The Evolution of the Backrooms
Level 0 - Threshold
4chan
Next
Level 1 - Habitable Zone
Reddit
Next
Level 2 - Abandoned Utility Halls
Creepypasta
Next
Level 3 - Electrical Station
Expansion
Next
Level 4 - The Abandoned Office
Mainstream
Next
Level 5 - Terror Hotel
Content Farming
Next
Level 6 - Lights Out
2026
Level 7 - Thalassophobia
The Division
A few weeks after the creation of r/backrooms, on May 29th, a second subreddit, r/TrueBackrooms, is made. The first post describes the subreddit as the "Backrooms without fluff." The posts on r/TrueBackrooms center around the idea that Backrooms content has started to lose its authenticity less than a month after the concept is created. There are strict posting guidelines that define what is and what is not to be accepted in the subreddit. Most notable is the exclusion of monsters and other entities roaming the Backrooms, which they argue detract from the liminality of the threshold by making the unknown more knowable. This negotiation for authentic content also begins on r/backrooms, but it takes a different stance. Here, people are mostly concerned with the decreasing quality of Backrooms content, expressing frustration at the oversaturation of retellings. Notably, unlike the name of r/TrueBackrooms suggests, r/backrooms grows to understand that there is no one "true" consenus on what the Backrooms is characterized by. Still, users do not shy away from asking explicit questions about whether or not certain variations of the Backrooms are acceptable in the eyes of the larger community. Collaboration and sincerity emerge as core values of this group.
Redditors continue to imagine what it may feel like to be in the Backrooms. Like the original 4chan post, the narrative additions use the second-person "you" to immerse the reader deeper into the uncomfortable atmosphere. The jump from 4chan to Reddit, introducing a thorough social filtering of the Backrooms concept, can partially be attributed to the nature of both platforms: 4chan is characterized by anonymity and constant change of topic, while Reddit caters more to niche communities with often intense specificity.
With various video content emerging as common forms of legend performance, certain audio files begin to be associated with the Backrooms. Some surface before Parsons's videos, such as the song "It's just a burning memory" by The Caretaker from the playlist "Everywhere at the End of Time," which is a 6.5-hour-long project intended to emulate the six stages of dementia. Most audios, though, came to be associated with the Backrooms after the start of Parsons's series in 2022. TikTok videos were especially important in circulating audio content, putting images of liminal spaces to songs like "7 Weeks & 3 Days" by Yungatita and "School Rooftop" by Hisohkah. As well, Parsons created an original soundtrack for his series, which is also associated with the Backrooms at large. The audios often include features like distorted audio, repetition, reverb, and background noise, all amplifying feelings of nostalgia, isolation, and dread, a strange contrast that relates to the notion of liminality.
More examples of Backrooms content farming.
More replies with media comparisons.
Reddit Surge
Just a few days after the 4chan post is created, the story makes its way to Reddit. Under the subreddit r/greentext, where Redditors reupload short stories from 4chan, a post by user u/HarambeTheFox is captioned "Worse than any creepypasta out there" with an attached image of the original story and photo, which has since been deleted. The discourse takes off quickly from here. Redditors describe the eerie feeling they get from the post, namely that it feels unsettling but nostalgic, like a place they have been but cannot remember. They talk about the potential it possesses for creating a larger story; more short narratives engaging with the Backrooms are uploaded to the comments, rapidly expanding the concept. At this point, the Backrooms is not yet a creepypasta, but the horror of the concept earns it numerous comparisons to the genre.
The creators engaging with the legend gain significant viewership, earning them not only internet attention but financial revenue. This latter appeal encourages some to capitalize on the topic, with content that uses oversaturated elements of the Backrooms and reduces the novelty felt by each new interpretation, which is but another reappearance of this particular frustration in the community. As well, with the younger audience present on YouTube, some creators begin making Backrooms content specifically aimed at children, who they find are more inclined to enjoy content regardless of how much substance it has. This content appears across digital spaces frequented by kids, like Instagram reels, TikTok shorts, Roblox, Fortnite, etc. Common themes in this type of content are the use of AI to generate visuals and audio, a constant change of frame and jumpscares that target shorter attention spans, and the inclusion of popular culture references.
The Backrooms level system, which categorizes the imagined rooms as parts of the collective threshold, is created. Levels are established as physically changeable, allowing multiple variations of the same level to exist without the need to regard contradiction. This helps encourage the collaborative nature of the mythos. To the left is a photo of a dark hallway in Level 3 from one of the Backrooms wikis.
The debate over the most authentic Backrooms narrative is not confined to the bounds of its subreddits and flows onto other platforms. On YouTube, the nature of long-form content encourages videos interpreting the Backrooms or going over one particular version of the narrative to become especially popular, rather than just legend onstension performed through first-hand narratives. These comments on one such video, "An Interpretation of the Backrooms" by A-Mart, reveal that the idea of monsters and levels reappears as a major point of contention, with the argument centering around the most effective elements of horror. Many argue that the psychological torture of the unknowable is the scariest choice. These users refer back to the original 4chan post's vague liminality, with its emphasis on discomfort and the unknown, and note that its mentions of entities can easily be attributed to a person's hallucination, a line of thinking similar to that of the members of r/TrueBackrooms.
A24 Movie
As many people predicted, Kane Pixels ends up directing his own Backrooms feature film. A24 announces the collaboration in 2023, but the teasers and trailor only start to come out in March 2026. The movie is anticipated to be released on May 29th, 2026. Reception for the film is in part hesitant at first, with concerns about Hollywood-style production making the film feel financially motivated or taking away from the depth of the content's substance. This is the same concern many users had back in 2022 when predicting that Hollywood would capitalize on Parsons's story concept. However, there is still hope for success, as the film production depends on the vernacular authority of a widely accepted Backrooms creator, which will ideally make the movie feel less institutional and thus more authentic.
Coordinated with the liminal existence of the Backrooms as being somewhere other than reality, Redditors characterize the concept with a dream-like familiarity, something vaguely nostalgic but not identifiable.
The Backrooms narrative is not finished, and it is perhaps incapable of ending completely. With the nature of its crowdsourced narrative and the appeal of the movie set to come out in May of 2026, people can expect to see even more engagement with the legend in the near future. The Backrooms demonstrates the potential of digital folklore in creating communities as well as illustrates the process of negotiation in collaborative storytelling. This particular legend will be remembered for its impressive reach, emerging from an image on 4chan and eventually becoming a 2-hour-long film on the big screen.
The divide within the Backrooms community over the elements of the unknown is intensified by Parsons's videos. The YouTuber's use of Backrooms entities is apparent from the first video in his web series, which receives mixed feedback, a sentiment that follows the logic of the initial subreddit divide. These comments are from Parson's first installment of the series.
Many replies at this stage of the legend cycle compare the Backrooms narrative to other media, establishing an initial tone and, somewhat, storyboarding ideas for a larger story. One user was reminded of this video of a man lost in the Paris Catacombs, which embodies a simlarly suffocating liminality.
Some concept images of entities documented on the Backrooms Fandom wiki.
Computer-generated and found footage short films on YouTube inspired by Kane Pixels often focus on specific levels of the Backrooms. These particular examples range from 500,000 to 20 million views.
4chan
On May 12th, 2019, a thread is created on 4chan's /x/ board, which hosts discussions of paranormal content, prompting users to share "disquieting images that just feel 'off.'" The anonymous creator attaches their own photo to the thread: an angled view of an empty yellow room. Another anonymous user adds a short narrative in the replies of the thread to accompany the original image. This interaction is the unknowing start of what would later become a widespread creepypasta; the Backrooms is a collaborative idea from the start. The early story is characterized by a description of a consuming liminality, meaning a representation of a threshold or in-between state, intended to unsettle readers. It establishes that entering the imagined "Backrooms" is accidental, accomplished by "no-clipping," a video game term that implies travel rapid enough to move through solid objects.
YouTubers
The immense popularity of Parsons's series creates a specific subcommunity focused on analyzing his content, trying to decipher the truth behind the narrative that is uniquely his interpretation of the Backrooms. This investigative nature continues in the comments of theory videos and onto a new wiki dedicated to Parsons's series, adding a new layer of collaboration in the effort to conceptualize the unknown. From Parsons's popularizing of the Backrooms content also emerged a trend of YouTubers posting their playthroughs of Backrooms games. Creators with immense platforms, such as Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, widen the audience of the legend even deeper.
Kane Pixels
In early January of 2022, 16-year-old YouTuber Kane Pixels (Kane Parsons) starts his series, "The Backrooms (Found Footage)." This initiates the most significant popularity spike the community will ever see, with the video quickly reaching millions of views. What would later become a 22-video series is arguably the most well-known interpretation of the Backrooms, and as of April 2026, it sits at over 76 million views. It meets the quality many members of the community have been asking for since 2019, like its detailed environments and realistic camera work, which is particularly impressive considering that the content is all computer-generated.
Still, Parsons's series is not safe from criticism. Once the series is well-established in the community, users across social platforms begin debating whether or not Parsons "ruined" the Backrooms. One point of contention is the reach that the series has garnered. Some think that the community's deviation from nicheness has backfired, causing content to be overproduced with redundant details, which is coupled with a perceived shallow intent to get views. This argument of oversaturated content is one that appeared only weeks after the Backrooms 4chan post was made, necessitating novelty as a core value of this community. Others find that Parsons allows a revived energy to flourish in the community, noting that the Backrooms cannot really be "ruined" because it does not have one canonical interpretation.
A reddit post from June 23, 2019, by u/ZenWoR shows the level system in active negotiation, citing the Backrooms wiki as one resource for tracking the widely accepted lore. The first Backrooms wiki was made via Fandom, and another popular one was made via WikiDot. The vernacular authority of these documentations creates mass preference for certain iterations of the Backrooms.
Above is an archive of the original 2019 4chan thread. Below is an archive of the narrative response added to the thread. The image of the combined narrative and original photo was made two days after, on May 14th. The edited combination is most associated with the origin of the Backrooms.
More Mediums
From 2019-2022, new Backrooms content is created constantly. In late July of 2019, the first video game inspired by the Backrooms is published on Steam, and a few Backrooms experiences are made on Roblox. With the positive reception of the games, the Backrooms community keeps encouraging novel creative endeavors and spreads the story across more platforms.
In March 2020, TikTok sees an increase in Backrooms posts, pushing the niche boundary of the community outward. Backrooms videos on YouTube shift to adapt to the mechanics of the platform, namely creating longer content. The found-footage style of legend onstension becomes a particular staple in the community. The negotiation of authenticity continues to expand; people are interested in the Backroom's atmosphere, and creators are praised when they can make horrifying content that doesn't rely on jumpscares. Once again, there is a widely-accepted focus on using the concept of the unknown to channel the most striking sense of horror.
Comments on a 2019 Backrooms video experience by Evan Royalty titled "INTO THE BACKROOMS" on YouTube show the transparency of people negotiating what they like and dislike in Backrooms content. For Backrooms video content, people typically lean toward realistic and atmospheric depictions of fear.
New criticism is also introduced with the surge of short film content like Parsons's. Some users find that the immersion of the videos are ruined by YouTube's constant insertion of unskippable ads. As well, within weeks of the first video being posted, many users identify the potential the series has to become a feature film, but they also cite worry that Hollywood would "ruin" the atmosphere Parsons has created. Regardless, Parsons's series remains immensely popular on YouTube and is largely positively received. These comments are from the first installment of the series.
Content farming is another element of contention in negotiating authenticity, wherein people mostly criticize the lack of creativity and novelty in engagements with the Backrooms. But some of the criticism also condemns the exploitative nature of content farm channels, which often embed disturbing, violent themes into their content, even though it is aimed at children. The Backrooms community still flourishes after this point, but many are left with a negative attitude toward later engagements with the concept.
The first known 4chan appearance of the iconic Backrooms image is from April 21st, 2018. It is posted to a thread captioned "cursed images" created the day before, on April 20th. The exact origins of the photo are unknown, but it can be traced back to as early as 2011.
Some of the other images users replied with on the /x/ unsettling images thread.
Like the post on r/greentext, the comments under u/yourdndguy's creepypasta continue to participate in the legend and develop the mythos surrounding the Backrooms. Many people share real personal narratives that the Backrooms creepypasta had reminded them of, and others further the crowdsourced lore with fictional accounts of entering the Backrooms. People also begin to imagine narratives that deviate slightly from the creepypasta. They create shifts in details, like that of the monsters roaming the halls, and begin to think of new mediums to tell the story.
Reviews on the first Backrooms Steam game, The Backrooms Game FREE Edition by Pie On A Plate Productions, discuss their likes and dislikes, owing to the larger negotiation process. Once more, an appreciation for the atmosphere and the fear of the unknown appears, as well as criticism of redundancy and technical issues. The medium used to convey variations of Backrooms engagements start to become more relevant in these conversations.
This text is included under the original posting guidelines for r/TrueBackrooms. Interestingly, this subreddit is especially opposed to the idea of "Otherworldly entities" in the Backrooms, though the original 4chan post explicitly mentions the possibility of other beings. Recall that it read, "God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you." The subreddit believes that this line describes the mind imagining a monster rather than defining their existence, intentionally maintaining this unknowable aspect of the threshold. This group then focuses on the initial emotional response created by the idea of liminality in the Backrooms and seeks to emulate it.
Redditors also begin to ask questions about the narrative, creating an opportunity for further expansions of the Backrooms mythos. This is a glimpse into the early social filtering of the creepypasta, wherein the collective negotiates the widely-accepted storytelling.
The meme content from the early subreddit usually features references to other forms of media and pop culture. When users join the subreddit and ask what the Backrooms entails, confused by the realism of the first-hand narratives, the replies typically describe it as one big meme. The humor, though, does not detract from efforts to deepen the lore. The mythos being founded in the satire of such a strange place, inclusion of the non-sensical and similar creative choices linger even when non-memetic content grows in the subreddit.
Creepypasta Status
On May 17th, 2019, Redditor u/Claykid12345 uploads a Backrooms-inspired story to the r/creepypasta subreddit. A day later, on May 18th, Redditor u/yourdndguy writes a second, longer Backrooms creepypasta and uploads it to the subreddit r/nosleep. While u/Claykid12345's story is technically the first iteration of the Backrooms as a creepypasta, u/yourdndguy's version gets significantly more traction on Reddit. Regardless, both stories set a narrative precedent for other variations of Backrooms content to come.
Both stories are first-person narratives describing a person's accidental transport into the Backrooms. This is a notable deviation from the brief narratives seen thus far; instead of using the second-person "you" and imagining the reader being in the Backrooms, these stories create characters that have made their way to the liminal space. They do still address the person who is reading their story, maintaining the original immersion factor. Both first-person and second-person styles continue to prevail in the community after this point, but the inclusion of external characters creates more potential for variations of the story. The creepypasta descriptions emphasize the physical sensations of the liminal space, such as the discomforting noises and smells, and introduce evidence of creatures potentially roaming the Backrooms.
Multi-Media
The subreddit r/backrooms is created on May 16th. The earliest posts on the subreddit are mostly memes that joke about what could be lurking inside the Backrooms. But by June, more and more posts are made in earnest, or at least with a cognitive dissonance of earnestness, deliberating the depths of the creepypasta. A "level" system of the Backrooms is created, categorizing the labyrinth of rooms, from short narratives and more photos of liminal spaces. Users also begin to make video content, playing with combinations of audio and image to explore how unsettling the Backrooms can become.
The videos range greatly in content. Some depict stagnant liminal images overlayed with unceasing monotonous noise. Some use other platforms to create content, such as users recording their Backrooms builds in the sandbox videogame Minecraft or making short computer animations of a person wandering through the imagined threshold. There are even proposals from game developers asking if anyone would be interested in Backrooms video games. This use of medium also results in the spread of the Backrooms to new social media platforms, like YouTube and Twitter, which become vessels of transmission for the legend cycle.
As more marketing comes out for the movie, the reception becomes more positive. The teasers focus on maintaining the element of the unknown, the ever-constant determiner of authenticity in this community. As well, teasers include many of the iconic audios that have come to be associated with the Backrooms, and they initiate the story within the original monotonous-yellow room, paying something of respect to the content that precedes it. The film is also unique in its use of both practical and CGI sets, and includes moments of found footage style camerawork, the style that made the Backrooms so popular in 2022. Additionally, the movie has sparked another wind in motivating creators and enthusiasts of Backrooms content, encouraged by the effect of the teasers in producing effective and novel horror. This contrasts with some of the negative emotions created by content-farm channels, and the R rating of the film reaffirms the audience of the Backrooms as adults and not children.
The Evolution of the Backrooms
Emma D
Created on April 16, 2026
Start designing with a free template
Discover more than 1500 professional designs like these:
View
Essential Map
View
Akihabara Map
View
Discover Your AI Assistant
View
Match the Verbs in Spanish: Present and Past
View
Syllabus Organizer for Higher Education
View
History Infographic
View
Visual Thinking Infographic
Explore all templates
Transcript
The Evolution of the Backrooms
Level 0 - Threshold
4chan
Next
Level 1 - Habitable Zone
Reddit
Next
Level 2 - Abandoned Utility Halls
Creepypasta
Next
Level 3 - Electrical Station
Expansion
Next
Level 4 - The Abandoned Office
Mainstream
Next
Level 5 - Terror Hotel
Content Farming
Next
Level 6 - Lights Out
2026
Level 7 - Thalassophobia
The Division
A few weeks after the creation of r/backrooms, on May 29th, a second subreddit, r/TrueBackrooms, is made. The first post describes the subreddit as the "Backrooms without fluff." The posts on r/TrueBackrooms center around the idea that Backrooms content has started to lose its authenticity less than a month after the concept is created. There are strict posting guidelines that define what is and what is not to be accepted in the subreddit. Most notable is the exclusion of monsters and other entities roaming the Backrooms, which they argue detract from the liminality of the threshold by making the unknown more knowable. This negotiation for authentic content also begins on r/backrooms, but it takes a different stance. Here, people are mostly concerned with the decreasing quality of Backrooms content, expressing frustration at the oversaturation of retellings. Notably, unlike the name of r/TrueBackrooms suggests, r/backrooms grows to understand that there is no one "true" consenus on what the Backrooms is characterized by. Still, users do not shy away from asking explicit questions about whether or not certain variations of the Backrooms are acceptable in the eyes of the larger community. Collaboration and sincerity emerge as core values of this group.
Redditors continue to imagine what it may feel like to be in the Backrooms. Like the original 4chan post, the narrative additions use the second-person "you" to immerse the reader deeper into the uncomfortable atmosphere. The jump from 4chan to Reddit, introducing a thorough social filtering of the Backrooms concept, can partially be attributed to the nature of both platforms: 4chan is characterized by anonymity and constant change of topic, while Reddit caters more to niche communities with often intense specificity.
With various video content emerging as common forms of legend performance, certain audio files begin to be associated with the Backrooms. Some surface before Parsons's videos, such as the song "It's just a burning memory" by The Caretaker from the playlist "Everywhere at the End of Time," which is a 6.5-hour-long project intended to emulate the six stages of dementia. Most audios, though, came to be associated with the Backrooms after the start of Parsons's series in 2022. TikTok videos were especially important in circulating audio content, putting images of liminal spaces to songs like "7 Weeks & 3 Days" by Yungatita and "School Rooftop" by Hisohkah. As well, Parsons created an original soundtrack for his series, which is also associated with the Backrooms at large. The audios often include features like distorted audio, repetition, reverb, and background noise, all amplifying feelings of nostalgia, isolation, and dread, a strange contrast that relates to the notion of liminality.
More examples of Backrooms content farming.
More replies with media comparisons.
Reddit Surge
Just a few days after the 4chan post is created, the story makes its way to Reddit. Under the subreddit r/greentext, where Redditors reupload short stories from 4chan, a post by user u/HarambeTheFox is captioned "Worse than any creepypasta out there" with an attached image of the original story and photo, which has since been deleted. The discourse takes off quickly from here. Redditors describe the eerie feeling they get from the post, namely that it feels unsettling but nostalgic, like a place they have been but cannot remember. They talk about the potential it possesses for creating a larger story; more short narratives engaging with the Backrooms are uploaded to the comments, rapidly expanding the concept. At this point, the Backrooms is not yet a creepypasta, but the horror of the concept earns it numerous comparisons to the genre.
The creators engaging with the legend gain significant viewership, earning them not only internet attention but financial revenue. This latter appeal encourages some to capitalize on the topic, with content that uses oversaturated elements of the Backrooms and reduces the novelty felt by each new interpretation, which is but another reappearance of this particular frustration in the community. As well, with the younger audience present on YouTube, some creators begin making Backrooms content specifically aimed at children, who they find are more inclined to enjoy content regardless of how much substance it has. This content appears across digital spaces frequented by kids, like Instagram reels, TikTok shorts, Roblox, Fortnite, etc. Common themes in this type of content are the use of AI to generate visuals and audio, a constant change of frame and jumpscares that target shorter attention spans, and the inclusion of popular culture references.
The Backrooms level system, which categorizes the imagined rooms as parts of the collective threshold, is created. Levels are established as physically changeable, allowing multiple variations of the same level to exist without the need to regard contradiction. This helps encourage the collaborative nature of the mythos. To the left is a photo of a dark hallway in Level 3 from one of the Backrooms wikis.
The debate over the most authentic Backrooms narrative is not confined to the bounds of its subreddits and flows onto other platforms. On YouTube, the nature of long-form content encourages videos interpreting the Backrooms or going over one particular version of the narrative to become especially popular, rather than just legend onstension performed through first-hand narratives. These comments on one such video, "An Interpretation of the Backrooms" by A-Mart, reveal that the idea of monsters and levels reappears as a major point of contention, with the argument centering around the most effective elements of horror. Many argue that the psychological torture of the unknowable is the scariest choice. These users refer back to the original 4chan post's vague liminality, with its emphasis on discomfort and the unknown, and note that its mentions of entities can easily be attributed to a person's hallucination, a line of thinking similar to that of the members of r/TrueBackrooms.
A24 Movie
As many people predicted, Kane Pixels ends up directing his own Backrooms feature film. A24 announces the collaboration in 2023, but the teasers and trailor only start to come out in March 2026. The movie is anticipated to be released on May 29th, 2026. Reception for the film is in part hesitant at first, with concerns about Hollywood-style production making the film feel financially motivated or taking away from the depth of the content's substance. This is the same concern many users had back in 2022 when predicting that Hollywood would capitalize on Parsons's story concept. However, there is still hope for success, as the film production depends on the vernacular authority of a widely accepted Backrooms creator, which will ideally make the movie feel less institutional and thus more authentic.
Coordinated with the liminal existence of the Backrooms as being somewhere other than reality, Redditors characterize the concept with a dream-like familiarity, something vaguely nostalgic but not identifiable.
The Backrooms narrative is not finished, and it is perhaps incapable of ending completely. With the nature of its crowdsourced narrative and the appeal of the movie set to come out in May of 2026, people can expect to see even more engagement with the legend in the near future. The Backrooms demonstrates the potential of digital folklore in creating communities as well as illustrates the process of negotiation in collaborative storytelling. This particular legend will be remembered for its impressive reach, emerging from an image on 4chan and eventually becoming a 2-hour-long film on the big screen.
The divide within the Backrooms community over the elements of the unknown is intensified by Parsons's videos. The YouTuber's use of Backrooms entities is apparent from the first video in his web series, which receives mixed feedback, a sentiment that follows the logic of the initial subreddit divide. These comments are from Parson's first installment of the series.
Many replies at this stage of the legend cycle compare the Backrooms narrative to other media, establishing an initial tone and, somewhat, storyboarding ideas for a larger story. One user was reminded of this video of a man lost in the Paris Catacombs, which embodies a simlarly suffocating liminality.
Some concept images of entities documented on the Backrooms Fandom wiki.
Computer-generated and found footage short films on YouTube inspired by Kane Pixels often focus on specific levels of the Backrooms. These particular examples range from 500,000 to 20 million views.
4chan
On May 12th, 2019, a thread is created on 4chan's /x/ board, which hosts discussions of paranormal content, prompting users to share "disquieting images that just feel 'off.'" The anonymous creator attaches their own photo to the thread: an angled view of an empty yellow room. Another anonymous user adds a short narrative in the replies of the thread to accompany the original image. This interaction is the unknowing start of what would later become a widespread creepypasta; the Backrooms is a collaborative idea from the start. The early story is characterized by a description of a consuming liminality, meaning a representation of a threshold or in-between state, intended to unsettle readers. It establishes that entering the imagined "Backrooms" is accidental, accomplished by "no-clipping," a video game term that implies travel rapid enough to move through solid objects.
YouTubers
The immense popularity of Parsons's series creates a specific subcommunity focused on analyzing his content, trying to decipher the truth behind the narrative that is uniquely his interpretation of the Backrooms. This investigative nature continues in the comments of theory videos and onto a new wiki dedicated to Parsons's series, adding a new layer of collaboration in the effort to conceptualize the unknown. From Parsons's popularizing of the Backrooms content also emerged a trend of YouTubers posting their playthroughs of Backrooms games. Creators with immense platforms, such as Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, widen the audience of the legend even deeper.
Kane Pixels
In early January of 2022, 16-year-old YouTuber Kane Pixels (Kane Parsons) starts his series, "The Backrooms (Found Footage)." This initiates the most significant popularity spike the community will ever see, with the video quickly reaching millions of views. What would later become a 22-video series is arguably the most well-known interpretation of the Backrooms, and as of April 2026, it sits at over 76 million views. It meets the quality many members of the community have been asking for since 2019, like its detailed environments and realistic camera work, which is particularly impressive considering that the content is all computer-generated.
Still, Parsons's series is not safe from criticism. Once the series is well-established in the community, users across social platforms begin debating whether or not Parsons "ruined" the Backrooms. One point of contention is the reach that the series has garnered. Some think that the community's deviation from nicheness has backfired, causing content to be overproduced with redundant details, which is coupled with a perceived shallow intent to get views. This argument of oversaturated content is one that appeared only weeks after the Backrooms 4chan post was made, necessitating novelty as a core value of this community. Others find that Parsons allows a revived energy to flourish in the community, noting that the Backrooms cannot really be "ruined" because it does not have one canonical interpretation.
A reddit post from June 23, 2019, by u/ZenWoR shows the level system in active negotiation, citing the Backrooms wiki as one resource for tracking the widely accepted lore. The first Backrooms wiki was made via Fandom, and another popular one was made via WikiDot. The vernacular authority of these documentations creates mass preference for certain iterations of the Backrooms.
Above is an archive of the original 2019 4chan thread. Below is an archive of the narrative response added to the thread. The image of the combined narrative and original photo was made two days after, on May 14th. The edited combination is most associated with the origin of the Backrooms.
More Mediums
From 2019-2022, new Backrooms content is created constantly. In late July of 2019, the first video game inspired by the Backrooms is published on Steam, and a few Backrooms experiences are made on Roblox. With the positive reception of the games, the Backrooms community keeps encouraging novel creative endeavors and spreads the story across more platforms.
In March 2020, TikTok sees an increase in Backrooms posts, pushing the niche boundary of the community outward. Backrooms videos on YouTube shift to adapt to the mechanics of the platform, namely creating longer content. The found-footage style of legend onstension becomes a particular staple in the community. The negotiation of authenticity continues to expand; people are interested in the Backroom's atmosphere, and creators are praised when they can make horrifying content that doesn't rely on jumpscares. Once again, there is a widely-accepted focus on using the concept of the unknown to channel the most striking sense of horror.
Comments on a 2019 Backrooms video experience by Evan Royalty titled "INTO THE BACKROOMS" on YouTube show the transparency of people negotiating what they like and dislike in Backrooms content. For Backrooms video content, people typically lean toward realistic and atmospheric depictions of fear.
New criticism is also introduced with the surge of short film content like Parsons's. Some users find that the immersion of the videos are ruined by YouTube's constant insertion of unskippable ads. As well, within weeks of the first video being posted, many users identify the potential the series has to become a feature film, but they also cite worry that Hollywood would "ruin" the atmosphere Parsons has created. Regardless, Parsons's series remains immensely popular on YouTube and is largely positively received. These comments are from the first installment of the series.
Content farming is another element of contention in negotiating authenticity, wherein people mostly criticize the lack of creativity and novelty in engagements with the Backrooms. But some of the criticism also condemns the exploitative nature of content farm channels, which often embed disturbing, violent themes into their content, even though it is aimed at children. The Backrooms community still flourishes after this point, but many are left with a negative attitude toward later engagements with the concept.
The first known 4chan appearance of the iconic Backrooms image is from April 21st, 2018. It is posted to a thread captioned "cursed images" created the day before, on April 20th. The exact origins of the photo are unknown, but it can be traced back to as early as 2011.
Some of the other images users replied with on the /x/ unsettling images thread.
Like the post on r/greentext, the comments under u/yourdndguy's creepypasta continue to participate in the legend and develop the mythos surrounding the Backrooms. Many people share real personal narratives that the Backrooms creepypasta had reminded them of, and others further the crowdsourced lore with fictional accounts of entering the Backrooms. People also begin to imagine narratives that deviate slightly from the creepypasta. They create shifts in details, like that of the monsters roaming the halls, and begin to think of new mediums to tell the story.
Reviews on the first Backrooms Steam game, The Backrooms Game FREE Edition by Pie On A Plate Productions, discuss their likes and dislikes, owing to the larger negotiation process. Once more, an appreciation for the atmosphere and the fear of the unknown appears, as well as criticism of redundancy and technical issues. The medium used to convey variations of Backrooms engagements start to become more relevant in these conversations.
This text is included under the original posting guidelines for r/TrueBackrooms. Interestingly, this subreddit is especially opposed to the idea of "Otherworldly entities" in the Backrooms, though the original 4chan post explicitly mentions the possibility of other beings. Recall that it read, "God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you." The subreddit believes that this line describes the mind imagining a monster rather than defining their existence, intentionally maintaining this unknowable aspect of the threshold. This group then focuses on the initial emotional response created by the idea of liminality in the Backrooms and seeks to emulate it.
Redditors also begin to ask questions about the narrative, creating an opportunity for further expansions of the Backrooms mythos. This is a glimpse into the early social filtering of the creepypasta, wherein the collective negotiates the widely-accepted storytelling.
The meme content from the early subreddit usually features references to other forms of media and pop culture. When users join the subreddit and ask what the Backrooms entails, confused by the realism of the first-hand narratives, the replies typically describe it as one big meme. The humor, though, does not detract from efforts to deepen the lore. The mythos being founded in the satire of such a strange place, inclusion of the non-sensical and similar creative choices linger even when non-memetic content grows in the subreddit.
Creepypasta Status
On May 17th, 2019, Redditor u/Claykid12345 uploads a Backrooms-inspired story to the r/creepypasta subreddit. A day later, on May 18th, Redditor u/yourdndguy writes a second, longer Backrooms creepypasta and uploads it to the subreddit r/nosleep. While u/Claykid12345's story is technically the first iteration of the Backrooms as a creepypasta, u/yourdndguy's version gets significantly more traction on Reddit. Regardless, both stories set a narrative precedent for other variations of Backrooms content to come.
Both stories are first-person narratives describing a person's accidental transport into the Backrooms. This is a notable deviation from the brief narratives seen thus far; instead of using the second-person "you" and imagining the reader being in the Backrooms, these stories create characters that have made their way to the liminal space. They do still address the person who is reading their story, maintaining the original immersion factor. Both first-person and second-person styles continue to prevail in the community after this point, but the inclusion of external characters creates more potential for variations of the story. The creepypasta descriptions emphasize the physical sensations of the liminal space, such as the discomforting noises and smells, and introduce evidence of creatures potentially roaming the Backrooms.
Multi-Media
The subreddit r/backrooms is created on May 16th. The earliest posts on the subreddit are mostly memes that joke about what could be lurking inside the Backrooms. But by June, more and more posts are made in earnest, or at least with a cognitive dissonance of earnestness, deliberating the depths of the creepypasta. A "level" system of the Backrooms is created, categorizing the labyrinth of rooms, from short narratives and more photos of liminal spaces. Users also begin to make video content, playing with combinations of audio and image to explore how unsettling the Backrooms can become.
The videos range greatly in content. Some depict stagnant liminal images overlayed with unceasing monotonous noise. Some use other platforms to create content, such as users recording their Backrooms builds in the sandbox videogame Minecraft or making short computer animations of a person wandering through the imagined threshold. There are even proposals from game developers asking if anyone would be interested in Backrooms video games. This use of medium also results in the spread of the Backrooms to new social media platforms, like YouTube and Twitter, which become vessels of transmission for the legend cycle.
As more marketing comes out for the movie, the reception becomes more positive. The teasers focus on maintaining the element of the unknown, the ever-constant determiner of authenticity in this community. As well, teasers include many of the iconic audios that have come to be associated with the Backrooms, and they initiate the story within the original monotonous-yellow room, paying something of respect to the content that precedes it. The film is also unique in its use of both practical and CGI sets, and includes moments of found footage style camerawork, the style that made the Backrooms so popular in 2022. Additionally, the movie has sparked another wind in motivating creators and enthusiasts of Backrooms content, encouraged by the effect of the teasers in producing effective and novel horror. This contrasts with some of the negative emotions created by content-farm channels, and the R rating of the film reaffirms the audience of the Backrooms as adults and not children.