The Backrooms | The Internet Post That Redefined Horror

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Today, we're investigating the internet phenomenon known as the back rooms. This is Red Web. Welcome back, Task Force, to another episode of Red Web, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, true crime, and the unknown. I'm your resident mystery enthusiast, Trevor Collins, and joining me, probably not hearing this one for the very first time, Alfredo Diaz. Oh, this is a big one. Yes, sir. I've only started knowing about the back rooms within the past couple of years. The combination of this podcast, and we've talked about things, you know, SCPs, stuff like that, so naturally talk about back rooms and everything. And then also, to pile on top of that, the games, there were some back room games that came out that were really popular, and they keep flushing those out. And now we have a movie that's coming out as well that looks to be pretty good. Yeah, that movie's actually coming out this Friday as of this episode coming out. It's like the perfect time to break down what the back rooms are, because, like, we all from the internet, you know, you're right, we talk about internet mysteries, creepypastas, we explore spooky stories from the internet, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, it's a great time to break down what the back rooms are and where they come from. Yeah, so, I mean, it just seems like this infinite hallway of infinite possibilities. And then from there, because I don't really actually know the true depth and understanding of, like, the back rooms, its origin, what it is, how do you get there, the rules of this place. So, I'm very interested to find that out. But it just seems like a place that has infinite possibilities and various rules and things that happen. And so, it just creates this catalyst for creativity, and the internet runs with it, and they create all these different sections and monsters and creatures and different things that are in it. And so, it's just super exciting. I think it's even, like, inanimate objects have, like, they're placed here, too, as well, and things can be weird and creepy. And so, it's exciting. And it's a big one. It's a big one, dude. This is one of the, I don't know, one of the biggest, I would say, kind of creepypastas or just internet lore, that unsettling internet lore of the recent generation, if you want to call it that. You know, we've uncovered a lot of creepypastas from, like, 20 years ago, and that's, like, that kind of Gen 1, a little bit. So, the internet generations are quick, but it's good to know where you're at, because your inclination is really strong. We're going to talk about kind of liminal spaces, what the background of the backrooms are, and then going into the origins of it as an idea. Where did it get its start? Why did it grip the internet so strongly? And then how it, from there, forked out into a bunch of different directions creatively. You're totally right. A catalyst for so many different stories to be told, layers upon layers of new elements being laid into this. And then we're going to talk about the origin of the infamous image. I'm sure you've seen it, and we'll talk about it. But that yellowy wallpaper. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, everything's kind of beige and yellow, and it just feels so weird. And we know where that comes from now. We'll talk about the evolution of it all the way up to modern day, because it's just so alive. The internet has its hold on it, and therefore it's this hive mind conglomeration of creative, interesting ideas. And then, of course, we'll end with the rules of the backrooms. And then, as we are wont to do, we'll try to expand on this. We'll try to explore, like, what are the real phenomenons? What is actually happening in real life that might explain this from a creative standpoint? Because obviously it's a little bit more fictional. But are there real things that can feel very similar to what's going on in the backrooms? And what are those things? So yeah, lots to uncover. Very, very quickly here at the top, as we like to do, we want to shout out our Patreon page, all the Task Force members that keep this podcast going. If you want to explore that, you can get all sorts of things, ad-free versions of this episode, exclusive content, extended versions, lots happening. Either redwebpod.com or simply patreon.com slash redweb. That's where you can find us. Recently, we just did a whole bunch of exploration of The Matrix. We talked about the trilogy, not the fourth movie just yet. We played Enter the Matrix, if all things went well last Friday. So come hang out with us as we explore all that. And then this Wednesday, live, we are recording our behind-the-scenes show called Break Room. So again, come hang out in our exclusive Discord. All right, lots to unpack. So Task Force, whether you love Internet Mysteries and The Unknown like we do, or you just want to know what the backrooms are, and you want to know that before you go into this movie that's coming out, let's break it all down. So the backrooms is a viral Internet mystery about an unsettling, endless, empty space. It is one of the most popular examples of what has been called liminal spaces. I'm sure you've heard this term, Fredo. Do you know, like, what is your casual understanding of what liminal spaces might be? It's just this, like, infinite creative space. Mm-hmm. I like the positive angle on it. Yeah. I know, like, the creepy, unsettling angle on it, you know? Yeah, not the where anything is possible or, you know, or a containment unit for all these, like, harmful things, stuff like that. So I'm going to go with that description, yeah. Okay, I like that. Because, yeah, liminal spaces can be anything. It's kind of up to the viewer's interpretation on how it makes you feel, but ultimately, liminal comes from the Latin word limen, which means threshold. As such, liminal spaces are kind of like places of transition where you go from one place to another. In other words, places that exist purely to get you somewhere else. Usually, these are not places that you focus on. These are things like hallways. You don't really go into a hallway to be like, hey, let's hang in the hall. Airports, stairwells, empty parking lots, malls. We did a whole episode on the mall world, r slash the mall world, which is an endless dream world shared by thousands of people. And it kind of actually, now that I think of it, dovetails really nicely into the back room. So after this episode of Task Force, go listen to our exploration of that very mysterious subreddit. But I have like four random images for you, Fredo, here to take a look at. Each of these comes from various subreddits like liminal spaces. So take a look and you'll kind of get an idea of what I'm talking about. Oh, so the first one is just kind of like a, maybe like an eggshell white. Just, it's a hallway, but it just has unnecessary like curves to it. Yeah. Just interesting. And it just looks like the most, like mindless hallway. Maybe one you'd find at a hospital. It's got like detailed ceilings that you would find in an office or a hospital. The walls got some railings. It's probably is a hospital, you know, but there's like nothing on the, it's like very mundane. Walls are empty. Then, then we're now we're getting creative. It looks like an indoor pool and the indoor pool has got some like rocks to the side, maybe like a fake tree in there. It's got like camping stuff on the wall, but still lifeless. At the same time. Exactly. It's like, it feels like it should be alive, but it's lifeless. It's very lifeless. Yeah. The third photo, it's like a courtyard. There's a concrete path. A concrete path leads to two doors right next to each other going into the same wall. And so that already is unsettling. Yeah. Um, you got some grass and then the blue sky. So it's like a false sense of being comfortable here. Well, it's like this. Beautiful geometry and there's like so much purpose here, but also not, I don't know. It's, it's perfectly liminal. It is a pathway to these doors. You go from one place to another, and this is that transitional spot for someone. And then on the fourth photo, it looks like what would be a diner, but it's just so many seats in a row. Yeah. Again, it feels kind of narrow too. Outside looks, maybe, I don't know. Kind of like it might've been snowing, but there's definitely overcast. You got some paintings, but again, lifeless colors are very, I mean, it's yellow. We've got some green in here, some orange, but they're very dull. They're very bland. Yeah. Very, very faded. Very like maybe seventies style. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. The first one, I don't know if it shatters the illusion just because I knew who I pulled these from and what they were of. I think the first one's a hospital. The second one, interestingly, is like a bunker that was designed to feel like real life. It's an underground. from like a post-war era. post-war, maybe World War II era. So it's meant to feel like real life and it's got like backdrops. And if you turn it around, there's like a house there. Very much like the show Paradise on Hulu. Yeah. Okay. So they're drawing from stuff. Yes. Yes. And then that fourth one I know is from a fairy. The third one is just someone's, I think, office and that's a path they take all the time. But ultimately you're kind of getting the idea. You look at these at a glance and they give you that kind of weird feeling. And that's the idea is that liminal spaces are places that once you've noticed them, once you focus on this kind of place, it tends to offer this strange, very uncanny valley sort of feeling like something is off. Normally it's bustling and it's filled with people, but the fact that it's absent of life just makes it feel familiar, but just off. And it's kind of extra unsettling knowing that this is actually like these photos are from real places. Yeah, dude. Liminal spaces, that subreddit is wild because that's all it is. It's just people living their life and going, whoa, check this out. Some are stronger than others. Oh, for sure. But like, even like just an empty road, just out in the middle of nowhere and you see it kind of fall away from you and then curve back up into the mountains and there's like no cars or nothing. It's like, it's nature mixed with something so human that it just, I don't know. It's kind of cool. Some are very like peaceful and some are just like, hey, this gives me the heebie-jeebies. I completely agree. In the case of the back rooms, they're described as large, empty rooms with aged yellow wallpaper. And of course you see those fluorescent lights and those are described as just humming along, right? If you've ever been in an old office, those fluorescent lights just kind of hum incessantly. Now to get there, one must noclip or phase through a wall, a floor, some sort of surface in our reality, hence the name, the back rooms. Like they are the rooms, behind this reality. And Fredo, I know you're a big gamer, but noclipping is essentially a video game term for turning off collision detection. You know, you're playing a game, your character's running along, they bump into walls. If you turn on noclip, that essentially removes your character's abilities to sense that wall and you'll just kind of phase through walls and ceilings and objects. And typically you can kind of just fly along. But since first coming online, and we'll talk about that very moment, the back rooms have become such a viral, viral trend that as you pointed out, there's a movie coming out about it. It's gone mainstream through several different video games. There are a plethora now of spinoff subreddits that all have their own take on it. Like some want to explore the more true back rooms and some want to have this kind of layering of lore that is built by a community. And some of them are just like sharing photos that look like they genuinely belong to the back rooms. So like I said, we're going to come from, talk about some of the key features that have been added over the years. Now, the original legend of the back rooms actually started not too long ago, May 12th, 2019, in a post from an anonymous user posted on the paranormal related board of the online platform known as 4chan. This is the X board of it. 4chan, if you don't know what it is, it's like, it's a very old discussion board reminiscent of Reddit, but usually much more problematic. Anonymity is the name of the game, but they have all sorts of conversations from like, I think ABCD all the way through the alphabet are all different themes of conversation. But in this particular post, the author included this image with the text, quote, post disquieting images that just feel off. And so with that, here is the very first image that spurred on the idea of the back rooms. Oh yeah. It's that's like, you got some cheap, wallpaper. The ground is like just shoes of tones of yellow, but like dull tones of yellow. Everything is yellow on the ground, on the walls and the ceiling. Yeah. This is like a perfect, as I would say, as a kid, like retirement home yellow. Yeah, it is. But also the walls don't really make sense. You have like a, a corner wall in the middle of a bigger room, a large room. And so I don't know, it's like, what are you sectioning these off from? If it's all just exposed. Yes. Yeah. So it's, it's a weird design as well. I love that you clocked that because like, it is a very good observation. We're going to talk about that. I think the revelation, like the, the truth, the, the origin of this photo will elucidate you as to what, why this layout is the way it is. But I think that very almost arbitrary layout, these like nubbin walls that are just kind of, slapped up, I think adds to it. It just adds to the, the, the offness of it. Oh, it definitely does. It's, it's, you don't really, you don't see that. It's like unnecessary. No. Yeah. You don't, you look in the living room and you see a room. You don't look in the living room and be like, well, hold on a second. Why is it just like a, a 10 foot by 10 foot corner wall with like the room goes back behind that. What's back there. What do you know? What is this? Okay. So this photo of course is famously associated with the back rooms. It had been on the internet for quite a while. Quite some time, several years before this ever came up, some sorts of state that it circulated as early online in the forums as early as like 2011. But despite its mysterious beginnings in recent years, and I mean quite recently, the origin of this photo has been uncovered. I'll have you tuck that away in your brain though, because there's a whole lot to explore with that. It kind of crashed onto the internet after so many people, like a hive mind of people were really trying to figure this out. And suddenly it's just that, that bubble burst. And then we found out. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. Well, I mean, yeah, this is a photo of a real place that exists somewhere, right? Yes. Granted, you know, it's a big planet and everything like that. So it's a lot to discover and who knows if it hasn't just been completely demolished. You know, you don't really know if it exists or still standing anymore, regardless of that though. Chris and this man see in the future, I'm telling you five minutes at a time, this man reads the future. I can't see any further than that, man. I could tell you to duck out of the way of something. That's about it. I don't know if you're going to be rich or poor in the coming decade, but yeah. But then, you know, I think especially, you know, over the past, I would say five years to a decade, I feel like back rooms have become a lot more popular and mainstream with the games and now the movie and everything like that. And so I can see it going from something that was so deep within forums to now something that. A lot of people are learning about or researching or contributing stories or whatnot, too. And so you got more people searching probably, you know, or more people, the possibility of more people being like, I've seen this place or my uncle works here or something like that. Dude, that's such a good point. Like this feels like this generation's like indie bands, you know, like when you're when your favorite garage band makes it big and you're like, I knew them before they were big, you know, like so many people were like, I was there when the back rooms came online, when they were first there, when they felt so intimate and like the community was so small. It's kind of it's one of those very, very interesting things to then see it leave the Internet, become so mainstream. I mean, I think it just speaks volumes to this, this liminal space, this uncanny feeling that is created by it. Yeah. I also don't I don't want to get ahead of myself, but Kane Parsons, who is directing the new movie, had a big. Big hand in the online forums and really creative of this space. Oh, yeah. I've got plenty in my notes about that here in a bit. But like, it's just really cool to see those who were fundamental in its growth and in its development are still kind of in the saddle rather than like the world going, oh, you got you guys like that. It's mine now. Right. Yeah. So it's really cool to see this evolve, but still stay true to the community it was built by. Yeah. Because also. Also, I mean, I don't think anyone can really claim it. You know what I mean? No, for sure. For sure. And so with that in mind, you know, you have to have someone that's so directly invested in it. They're doing they're making the right steps. Yeah. If you want to do it right, you have someone that knows the source material, et cetera. And that's that's how you get it done. Yeah. So coming back to this post, OK, somebody posted the image and they said, hey, share other images that just make you feel weird, make you feel off. And the way 4chan works, if you're not familiar, I don't encourage you to go, especially these days. But basically, like if nobody responds to a thread, it slowly falls off. I would say slowly. It quickly falls off. It's a very rapid in the moment kind of conversational board. And once it's fallen far enough back, it just gets deleted. It's gone. So this gets posted. A few people probably share some photos or what have you. But soon after posting, there was yet another anonymous user. And while they didn't supply a new photo themselves, they did offer a text reply. And this is what is widely considered to be the origin of the name and some of the lore of the backrooms. Hey, Task Force, this is Trevor taking a moment in the episode here where we would normally have a sponsor or something like that to just say thank you. You know, this feels like the old days when I used to stop down and give the housekeeping notes as to what's going on in the world of Red Web. But this week, I wanted to point you to Red Web Pod dot com. because we are coming up on our two year Indieversary. 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They just say this, quote, if you're not careful and you no clip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the back rooms 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 humbuzz, and approximately 600 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 hurt you. And quote, see, that happens in the games, too, or you just, you know, there's a level that I've played where it's, you know, halls that look like this. And then from there, it's just random. There might be a random creature and you have to go find stuff. You have to figure out the puzzle for this place, et cetera. And so, yeah, I mean, that is a very good description of it all. Yeah. And it's so vivid. You know, it is such a short but powerful idea. Like it. It offers endless, like you said, endless possibilities. It's like you're just in this place. This place can be anything, but it is endless. It's just mysterious. And it's the perfect spark of curiosity. And so, yeah, it's no wonder this took the Internet by storm. Oh, yeah. Now, as you can imagine, when something comes online this strong, this interesting, it makes its way around very quickly. So the backrooms did make their way to Reddit just like a few days later, and the subreddit r slash backroom. So backrooms was created on May 17th, 2019. Now, Reddit, if you don't know, is a collection of communities. There's broken up into subreddits. They all have their own rules and their own kind of communities, and they're all built around specific topics like backrooms or the mall world or r slash funny where everything is supposed to be funny or r slash moms and boats where it's just moms and boats. They got every category, I'm sure. Listen, I don't know if moms and boats exist, but it could. I tell you what, there's dudes in boats. For sure, it's dudes and boats. And guess what? Fish. There's definitely dudes in boats, and there just happens to be fish, too. It's a bunch of dudes just like. Yeah, really holding their fish and the two poses and the two palms of their hands are just holding it straight up. Absolutely. Now, from here, it just continued to spread. People became fascinated with this image combined with this short but powerful idea of what the backrooms are. This endless maze of yellow. Moist. Carpet with the fluorescent lights. I think we all know a place like that. Now, of course, most of the users involved here are anonymous. That's just the way of the Internet. But according to a Medium article about this, it was written by a user named The Backrooms Online. This article says that the original comment about the backrooms, the one that provided all the lore, was made by a user named Black August. And at a cursory glance, I do believe that this was a user that also writes horror stories. And so, as you can see, you can. You can feel that flair in there. Yeah, it makes sense. But the cool thing is that, you know, this is a catalyst where anyone else can also take part in. Yeah. And so, sure, there's going to be a ton of stories that aren't that great. But, you know, if you have 10,000 submissions, you're going to find a handful of gold in there, which is awesome. And so you just create the best ones at that point. But it's a great little sandbox that this person has created for others to contribute in. Absolutely. I think that's one of my favorite parts about this. The internet is that we've always, you and I, as we talk about true crime and other internet mysteries that we've explored here on Red Web, we've always kind of talked about it as being the new frontier of true crime, whether it be investigative or trying to figure things out. The hive mind of the internet can do that. But also on the other end, storytelling, creative, the hive mind that comes together and like almost democratically says, we like these elements, we don't like these elements. And it all just kind of bubbles and flourishes and just froths into the world. Until it becomes this amalgam of so many different voices and it is a greater whole than the sum of its parts. Right. But several months after the original post, now this thing has been cooking. It is now September 22nd, 2019. The user Black August posted once again, saying this quote, I wrote the original back rooms paragraph. I've been so weirded out to discover it's suddenly a small phenomenon. So they essentially claim that they had no idea that it had gained all this popularity as they had. They had never gone back to their original comment, which makes sense, right? Because 4chan is a very fleeting place. I think at the time, the medium article I was talking about, they said only four people had replied to that original message regarding the backrooms lore. It was for all intents and purposes, lost to time and lost to the internet. If it weren't for one other anonymous user, they grabbed the original picture and they grabbed Black August. Black August's kind of paragraph on the backrooms, this is still on 4chan. And then they combine them together and then put them on 4chan. That was the catalyst that really got it to in front of people. Oh, so he made it, but he wouldn't actually post it on 4chan. Okay. So it's like somebody posted the image and said, give me more weird images. The user Black August responded with the paragraph and then a third user basically. Put the two. Yes. He put the two together, which begins this idea. The idea of a like hive minded story, right? With two people first. Got it. Yeah. Someone had an idea of just like, give me these pictures and then he gave it this essentially the blueprint and then someone took that and it was like, okay, let me combine this and put it out there. And then, yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, definitely surprised because then you just saw a post on 4chan, wrote a paragraph, right? Probably didn't take you that long. And if he's this creative writer. Then probably just put it together real quick. Then all of a sudden you find out sometime later, it's like, oh, it's massive. Everybody's into it. It's creating this whole thing. Yeah. And they're all pointing to your post going like, whoa, this is it. Like it was that person's photo, your paragraph and a third person deciding to put them together. Yeah. That began this like domino effect of a plethora of voices adding to the chorus. But I wonder if they're involved in, again, this is not about the movie, but I really do wonder. I don't know if this person, this Black August user is at all a part of the movie in some way, but. Yeah. But I mean, usually the, what they'll do is have them come to like the premiere and stuff. Um, so it's pretty cool. But also this is just, you know, it's the internet at its best where it's, this is literally three creative minds coming together, you know? And even the person that's like, I take two, these two things and I put it together when it exists without that person putting it right, you kind of produced it or no sense, like, you have these two, you have maybe someone that shot it, you know, with the picture or requesting pictures and the person that wrote it and the producer's like, okay, we'll put these two together, post it up. And then it became this whole big thing. But it was the trio of them that like made this happen. Again, the internet, right? That's wild. Yeah. Like it's three people in isolation at the right place, the right time with the right just taste, you know, it just makes you think of all of the wild stories that blip on and off. It's like a spark. They're suddenly on the internet and then gone, right? We, we almost didn't have the backrooms because of how fleeting they were. this platform is but as you can imagine since then r slash backrooms has only continued to grow with members adding more lore to the legend i did go to subreddit stats.com because of api changes this website only shows you up until the very end of 2023 but here's a graph of the users over time you're going to see the growth of this subreddit for 2019 through 2023 yeah so 2019 we had some gradual growth i would say up until like 2022 and then just a massive surge and so we started around 2019 below 50k 2022 probably about like 135k 140k and then 2022 to was that 25 that ends jan 1 2024 24 yeah and so now we're pushing like 280 and so we've just had a massive surge yeah so today it is at about 352 000 subscribers on this subreddit so it is still quite healthy even then it's gonna see a boost too with the movie totally oh absolutely and i'm sure it has through all the marketing but i'm so glad you pointed out 2022 because that huge bump right there that's the effect kane parsons videos on the back rooms had on this conversation oh i mean again it becomes more tangible right yep it goes from these if you know if you know forums you know 4chan you know you know reddit things like that but when you start taking into a bigger platform making videos you put on like youtube then that's very mainstream internet yeah you know you got dads and moms on youtube just you know that you would never see or just people you would never see in a in a forum yeah so like youtube is almost like the mainstream version of the internet ready to bust out of the internet and move into you know i guess hollywood now but yeah kane parsons videos had a big effect well we kind of have a separate conversation around him and and because he's the more modern evolution of the back rooms so again another thing to pin there but eventually the idea of additional levels started to be introduced as well as the idea of entities that inhabit the back rooms of course the initial lore implies that someone might be there someone listening whether it be another visitor like yourself or something more sinister now i think this is also the time where a different subreddit split off um i have it later in my notes but ultimately there was a r slash true back rooms it focuses solely on the original story of the back rooms because not everybody was kind of in agreement with the with the levels or these entities or other ideas uh so lit beep was a reddit user who kind of made this this split off but let me know if you've heard of any of these so we'll talk about level zero through five and then the pool rooms so level zero is the most accurate to the original back rooms photo so long empty rooms hallways etc they seem to go on forever very much reminiscent of the the wallpaper you see in that photo and this is also prominently featured as what we're going to see in the movie level one is an empty parking garage made completely of concrete and this is something we have seen when yumi and christian have played escape the back rooms level two is said to be a hot narrow tunnel system often compared to maintenance tunnels underneath a building level three is a complex of derelict maintenance halls and utility tunnels filled with electrical machinery level four is said to be a sprawling complex of barren rooms and cubicles resembling a modern commercial office building and level five this all of these kind of come from the the fandom wiki for the back rooms so thanks to all the users and community members who have pulled that all together we're going to be able to see all of these in the back rooms but level five is said to be the terror hotel i'll quote the article here quote presumably an infinite ever-expanding hotel complex complete with all the sections a luxury hotel should have end quote so kind of like expanding into every liminal space you might know of or might stumble into and basically taking all the places that we could all possibly see and then folding them into the back rooms lore yeah and um you know having played the game it gave me a very vivid representation of all these because you know these different levels have different roles and different things and yeah again this this sense of a familiarity but this eeriness that's underlying throughout all of it right because you're not talking about a haunted mansion or an abandoned hospital we're talking about like offices we're talking parking garages we're talking about a haunted mansion we're talking about a garage which you know parking garage can be scary but you don't really think of it for the most part walking around in real life and so it's like all these normal mundane places with this really eeriness to them yeah especially when they're empty and especially when you start to layer in the ideas like oh that's not just an empty hotel that already feels weird with these long repeating hallways no this is the terror hotel like okay well that's all you needed to say to really freak me out you know but then there's other things like you know there's a lot of things that known as the pool rooms. I don't know if this is on a particular level or not. And I first came into contact with these pool rooms and I don't know if this was Kane Parsons. I really struggled to find the original TikTok videos of these because I just don't have TikTok anymore. But whether it was Kane Parsons or another creator, there were like guys in hazmat suits casually wandering around the back rooms, poking around. Less of the VHS aesthetic that Kane Parsons uses. But what I started to notice was like, you would just get glimpses of like these never ending stairwells, but then you would also see these pool rooms and it gave you this false sense of security. You would see other people in these spaces. So you'd think, okay, maybe I'm safe because there's other scientists here. But then there would be like sudden dangers where suddenly it'd say, enter here. And you'd go in there and then the floor would drop out or, or the walls would crush you. Or you would go down a water slide that missed the pool and fell. Like it was so cool because it gave this idea that sure, there might be entities lurking around corners, but really it's the, the back rooms themselves that are kind of hunting you. Like the space is alive and forcing you or encouraging you to get lost or accidentally get hurt in some way. And so the pool rooms are so special for me because like you see pools, you see water slides, you see like the inflatable beach balls and you're like, oh, this feels much more cool. And then you're like, oh, this feels much more cool. And then you're like, oh, this feels calming. But then it just isn't. It's just, I love that. Like, oh, you feel safe, but you're probably less safe than ever. Right. Because it also strengthens the lore of a mundane looking room. Right. But then there's this eeriness to it. There's something that feels off and it's like, oh yeah, because the space itself is what's after you giving you this false sense of comfort. And then there's this eeriness to it. There's something that feels off and it's like, oh yeah, because the space itself is like, oh yeah, because the space itself is what's after you giving you this false sense of comfort. And then there's this it's like, oh yeah, because the space itself is what's after you giving you this false sense of comfort. And it's like, oh yeah, because the space itself is what's after you giving you this false sense of is it's like no just what you think is normal and you think is safe you have to question everything because you are in a space where i don't know maybe you know it's an entity the space is an entity and it's like it has motives oh god yeah i want to hold on to that because one of the more real concepts that we're going to talk about does center around a space that might be conscious i don't know it's it's fascinating uh but like i said you know a lot of people kind of started to disagree on what direction the backrooms should go and less than two weeks after backrooms made it to you know reddit r slash true backrooms was created may 29 2019 and it's not that anyone was disagreeing it wasn't like some sort of civil war but i think it showed that the popularity begot so much attention and so many different creatives that then like there are now r slash the backrooms and all sorts of other kind of offshoots of the the parent idea yeah i'm sure it got so big to the point people are like i feel like it should be more in this direction or i feel like i feel like everyone again right you mentioned the whole your favorite band blowing up and so a lot of people might be like you know it's too it's too popular which is such a weird thing i want to go back to like the old school backroom stories and vibes and feels of it not this new age everybody's thing overly popular ideas of the backrooms i do like the idea these are the true backrooms everybody so come over here with me like you can read into that like definitely that's what i'm getting i'm getting those vibes like yeah backrooms i'm like okay maybe it's kind of more of like you know phase one backrooms or like early backrooms you know and i like that idea too because it keeps precious the original spark but also allows the uh the itself to grow so like however you want to try it it's just a testament to how phenomenally popular this became overnight essentially the lore is growing so fast in these early stages people feel very strongly about it that's that's fandom baby now today i i mentioned how many subscribers there are but the backrooms subreddit has 143 000 weekly visitors i think 143 000 weekly visitors is a healthy a healthy uh amount of traffic for such a specific concept i don't know it's so cool i mean look it just it's something that people can get behind yeah and again it's this fantastic little sandbox that was built where you have a baseline blueprint for what it is and then you can go in there as someone that's just a viewer a reader or you can go in there and add any layer of creativity to it right you can type out a whole novel if you wanted to in the back rooms or you could throw out a simple line that makes people think and then makes people want to elaborate on yeah so it's just so many different things you know they didn't come out like these are the rules and it's like this and these are these the the hard set realities of the world and the story etc it was just very simple so as we go forward i want to go backward before we talk about the modern iterations and evolution of the back rooms i want to talk about the origin of the image itself so as a refresher fred if you want to take a look at that yellowy back rooms image to remind yourself now according to some sources the true story behind the infamous back rooms image wasn't widely popularized until 2024 so for a little over five whole years people were like eager to figure out okay we love the back rooms but we want to know more where did this image come from because it's now so important to the community it's so important to the zeitgeist here the natural inclination is to poke and prod and figure it out well on may 29 2024 there was a twitter user by the way tjxz underscore z who posted announcing that their friend had found the origin of the image however another user at rfkg underscore me replied to a post from a privated account in 2019 stating this quote for what it's worth i've probably found the source image here and it's a link hobby town oshkosh.com slash dsc00161.jpeg exif says it's from 2002 end quote so just to get your eyes on these two tweets i'm talking about take a look at this next image here that's way earlier than i thought it would be yes that's as old as 4chan is essentially and reddit yeah now task force if you want to take a look at this image you can find us on youtube spotify or we post these images on our instagram account at red web pod yeah it's a post on twitter my friend found the back rooms location it's in wisconsin and he's been a fan of the picture from 2003. 20.6 million views yeah and then someone created yeah i've probably found the source image here it says from 2002 yes dang yeah i mean again the fact that this is a real location this is a weird creepy place yeah i'm looking at the pictures it's so empty it's so empty and we'll talk more about because there's now two pictures you have the infamous back room location and then you have the back room location and then you have the back room location and then you have the back room photo but now there's like a sister photo and it's of the same place but a different location within that place and equally weird but not in the same way if that makes sense yeah it doesn't really look like a place that's been used a lot right it seems so clean and sterilized but just old right the design and colors and this picture there's two buckets on the ground so it's like a people the carpets look like they've been it looks like a carpet yeah it's just so lifeless yeah so we'll talk about them buckets here but for the tweets let's unpack just real quick so that tweeted link is now inactive so if anybody went tapping away while they're driving and listening to the show you won't be able to go to that link you can go to the internet archive you can type that in and and it doesn't show the images but the website has been at least mirrored but again it seems that this link used to house these images and for the record exif means exchangeable image file format this is what houses a photo's metadata so for example if you take a photo on your phone it will know the lens the focal length the the model of phone you're using or the camera you're using sometimes your coordinates but also most importantly the date it was taken and that's how they were able to figure out when this photo was taken 2002 okay so this would have sparked or kind of rekindled the virality in 2024 internet sleuths like i said have been hunting for this original image for years and finally we have a breakthrough for longtime backrooms fans so long story short the image was reportedly found using the efforts of several members of the backrooms discord community and it turns out these images were taken during the renovation of a former furniture store located in oshkosh wisconsin so i think fredo that might explain the strange walls and layout because these would have been rooms like tables chairs and furniture would have been set up almost like a rooms to go kind of thing yeah okay i get it instead of yeah because instead of just putting a bed in a big open space next to other beds this is this would be your way of dressing it up yeah so you can kind of envision again like you said like ikea you know you walk in and they have these and i'm sure if you stripped out of kia it'd be like the same thing right that would be right that would be a perfect liminal space yeah all these half walls and stuff and it's like oh it's because they display what a living room or a kitchen would look like here yeah i also love that you mentioned like it both looks unused like like clean carpets and everything but also looks old that's something i hadn't really put my finger on the fact that it looks so old like it looks so 70s but yes aside from a few stains here and there on the carpet it does feel fresh and new and so that doesn't really like it's like if you built a brand new house today but made it vividly in the 60s style yeah it would be cool no like i would love that as an airbnb but it would feel very strange because it feels out of place yep yes it would because you don't see a lot of vintage at least locations that are that fresh right there's some life lived on them crushed carpet or what have you okay so so oshkosh wisconsin is where this photo comes from roaner's home furnishings operated out of this building for several years in 2003 however and it's a very old building it's a very old building it's a very old building it's a very old building it's a very old building it's a very old building it's a very old building it's a very new tenant moved in making this the new location of the american hobby store known as hobby town hence the url that we mentioned earlier being hobby town oshkosh.com so this was in that transitional period in 2002 2003 where it was a furniture place became empty they started to do some renovations some cleanups some this that the other and then it became hobby town i don't know exactly what hobby town would look like so that's why you have this oddly strange place to your point if it was ikea becoming an indoor golf place at some point there's going to be an empty ikea before it looks like the empty golf place yeah exactly and so i mean i yeah i don't know hobby place i'm sure they got little tchotchkes and weird things and maybe just an amalgamation of everything so i could see it yeah what's interesting again i don't have any photos of it at this time but sometime that year right 2002 2003 the second story of the building underwent renovations the progress photos that would eventually become the back rooms here have eventually been figured out to be taken specifically on june 12 2002 and that's the next image i had for you that's the one where you can clearly see the buckets off to the side and that's the one sign of life that kind of indicates oh okay yes this is part of a renovation that's why these buckets are here got it that's the buckets mm-hmm okay also i mean wild but also it's like why are you taking a i mean unless they're a part of the renovation or something like that it's like why are you taking a picture it's the most boring mundane picture ever it is it is pretty boring but they yeah but they took it and became this whole thing but i'm just still just like what why are you taking a picture of this why are you taking a picture you know it's like the back rooms are predicated on a bunch of random things that need not have happened right like yeah why take a photo of this place put it online how did it linger around for almost 20 years before someone found it strange and posted it on 4chan then it found an author who decided to drop some lore and disappear with a smoke bomb for several months for somebody else to then combine them all and then a spark was kindled and lore was dropped and people freaked out and a movie was made and you know me like i love there's something so uniquely internet about that i'm so obsessed with that i that's so interesting i that's the thing though it's just like in the same way if you write something they always say it's like come back the next day or later with fresh eyes yeah it's the same you know the same thing it's like it's on the internet lives there someone came out with fresh eyes and was like you know what that's kind of creepy and it's like hey guys you know what this kind of isn't this kind of creepy you guys got more creepy photos that's pretty much what it was the guy's like this like dave chapelle you guys got any more of those creepy photos this is kind of creepy i don't got any more you're right though that's what it was right man i should post more i should just post some more insane thoughts because you never know when it's gonna spark you know someone's just gonna see something you have no you have no idea right and again is someone else compounded on top of that let this be a lesson to you a task force shoot your shot you never know when you might birth a back rooms or something like that birth of back rooms don't think about that okay so - So you asked a question, why were these photos taken? Well Fredo, would you know it if I hadn't an answer for you march 2nd 2003 oh we're going deep we're cutting deep these photos were posted they were taken and posted because oshkosh the branch of hobby town here they had a blog and they wanted to document their renovation they wanted to document their move to town it's 2003 baby we make content via pictures right now yeah dot com bubble just burst and so now it feels like anybody that just the regular joes can get online now so yeah in this blog they described the area that had extensive water damage and it required it to be vacated entirely it's unclear how internet sleuths were able to trace this photo all the way back to the now archived site to be honest i know again we talk about the discord channel and all of that but i think some of the details might be lost to time some people kind of did some sleuthing on the side found some answers and brought them in and so we don't know everything they did behind the scenes but i love the idea that moist carpet was part of the original lore and it turns out there was water damage i don't know if they felt it when they looked at the photo or what but they knew moist carpet carpet in general could just be really gross carpets pretty gross man you know and so just on top of that you're just talking about like wet carpet that's just you don't want carpet you could stick a straw in oh what oh how did you want to do that that's a new ick unlocked bro it's just true why is there that much water in the first place and then uh right right well who knows you know steve from massachusetts had to take a little bit of a potty break while he was visiting lobby town or people do weird stuff dude wait i said lobby town now that's a building i'd hate to see it's nothing but lobbies yeah yeah that's that's level six of the back rooms okay so what's interesting is and you you kind of asked this early on and it's why i say to christian our guy in the chair our producer behind the scenes that you can read the future five minutes at a time because you asked was this place demolished what does it look like today was it changed fundamentally and the answer simply is yes because since then right beyond hobby town the space has been converted to an indoor radio controlled car race track called revolution racing subsequently the eerie layout seen in these photos is now long gone but you can go take a look now online at what revolution racing looks like this place this space is just constantly being transformed from one c-tier location to another c-tier location that's see tears just honestly though kind of a furniture place to a hobby place uh indoor indoor car racing it's like i mean i would go and just watch cars do the whole thing you know what i mean that's cool but i mean these are these are just very just random niche seat here locations to go to you know what i mean there you have it i'm not going to go through all the posted the images here they're kind of blurry because they're from like facebook but that is what the inside looks like now it looks so much smaller than i would have expected yeah that's actually smaller than i thought and it's kind of like part of me weeps you know maybe avert your gaze if you don't want the back rooms ruined maybe nothing against this business i kind of i mean this is i'll be honest this is saturday in the back rooms honestly yeah take those people out of it and it becomes its own new liminal space but nothing against revolution racing you guys do your thing i would probably rent one of the back rooms i would probably rent one of the back rooms i would probably rent one of the back rooms i would probably rent one of them little race cars if of them little race cars if of them little race cars if if i was there as a kid but it's just if i was there as a kid but it's just if i was there as a kid but it's just not the same see a lot of exposed ramps not the same see a lot of exposed ramps not the same see a lot of exposed ramps and like tape and piping and okay that and like tape and piping and okay that and like tape and piping and okay that first image i posted it has all those first image i posted it has all those first image i posted it has all those like metal posts in the middle of the like metal posts in the middle of the like metal posts in the middle of the floor floor floor come back to the photo with the buckets come back to the photo with the buckets come back to the photo with the buckets are those metal posts inside those are those metal posts inside those are those metal posts inside those square posts you know what i'm saying square posts you know what i'm saying square posts you know what i'm saying like oh are those oh is that where the like oh are those oh is that where the like oh are those oh is that where the track is no they're not big enough no track is no they're not big enough no track is no they're not big enough no they're not big enough well i mean oh they're not big enough well i mean oh they're not big enough well i mean oh are they inside the square are they inside the square are they inside the square yeah because sometimes they put a yeah because sometimes they put a yeah because sometimes they put a decorative post around an actual support decorative post around an actual support decorative post around an actual support post maybe because this post would be post maybe because this post would be post maybe because this post would be pretty ugly pretty ugly pretty ugly how how far is that left side wall how how far is that left side wall how how far is that left side wall you see there's no left side wall there you see there's no left side wall there you see there's no left side wall there renovation you know you could do renovation you know you could do renovation you know you could do anything one two three four that's true anything one two three four that's true anything one two three four that's true maybe it wasn't a fundamental wall yeah maybe it wasn't a fundamental wall yeah maybe it wasn't a fundamental wall yeah load bearing yeah with a load bearing load bearing yeah with a load bearing load bearing yeah with a load bearing wall yeah that's just a drop ceiling too wall yeah that's just a drop ceiling too wall yeah that's just a drop ceiling too okay let me count the lights one two okay let me count the lights one two okay let me count the lights one two three four in this bucket photo and one three four in this bucket photo and one three four in this bucket photo and one two three i don't know if if it's the two three i don't know if if it's the two three i don't know if if it's the same size of room i feel like same size of room i feel like same size of room i feel like there's more posts in the old bucket there's more posts in the old bucket there's more posts in the old bucket room anyway or is the the pillars in room anyway or is the the pillars in room anyway or is the the pillars in the back the back the back there's no oh oh you know what i'm saying we see this i don't know i don't know i don't know either way the space is the same i just i'm for some reason i'm just trying to see if these photos show the exact same spot i know we're like where are the angles that match up with it yeah well anyway uh if you're in wisconsin you're hanging around oshkosh by gosh go over to revolution racing get yourself a couple of drifts in you know sure they know it's the backroom location i'm sure they do i'm sure they do hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just 20 at bj's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save you OK let's talk now about the evolution of the backrooms and the modern day so the fascination of the backrooms has continued throughout the years to the point where anyone's mom might have heard of it by now and many people as you have pointed out fredo have used it as a creative outlet or a point of inspiration now unlike the mall world the subreddit that we talked about at the top of the show the subreddit backrooms isn't kind of this suspend your disbelief and tell your stories about how you got lost in the backrooms or share your experience like the mall world is a shared experience where people have dreams of the same endless mall and it is this very interesting phenomenon that even our our researcher kat cardenas had kind of dreamt of and didn't have any idea that it was a thing so counter to that this subreddit backrooms is more layered in with the creative endeavors of people kind of giving ideas on different levels uh giving recreations of liminal spaces whether it be in roblox uh source engine blender uh photos that they've seen like in person or other kind of platforms that they've used to generate backrooms for backrooms video games there are ideas for different encounters with different entities and what the rules might be what levels they might belong on like i said there's photos of other liminal spaces all of these things continue to layer in and i think that is part of the unique element here now this is where i want to talk about kane parker in 2022 he was 16 years old at the time and he posted a short horror film on youtube called quote the backrooms found footage end quote you can go see that i've seen all the internet's content but i'll at least show it to you uh but there is a screenshot i have for you here from that short oh i haven't seen this image before i think you showed me this image before really i wouldn't be surprised but what are you seeing what is this entity it just looks like a bunch of wiring wrapped around like a just a standard frame like a stick figure frame yeah arms are as long as its entire body excluding the head and that's got a rectangle of a head i just you wouldn't think anything of it because it's just so minimal right right it looks like slenderman but made out of coat hangers yeah coat hangers he's all black and staticky but uh but the backrooms there have been many others since but you kind of get glimpses of him around corners so when you look back you know in this short he'll look back and you'll see the entity just walking out of frame just out of sight but the user was kane pixels aka kane parsons and the video was met with much success he then decided to create a series of short films introducing new plot points to the backrooms adding to the lore much like everyone else and each film kind of continued with this evolution of the lore now kane parsons i mentioned him you know he is i think 19 or 20 now at this time but he's the one directing the a24 horror film based on the backrooms yeah and again we're not like sponsored by the movie or anything but i i think what i love about it is that it one looks so visually similar two it uses the exact same rules and concepts of like no clipping through a back wall and suddenly they find this space and they start to explore and it very much feels like his short films and then three it's actually in a furniture store which is an homage to the actual furniture store that this photo was taken from so it's it's i love that kind of authenticity you know in a way like it feels true to the story and the lore that we've all built it really does and so i don't know it gives you faith in the movie right yeah it's someone that is again so ingrained into the culture of it all so it's like oh okay let's see what you can do this just seems pretty cool now before we explore the real phenomenon that may be behind some of the lore some of the inspiration for the backrooms let's talk about some of the rules when accessing the backrooms this won't be exhaustive because as you can imagine with like seven years of lore building now under our belts it is deep it is fascinating but it is complex so we're going to kind of take a higher level to it so of course you You enter the back rooms by no clipping out of reality. We mentioned that before. In back rooms lore, this is typically an accidental event. Like in the very first short film, Parsons shows somebody filming a short film and they back up to shoot a wide and then he kind of just trips on something and falls through the street and then falls 10 feet down onto the floor in the back rooms. That's how we got there. Now there's a lot of ideas on how one can increase their chances of getting to the back rooms if they wanted to, whether it be to research or explore or what have you. One of those chances is increased by finding what's called a rare terminal. These are glitches that allow you to leave your current dimension. Per the Backrooms Wiki, examples include walls that are a shade darker than normal, sometimes they don't cast shadows, doors that did not exist previously or maybe appear out of place, and areas that give you a sense of unease. Very much like these liminal photos. If you're planning a visit to one of these places. There are a litany of items that users have recommended over the years to protect yourself from the Labyrinthian journey home, and that is if you can even get home. So these items include a first aid kit, backpack for any discovered items or any items that you're bringing with yourself, weapons, but not anything that would cause a lot of noise because that would attract unwanted attention. So they say usually melee weapons that can be concealed something like a machete, a watch to keep. I love this one. Watch because you want to keep track of reality because time is personal in this place. If you start wandering around, you might spend weeks or months and have no concept for where you're at or what's gone on. There's something about this place that kind of makes you forget time and space. Okay. I like that. That's a really cool little, like, I mean the item in itself feels very productive and has kind of like a meaning to it. Yeah. And so I, I don't know if this is part of it, but I've seen some videos where like, people have split up and for one of them, it's been real time, like a few minutes. And the other one was like, I'm starving. It's I feel like I've been in here for days and I'm just now finding you again. Like, yeah. Cause it's personal, but it's just, it's that rule is very strict. Dang. Okay. Yeah. So bring yourself one of those automatic watches. That's not quartz, no batteries. Keep your wrist moving and it'll stay powered. But of course they say bring food that will last because you don't have any options. I don't have any idea how long you'll be there. A sleeping bag for one, a sense of normalcy, but also two, it's more comfortable than the ground. And there are some cold levels. Apparently some of the levels are like icy cold and so you want to be able to sleep in the warmth. Then you've got things like hiking boots, light jacket, durable clothes, because you never know what you're going to get up to or what might be scratching you or catching onto you. And then of course a flashlight because some areas of the back rooms can get oddly dark. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then of course the rest of the rooms, it's imperative that you stay calm. You try to orient yourself to figure out, okay, where was I? Where am I now? Look at your surroundings, take deep note of it because this will be kind of your home base because you don't want to go wandering off and get lost. Some people say that staying near where you came in is your best way of getting out, but most others say that you should just kind of accept your fate. Yeah. That's what I would do. Yeah. Kind of come to the conclusion, come to the idea that you will now be able to get out. You're not going to be able to get out of the room. You're not going to be able to explore. But the only thing left to do is survive and extend your life because there is no getting back. Yeah. I'm not the main character. I'm not him. Like to think that you are him. It's like, yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think it's what it is. I mean, would I wander? Yeah. Because it would be boring as hell to just stay there. But am I thinking like, I've got this, let's figure it out. Let's do this. Like, what's happening? And like, I feel like, dude, I'm, I'm going to wander and I'm going to get out. I'm going to get out. I'm going to get out of here. one where all you know is this creepy weird stuff that happens and low survival rate just a negative area yeah i said that's a choice that's a big choice and it's like again it's one of those things that we commonly say in the daytime super brave once it gets dark once i'm in that place we've been to some big open abandoned places once you're there it feels wrong yeah and i i think you would quickly want to wake up i would i wouldn't want to sit in it so slightly similar to lucid dreaming some people believe that the back rooms are a form of astral trap an astral trap is a layer of the astral plane that someone may enter by accident while sleeping the astral plane beyond just dnd lore is like this idea that there is a plane or a dimension of existence beyond ours it's just some other metaphysical realm and it is said that you know depending on your spiritual beliefs like your consciousness your soul your spirit what have you might be able to go there your consciousness might be able to move across different planes of existence right so an astral trap can also refer to the act of restraining astral beings from leaving the astral plane or basically a consciousness that might get trapped outside of your body but in this astral plane that's another iteration of this so from our casual understanding it would seem that most cases of astral trapping would be kind of intentional like almost like an attack like luring people in and if that's what the back rooms is or if that's what it's inspired by this would make sense because the back rooms would then be preying on people having them fall through reality to no clip into this space unable to leave from there and either an entity hunts you down or your exhaustion kills you but then you kind of does it just take your energy is it is it living it's like eating you i'm assuming it's eating you but not in the sense you think like you know traditionally yeah right in the sense of like taking your energy your life force draining you kind of like uh the overlook hotel in the shining it very much preys on your mental state and any sort of latent psychic abilities the shine in order to create visceral events of violence that it can then feed on it can feed on your shine your psychic ability or it can feed on the violence that then become echoes ghosts of that and so yeah like this feels very much like that how can i lure you in into my massive maze of self and then you just wander around until you're you're gone yeah into your nothing you wither away yeah the whole time i'm feasting so this does kind of explain from a kind of more real world perspective and i think it's kind of like the world's spiritual sense why the back rooms might be inescapable you know they they kind of go on forever with no way out and then of course we kind of already talked about this at the very beginning because it is a liminal space but it does very much rest on liminal spaces in fact i do think that that is the inciting incident it was a person asking for people to post places that feel off and so this leads us back to where we started liminal spaces and that very i do think that that is the inciting incident it was a person asking for people to post places that feel off and so this leads us back to where we started i do think that that is the inciting incident it was a person asking for people to post places that feel off and so this leads us back to where we started yeah it is a transitionary space that now becomes uncertain in fact recently fredo you and i recorded an episode on the rms queen mary which is an enormous ship that's now like kind of a hotel you can stay at there in california but when we were looking at the photos of those hallways it kept giving me this like oh i don't like this kind of feeling but that's exactly why it's this like liminal space it is a place devoid of life that should be active like for all intents and purposes it has all the signs of action and activity right but it doesn't yeah it just feels off drained and eerie it's just this place man it's this place with its weird subtleness to it and i don't know the actual level like this is an actual place you can go visit but also kind of speaks to like real life you know yeah some places where it's like oh this office is just so draining or so boring on monday or people go like i hate going to the hospital it's just so boring and stuff like that's like yeah because it looks boring as hell yeah it's beige yeah it's white it's creams it's just very non-stimulating yes now i looked at a bunch of threads because up until this point i'd never really defined the liminal spaces i just knew it was as a feeling and i wanted to know how other people felt about it and so across the board most people feel negative emotions you know most people feel that unease that uncomfortable feeling i saw people saying it made them feel sick like they find these spaces terrifying creepy some find them relaxing some find them fascinating some find them nostalgic ultimately i think liminal spaces affect everybody based on their own personal experience yeah i mean the people that are like i it's making me sick and stuff like that it's probably because they just have bad experiences with like i don't know maybe like a hospital or whatnot you know what i mean and so like their experience there goes to something it's tied to something emotionally yeah now outside of the feature film which we mentioned a few times the back rooms has truly broken the bounds of the internet and gone on to become kind of a household name or a household word i should say not only are there a bunch of like stories built around it there's a bunch of online content but there's games it was also adapted into an episode of american horror stories the anthology series which i didn't even know existed there's american horror story yeah then there's american horror stories yeah yeah i fell off kind of i don't know season seven or eight around american horror story yeah she's a hit or miss so i need to get back so i can see the american horror stories but anyway they explore the back rooms in an episode but all in all the back rooms is now known as one of the stories of all time and i think that is almost undebatable you could easily put this top five greatest creepiest internet lore internet stories that has ever kind of at least right now at this junction yeah i would say so i mean again it's it's blown up into the mainstream right you don't do that without being good and being popular and so i totally i would totally say that well any final thoughts as we kind of come to the end of this episode of american horror story i would love to hear what you guys have to say about it if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments section down below i would love to hear what you guys have to say about it if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments section down below i would love to hear what you have to say about it if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments section down below i mean a big topic to cover it's quoted low its origins and again it's just wild that we'll cover something that happened either not too long ago or forever ago and then there's still things being discovered again we cover mysteries right but to see sometimes i mean a lot of times like an update or a new discovery or information that was added to it in this case like we found the original location and and photo and everything like that and so it's just like oh this is really really cool that you can just keep learning about these things because i'm sure this is the backroom is like a favorite for a lot of people and the fact that's like there's new stuff that's exciting you know what i mean yeah especially for the as i kind of roughly said the more modern internet you know there's a lot of creepypastas from like 20 years ago 15 years ago and a lot of those were like i remember those when i was like younger and i read them and they were impressionable and i'll never forget them but then they just are what they were you know they were a story that made an impact and then time did away with them almost almost but this one is one of those unique ones that i think it will continue to evolve it will continue to live and that is again to reiterate why i love internet scary stories so much i agree all right well task force as always thank you so much for listening and supporting us for another episode if you want to you can share this episode with a friend of yours that you know likes creepypastas or maybe just unsolved mysteries that way you can kind of talk about it over dinner or over the campfire uh shout out in specific to this week's task force members we have viscera rabbit who is our newest member of the elite team thank you so much we have courtney brothers who was our buff scientist of the week and then for our squawks we got dakota wolf 472 and james hill of the many so thank you guys so much if you want to support us directly as these task force members have you can do so at our patreon page redwebpod.com well with that said i'll see you right back here next monday for yet another mystery tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just twenty dollars at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save