Wikis, aka the Expanded Universe, refer to all civics which exploded after Backrooms became an inescapable part of Internet culture. If anyone wants to dive into this side of creepypasta, they should start with the Backrooms Wiki, although other Fandoms exist.

The Expanded Universe spawned so many different branches, ideas, and tangents that it would be a fool's errand to cover them all. But some key concepts were introduced that need to be mentioned.

• Levels – With the yellow rooms representing level 0, each floor introduces a new type of environment, be it a warehouse, hotel, power station or more cerebral concepts that dominate the deeper levels. As of right now, the Wiki lists 999 levels, although not all of them have been described.
• Fractions (Or Groups) – I mean, are you surprised we have factions? This category refers to organizations that operate in the backroom, be it for containment, research or weaponry. ADF and MEG are probably the most powerful, but many others exist.
• Entities – On the surface, this classification may appear to simply include monsters that live in Backrooms, but that description doesn't cover them all. Creatures like Smilers, Hounds, Skin-Stealers, and Deathmoths are “classic” aggressive monsters; However, Entities also refer to passive, uncanny creatures such as Facelings. Some devices are even helpful, like Jerry or Partypoopers. Finally, we even have non-biological anomalies that are essentially errors in Backroom's 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 changed the very core of Backrooms, turning it from a cerebral, otherworldly horror feel into a sci-fi universe with borderline RPG elements.

Basically Backrooms became SCP.

Point Of No Return – The Viral Revolution of a Creepypasta

Kane Pixel's way to the A24

By early 2022, Backrooms had spread all over the internet and become quite well known… but it didn't really 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 may refer to an endless maze that leads you nowhere, but it led Kane Pixels straight to Hollywood. Fully deserved too, as the shorts are brilliant.

Presented as found footage, Parsons used Blender to transform the abstract text of Backrooms into a pure example of analog horror, creating something truly terrifying in the process. He also combined creepypasta with corporate sci-fi by introducing the Async Research Institutethe company that opened the portal to the Backrooms and called it “The Complex”, in an attempt to fix the world's overcrowding problem.

The Gaming Boom – The Commercialization of a Creepypasta

Many, many games that take place in the back rooms

Although its origins only used a related term, Backrooms attached itself almost immediately to gaming culture (or vice versa), to the point that they are now synonymous with the medium. When Kane Pixel's video went viral and opened the floodgates, an influx of Backrooms games flooded Steam, many of which were clearly hastily put together to try and make a quick pick. Most did not attempt to add anything to the lore, but merely stuck to the premise of the original or used the material already available.

As many of these releases tend to be, a couple of great games were created from this movement, and we have to take the positives with the negatives. Even before standalone games started dropping, players created Backrooms maps Garry's Mod, Robloxand Minecraftso Backrooms was already inspiring people to create and adapt its lore.

The final validation – the Hollywoodification of a creepypasta

The modern myth

Kane Parsons is chosen to direct one Back room film at the age of 20 is, of course, an incredible personal achievement for the creator; However, we should consider what this means.

A concept that began as a one-off photo and text on 4chan led to the manifestation of a Hollywood movie that seems likely to be box office gold. With Slender man coming out a year before Backroom's origins, 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 forest, the Backrooms is scary because it's well lit, clean and completely ordinary. It is frightening because it presents an infinite architecture designed for people, but completely without them.

The Backroom's 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 changed, while staying with us.