The Backrooms are a fictional place that began in a 2019 online discussion on 4chan. They are a well-known example of the liminal space aesthetic, which often shows spaces that feel in-between or undefined. The Backrooms are usually described as a very large area made up of endless, empty rooms. People can enter this space by leaving reality, a process sometimes called "no-clipping out of" the real world.
Online users have added more details to the Backrooms concept, such as "levels," which are different sections of the Backrooms that connect to each other, and "entities," which are dangerous creatures that live there. In early 2022, an American YouTuber named Kane Parsons made the first video in a series of short films about the Backrooms. These videos became very popular online and led to a lot more people creating content about the Backrooms. Parsons later directed a movie based on his series, which was produced by the company A24.
History
From 2011 to 2018, a photo of a large, carpeted room with fluorescent lights and pale yellow walls was shared on online message boards. On May 12, 2019, an anonymous user posted on /x/, a paranormal-themed section of 4chan, asking others to share unsettling images that "feel 'off.'" They included the photo in their post.
Another user responded, naming the image "the Backrooms" and describing it as a place where people might end up if they "noclip out of reality in the wrong areas." They wrote that the Backrooms are filled with the smell of old, damp carpet, the color of pale yellow walls, the hum of fluorescent lights, and endless empty rooms. They warned that hearing sounds nearby could be dangerous.
After this post, users began sharing stories about the Backrooms on websites like r/creepypasta and r/backrooms on Reddit. A group of fans formed around the concept, and creators added new "levels" and "entities" to expand the story.
As more levels were created on r/Backrooms, some fans who preferred the original version split off. A Reddit user named Litbeep started a new subreddit called r/TrueBackrooms to focus only on the original Backrooms. ABC News noted that the lack of an official Backrooms story made it hard to tell if stories were real or jokes. By March 2022, r/backrooms had over 157,000 members.
The Backrooms concept spread to other platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. Wikis on FANDOM and Wikidot, along with Discord communities, were created to explore the Backrooms' lore. These wikis work like the SCP wiki, allowing users to add to the stories. Dan Erickson, the creator of the TV show Severance (2022), said the Backrooms influenced his work.
Until 2024, the source of the original Backrooms photo was unknown. In May 2024, a Twitter user shared that a friend discovered the image's origin through a group on Discord. Using the Wayback Machine, they traced the photo to an archived webpage from March 2003.
The image was taken during renovations of a former furniture store in Wisconsin. The store, Rohner's Home Furnishings, was located at 807 and 811 Oregon Street, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, from the early 20th century until 2003. In 2002, the second floor of 807 Oregon Street was renovated. On June 12, 2002, a photo of the progress was taken with a Sony Cyber-shot camera. On March 2, 2003, the renovation was documented on the store's website. One photo shows a carpeted room with yellow wallpaper and fluorescent lights, taken from a Dutch angle. The file was named "Dsc00161.jpg" and described as an original view of "the East (Oval) room." The blog post mentioned water damage that required the area to be cleared. HobbyTown, a new tenant, later converted the building into a radio-controlled car racing track called Revolution Racing. The original layout of the room no longer exists.
Reception
Some sources say the Backrooms may be the origin of an internet style called liminal spaces. This style shows busy places as strangely empty or gives viewers a strange feeling of having been there before. The #liminalspaces hashtag on TikTok has been viewed almost 100 million times. A writer named Phoenix Simms from Paste said the Backrooms and games like The Stanley Parable are connected to a long tradition of using liminal spaces in horror. The color yellow in the Backrooms is described as a "fungal, sickly yellow," which can make people and their minds feel lost.
PC Gamer compared the different levels of the Backrooms to places in H.P. Lovecraft’s R'lyeh and the manga Blame!, calling it "an uncanny valley of place." ABC News and Le Monde grouped the Backrooms with other shared online horror stories, such as the SCP Foundation. Kotaku noted that the Backrooms are different from other creepypastas because of their collaborative creation and lack of clear horror or danger. Both Kotaku and Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University, said the Backrooms are scary because they invite people to imagine what is not shown. Leaver added that the strange feeling of familiarity helps fans connect, while Kotaku said the horror comes from the subtle "wrongness" in liminal spaces.
In 2022, a TikTok trend involved videos that used Google Earth to show an entrance to the Backrooms. In 2024, American rapper Juice Wrld included a Backrooms-inspired music video in his studio album, The Party Never Ends.
Adaptations
In January 2022, a short horror film titled "The Backrooms (Found Footage)" was uploaded to YouTube. The film was created by Kane Parsons, who was 16 years old at the time and known online as Kane Pixels. He is from Northern California. The film is presented as a VHS tape recorded by a filmmaker who accidentally enters the Backrooms in the 1990s and is chased by an unknown monster. Parsons used software called Blender and Adobe After Effects to create the Backrooms environment. It took him about one month to complete the film. He described the Backrooms as a memory from the late 1990s and early 2000s that was not remembered clearly. As of March 2026, the video has more than 73 million views.
The short film was praised by fans and received positive reviews from critics. WPST called it "the scariest video on the Internet." Otaku USA classified it as analog horror, while Dread Central and Nerdist compared it to the 2019 video game Control. Kotaku praised the series for being careful with its horror and mystery elements. Boing Boing’s Rob Beschizza predicted that the Backrooms, like the creepypasta Slender Man and its 2018 film, might eventually be made into a "slick but dismal 2-hour Hollywood movie."
Parsons expanded his videos into a series of short films. He added story elements, such as Async, an organization that opened a portal to the Backrooms in the 1980s and studied it. The series has more than 197 million views in total. It is credited with bringing the Backrooms into the mainstream internet and increasing Backrooms-related content, especially on YouTube. For his work, Parsons received a Creator Honors award at the 2022 Streamy Awards from The Game Theorists.
On February 6, 2023, A24 announced they were making a film based on Parsons’ videos. Parsons will direct the film. Roberto Patino will write the screenplay. James Wan, Michael Clear from Atomic Monster, Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, and Dan Levine from 21 Laps will produce the film. The movie is planned to be released in the United States on May 29, 2026.
An episode inspired by the Backrooms was included in the third season of American Horror Stories, a show that is a spin-off of American Horror Story. The episode features Michael Imperioli as a grieving screenwriter who enters the Backrooms and visits ordinary places where he faces a vision of his missing son. The episode was part of a group of five released as a "Huluween event."
The Backrooms have been adapted into many video games. An indie game was released by Pie on a Plate Productions two months after the original creepypasta and was praised for its atmosphere but criticized for being too short. Other games, such as Enter the Backrooms, Noclipped, and The Backrooms Project, were released in the following years. Escape the Backrooms, a co-op multiplayer game by Fancy Games, was praised for its depiction of the Backrooms’ lore. The Backrooms 1998 (2022), a psychological survival horror game by Steelkrill Studio, was noted for its found footage style and limited save system. Dreamcore, a 2025 first-person psychological horror game developed by Montraluz, an Argentinian studio, was inspired by the Backrooms.