What if you could visit a place that does not exist on any map? A place whispered about online as though it sits just beyond the edges of our known world. A place known quite simply as, the Backrooms.

The Backrooms are an internet-created fictional setting imagined as an infinite network of empty, fluorescent-lit rooms. The concept centres on the idea of accidentally slipping out of normal reality and becoming trapped in this monotonous, labyrinthine environment with no clear exit.

Since first emerging online in 2019 on the online bulletin board 4chan, the Backrooms phenomenon has expanded across Reddit, TikTok, YouTube and gaming platforms, where users collectively map, narrate and extend its mythology. Common to much of the user-generated content are eerie images and haunting stories of mysterious, yellow wallpapered corridors and empty office-like spaces that exist outside of, or beyond, reality itself.

Much of the interest on the internet circulates around filmmaker Kane Parsons’ viral “found footage” videos on YouTube. Parsons took the phenomenon from low resolution static images into immersive cinematic exploration, helping to establish Backrooms as one of social media’s most recognisable horror environments. With Parsons now adapting the Backrooms for a feature-length horror thriller, the strange fictive world is rapidly entering mainstream discourse.

At first glance, the Backrooms may........

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