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The Backrooms Wiki
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago[flagged]
- egypturnash 2y agoI’ve always just thought of it as “SCP Wiki for people who came along too late to have any room to meaningfully contribute to the SCP Wiki”.
- vintermann 2y agoYeah, SCP wiki is the original "profoundly bad horror worldbuilding" wiki, and practically everything bad in "the backrooms" is lifted from there with minimal changes.
- egypturnash 2y agoSCP started with a post from 2007. It's been going long enough to get its better bits filtered to the top, and have some kind of editorial board. The Backrooms started with a 2019 post. It's only about five years old. Give it time and maybe it'll produce something like "There Is No Antimimetics Division". Maybe it won't. There's probably a few people who will say that their career as a storyteller twenty years from now owes a lot to their childhood fooling around in the Backrooms. And that's fine too.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago>The Backrooms started with a 2019 post. I'd tell you what we used to call people like you, but its a no no word now cuz feeels. 2019? What are you, 20 years old?
- squigz 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms#History
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoyes, because things dont exist before they have names. subliminal spaces spawned the idea, long before moot left.
- squigz 2y agoBut we weren't talking about liminal spaces, we were talking about the Backrooms.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agothe backrooms is a meme named from a subset of it, named informally long ago. "5" years old is when normies appropriated it, which explains your ignorance.
- squigz 2y agoOh my gosh you are endlessly amusing.
- squigz 2y agoOut of curiosity, do you have any source to refute Wikipedias' references about when the Backrooms, named as such and referring to the original image, actually came about? Or is Wikipedia too normie for such truths?
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0TYWcxRyak Your snark and lack of benefit of the doubt is telling.
- 2y ago
- vintermann 2y agoI really dislike SCP. What does it help that the better bits float to the top, if its whole gimmick is to fit any horror trope into a framework of "containment", description through secret files, etc.? I can't think of a more boring way to tell a horror story than through a catalog of cliches. The worst is they try to shoehorn anything else remotely scary into their cliche framework, including liminal spaces/the backrooms. I wish SCP fans would stop trying to spread their "gospel" to every other community online. (And yes, I'm sure there's an SCP thing where SCP fans are the ones "breaking containment" already.)
- squigz 2y agoThis is a fun way of looking at it. SCP certainly has become something else. I suppose at a certain point, settings like this for horror sort of run out of room, so things become increasingly stranger.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoDefinitely a "fun" way of looking at it. Parasocial FOMO escalating into actually affecting lives negatively. Remember the slender man murders? how fun!
- bschwindHN 2y agoIs this a bit and I'm missing some context?
- squigz 2y agoIndeed. This can't be a serious comment, right? If it is, GP needs to take a step back and question how passionately they really want to attack what is an utterly harmless meme, even if it is a bad one.
- bitwize 2y agoIn my 20s I was open to the idea that the song "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" by Eiffel 65 was potentially what we would call today a cognitohazard, due to its engineered catchiness and utter lack of content, even compared to other pop songs of the era.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago>cognitohazard I had my own self-looping self-referencing rumination once when I was 7-10. It was essentially "the game" but more of a cognito-hazard time loop. It is, however, axiomatically true that you can ruminate mesa-reflectively until you become insane/manic; however the contagious aspect of it needs more physical properties, like the ability to propagate, convince, persist, etc. reminds me of a topic...
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoYou should engage in good faith and not imply shit. Attack my arguments on their own merits. And if you are too cowardly/moral to do that, remember what the power "harmless memes" have, next time you call someone president. Memes are powerful, do your research into who coined the term "meme,"
- squigz 2y agoI'm not implying anything. What exactly do you think I am? I tried to find the merit in your 'arguments' but I really can't see any. It's harmless fanfic, the likes of which we've been producing for decades. If you think a kid talking about the Backrooms is something to actually be concerned about, I don't know what to tell you. We have bigger things to worry about. Also, my country doesn't have presidents.
- talldayo 2y ago> I've been studying 'adverserial-to-human" information, and this is the second to best example I have managed to convince others with; even those unbiased with children. Setting Skibidi Toilet aside, are you really that confident that misinformation, hate speech and historical revisionism are less harmful to society than a Markiplier meme that makes grown-ups cringe?
- deafpolygon 2y ago> are you really that confident that misinformation, hate speech and historical revisionism I don't think the person you responded to brought those up or attempted to say that. Both could be true. I don't know anything about adversarial-to-human information, but I thought we were better than this (Whataboutism) at HN.
- klibertp 2y ago> I don't know anything about adversarial-to-human information I also don't know this particular term, but my it reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk and the related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_hazard - though the latter deals with "true" information, if I understand correctly, so the fan-fiction site wouldn't fit, I think?
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoDoes information have to be true to be harmful? Also thanks for the links, I forgot lurkers may lack context.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago>but I thought we were better than this (Whataboutism) at HN. Whataboutism is Whataboutism.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago>Setting Skibidi Toilet aside That was the #3rd item, close. >you really that confident that misinformation, hate speech and historical revisionism Are you not? These are the excuses our nation has used to justify the last decade. >Markiplier meme that makes grown-ups cringe? I don't engage in these things, which is why I post what I did. Without googling the context (I know the bread-tuber), I just wanted to point out that grown ups "cringing" should make you wonder.
- cdchn 2y agoPoor fanfic long predates the "Backrooms" phenomenon. Its not harmful, or unique to our culture; its just cringe. If anything its training ground for people to improve their writing. Plenty of authors and writers started on eye-wateringly bad fanfic. Calling it a "memetic virus" is SCP-like fanfic in and of itself. So, maybe this is a self-referential meta-bit.
- wruza 2y agoWhy is it even cringe? Do you really cringe from backrooms stories and videotape reports on yt? Also curious how it compares to regular popular tv horrors. Are these cringe too?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cdchn 2y agoThe long-tail of Backrooms & SCP fanfic is whats cringe, like the article describes.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoYall should run your own experiments and let the Backrooms' endless datum of frivolous fictitious information stunt a child's most crucial time of intellectual growth, facilitated by an indifferent giga-corp specializing in robbing attention from humans.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agodownvotes without replies mean you agree and are too cowardly too admit either defeat or to cognitively dissonant to respond
- 2y ago
- forgotoldacc 2y agoIt's literally just ambient horror with monsters sometimes. Kids 10, 20, 30 years ago grew up with far dumber and more commercialized stuff.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoIt's not comparable, and everything you said was objectively false.
- wruza 2y agoCall it a parenting issue, dismiss, 1st amendment, whatever. I choose whatever and call it unreasonable fixation and absurd negativism towards a single, arbitrarily selected open-lore idea. Whose roots, btw, find reflections in human perception itself, compared to much simpler plots. Your reasons remain unclear, and I won’t hypothesize, but I’ve met a (pretty common) type before who cannot handle open-endedness in culture. People who can’t help but demand answers from the art house genre and cannot sit still when something is clearly off in a regular movie that is not marked as detective or pre-declared as rewatchable. It’s interesting that you mention religion, because in my experience, this also intersects a lot with religious people, who cannot wait for someone to slowly pull the curtain of knowledge and instead need the answers right here right now, which religion provides happily, creating an absolute closure of a human.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoMinecraft, choice blindness, the urge to neither blight nor sight a blank sheet of paper. Some people like facts that end. A conclusion, closure. The backrooms, trivial as a meme (I was in the /x/ thread, so I was fuckin there) was not dangerous until it was commodified via YUoutube/etc, endlessly turning into literal brain rot; useless, endless, addictive information. Of course the only people to who wouldn't dismiss the idea are those with children and developmental psychologists.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoThis was the only comment that was substantive, non-dismissive, thought provoking, and worth it's weight in literal bits. I actually open any hypothesis you have, because this level of mexa-reflection is too difficult for the average HN poster to acknowledge. But the readers/lurkers can benefit - and for that, and my own curiosity, please continue. The lack of closure due to its infinite definition, the para-social aspects, the commodification, the intellectual entrapment for the most vulnerable audience so enamored by it. Please don't let cowards bury their own insecurities.
- farts_mckensy 2y ago[flagged]
- squigz 2y agoMostly agree with the author. I've always found the fundamental setting of The Backrooms to make for some good liminal horror. Simple, but spooky. I don't really see the appeal of the 100s of levels and the interconnectedness of it and all that. I think some people like to see it as some kind of a 'game' Maybe I'm just old, but at least I'm not like another commenter here...
- aaron695 2y agoIf you want a real backrooms story, which sadly ends in a death - https://youtu.be/sx14YtiLFIM?t=1461 https://youtu.be/sx14YtiLFIM?t=1461 I've been in similar architecture to the story and have never been in anything like it again. This wasn't a simple, old person lost in a normal place. I have a recurring dream about it, it was so different. Although I urban explore I was just looking for a exit, and I guess because I urban explore I didn't notice the signs so I suddenly went from bright shops to a dark deserted maze.
- arjvik 2y agoEven before hearing this story, I used to religiously check that any door I entered while straying from the beaten path (urbex, or simply exploring infrastructure not meant for the public) wouldn't lock behind me. I've stopped myself from entering a stairwell a few times because I wasn't sure if there'd be another exit I could take. Occasionally, if I'm feeling daring, I'll pull out one of the blank plastic cards from my wallet and jam the door latch with it, then keep going.
- Rediscover 2y ago> ... any door ... wouldn't lock behind me. You are not alone with that precaution. Ages ago, before plastic gift cards were ubiquitous, I used to quest/urbex with shims of thin aluminum trimmed to door jamb size (making them harder to detect). The buddy system also was used - "You stay on this side, I'll go through and test it can get opened from the other side." Extremely useful when entering campus/city steam tunnels that may not have another good door for hundreds of meters (the tunnels were secured to prevent access to the structures they connected).
- wruza 2y agoIt’s MrBallen, right? Ofc it’s him. Please note that these stories are recreational and may contain parts that aren’t exactly real. Also real-based stories get mixed a lot with just horrors without explicit notice. Not saying that he’s intentionally tricky with it, but reality and fact-checking is not the selling point of this channel either.
- gadtfly 2y agoKane Pixels[0] is the most popular Backrooms creator by a wide margin[1], and the recipient of that A24 movie deal. His Backrooms canon is completely separate from The Backrooms Wiki canon. It has none of the prescribed "levels", or any other of the Wiki's infinite proliferation of boring bullshit. It's purely descended from the original 4chan post[2] [0] https://www.youtube.com/@kanepixels https://www.youtube.com/@kanepixels [1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=backrooms https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=backrooms [2] https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/495/035/a5a.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/495/035/a5a...
- cruffle_duffle 2y agoThat guy is crazy good. Super creepy!
- wruza 2y agoFrom all the backrooms channels this one is my second if not most favorite: https://youtube.com/@lostinthehyperverse https://youtube.com/@lostinthehyperverse - there’s something nostalgic to it rather than action and it focuses less on an actual entity horror. (Note that the channel contains pre-backrooms videos, you probably want to start with 1997 in the name.)
- crooked-v 2y agoEndless wiki spam nonsense aside, I think the biggest contrast between Kane Pixels' stuff and most other Backrooms-derived content is that he leans hard into the weird cosmic horror aspect and surrounding interactions with the world (and black comedy absurdity/tragedy to go with it, like a government contractor proposal to retrofit the Backrooms as an infinite housing complex), rather than just 'spooky endless office with squiggly monsters'.
- liotier 2y agoAfter Kane Pixel, I recommend Return to Render, whose humour excellently highlights the absurdist undercurrent in the foundations of the Backrooms' lore. https://www.youtube.com/@ReturnToRender https://www.youtube.com/@ReturnToRender
- cruffle_duffle 2y agoI have a working theory that many backrooms videos are made by people learning blender and stuff for school. It’s a great genre to do a demo reel on. You can make your set as complex as you want and show off some weird new thing you came up with.
- badgersnake 2y agoI read it, but I’m no wiser. This made zero sense to me.
- crooked-v 2y agoIt's increasingly recursive, usually low-quality fanfiction of the original one-off post describing the Backrooms as a setting as a spooky endless office interior with undetailed monsters in it.
- Fnoord 2y agoSame, it made zero sense to me. In an age of housing and energy crisis we have huge buildings with lights on for no reason whatsoever? I can't fathom that. So it has to be fiction, and then I think of MUDs, Mystic Quest, WoW, and Elvira. Scary can be part of end of repetition. Also, repetition in gaming is a means to deal with lack of [other] content. In non-fiction that sound you hear in an empty building is probably some homeless person, a prisoner, sex slave, or all three: you ended up in a SM basement. The probability of that is near zero, so shrug it off as fiction. The beauty of fiction is: if you don't like it, if you don't get it, if it gives you inspiration to something competely different -- you are free to do so. Whereas with non-fiction, reality and facts (or laws) may haunt you into oblivion. E.g. paralysis on judgment day.
- nkrisc 2y agoDitto. What am I supposed to make of this: > This time, I found a level called The Crystal Fields (Level 894). It consists of 300,000 square miles of waving emerald grass dotted by modern windmills, with blue crystal growths spawning throughout. It’s a place of calm, barring the threat of Krystalrs. What are Krystalrs? Giant crystal spiders that burrow underground and cause hallucinations. Also an orb named Jason lives here. Are the bland writings of 12 year olds noteworthy now? It’s a wiki of bad fiction? As far as I can there’s there’s not even a story. Is it supposed to be scary? And now there’s a movie?
- hoseja 2y ago[+++ But as a general rule—which you are free to steal—I don’t like to align with any group described as “purist!” +++] A really terrible redditor heuristic.
- rustcleaner 2y ago@dang Need to bugfix comments on Android Firefox: -While not logged in, write a comment, -Press "add comment," -Go "Oh shit!" and press back to go back to the text box (to copy contents), -See text box is now empty, so you press Forward in the browser to maybe recover by logging in, -Noope! Browser requests to resend data, hangs and never loads (I presume this is being filtered serverside because a second POST looks funny), -Now screwed with no original comment text Expected behavior: -The original comment is there when I first press back, AND/OR -The server accepts the second POST when I press forward, and Firefox prompts to resend the data for the 'expired' page. Thank you! :^)
- gregoryl 2y agohn@ycombinator.com gets you fairly quick replies :)