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🇦🇺 Australia /Technology

Why this empty room has the internet terrified

From ABC Australia · () English

Summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

In-depth Sources not specified Context piece
  • The internet phenomenon known as 'The Backrooms,' originating from a 2019 4chan post, is now inspiring a film by director Kane Parsons.
  • The Backrooms concept involves unsettling, empty yellow rooms that evoke feelings of dread and are described as a place one can 'noclip' into from reality.
  • Its enduring appeal is attributed to its open-ended nature, allowing for community-driven expansion and interpretation across various media like video games and fiction.

An unsettling image of an empty, yellow room has spawned an internet phenomenon known as 'The Backrooms,' which is now set to be adapted into a film by A24, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons. The image, first posted on 4chan in 2019, evokes feelings of confusion, repulsion, dread, and fear in internet users, inspiring a vast amount of user-generated content including video games and fiction.

The photos feel like they're either taken directly from your subconscious or taken from your dreams, kind of regurgitating or misremembering places from your own life.

— Kane ParsonsDirector Kane Parsons explains the unsettling nature of the Backrooms images.

Parsons describes the photos as feeling like they are "taken directly from your subconscious or taken from your dreams, kind of regurgitating or misremembering places from your own life." The lore of the Backrooms suggests it's a place one can enter by 'noclipping' out of reality, characterized by the "stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms." The fear of encountering something wandering nearby adds to the dread.

If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.

— Anonymous userThe original lore posted on 4chan describing the Backrooms.

What began on internet forums has since flourished on platforms like Reddit, with dedicated subreddits attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. Dr. Adam Daniel, a filmmaker and lecturer at Western Sydney University, notes that the community's collaborative and divergent interpretations are key to the Backrooms' staying power. "It functions almost like a creative prompt that different people can interpret and expand in genuinely divergent directions," Daniel explains, contrasting it with creepypastas that have more defined mythologies.

It functions almost like a creative prompt that different people can interpret and expand in genuinely divergent directions.

— Dr Adam DanielDr. Adam Daniel, a filmmaker and lecturer, discusses the community-driven aspect of the Backrooms' enduring appeal.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by ABC Australia. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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