Note: Much of this essay is inspired by the book Exit Reality by Valentina Tanni. Please buy her book and read it for yourself if you can.
Introduction
Why are the Backrooms so scary, and why are we even scared by something like it? This probably comes across as a silly question. The Backrooms separates you from your life, dropping you into a completely unknown place with no preparation, supplies, or warning. You have no idea when you could fall in, and you have no idea what is there to greet you. It’s endless and inescapable (or unreasonably hard to escape, depending on who you ask). There are hostile creatures ready to kill you, and you have no knowledge or tools to defend yourself. The concept is terrifying, but why does it grip so many people on the internet? Considering the topic, the Backrooms are a lot like the wilderness. Many people don’t know how to survive without human technology. It’s also actually possible to be lost in the wilderness; the wild isn’t in another dimension like the Backrooms, and it exists in close proximity to almost everyone on the planet. Why would slipping into an alternate dimension be a more gripping fear to the internet than a myriad of other scary and very real terrors?
It isn’t because slipping into the Backrooms and being eaten by a monster is a genuine concern for the most part. We’re afraid of something else entirely, and the Backrooms is only a symbol to conceptualize it.
On Liminality
While liminality isn’t strictly necessary for something to be considered related to the Backrooms these days, it’s still important to establish what it is. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives us this definition of “liminal”:
of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : IN-BETWEEN, TRANSITIONAL1
At its core, a liminal space is a place of transition. The phrase “liminal space” is frequently used to describe places that feel off-putting rather than being technically liminal, but that happens because people conflate the feelings of discomfort that come from seeing liminal space imagery with the word “liminal” itself. Either way, something about a liminal space is uncomfortable. This makes sense—transitions of all kinds are often difficult, interrupt comfortable routines, don’t allow time for rest, and are generally an unpleasant experience.
However, we can go further beyond that explanation. The emptiness of a liminal space makes us uncomfortable for two reasons: one, a core component of its “normal” state is missing, and two, we’re afraid of what might come next. Valentina Tanni offers another definition of liminality as “the experience of waiting for something that hasn’t happened yet or something that might happen.”2 A school hallway with the lights off and nobody in sight. A living room with no furniture or decor. A street with a stop sign and no cars to wait at its intersection. An aspect that we consider crucial to these places is missing in these examples, and when we imagine these scenes in our minds, we feel unsettled. These images can imply a change or shift toward something we don’t know or can’t predict, and that implication scares us. If the people are all gone, are we next? Did something destroy the rest of the scene just out of view in the image? Where are we going? What’s happening? None of these questions have answers. All we have is too little of the scene to seem right and too much uncertainty to feel secure. The transition is already bad enough, but now we don’t even know what’s to come.
Liminality is “the dividing line between the familiar and the unknown”3 according to Tanni, but I consider it to be more of a doorway. It reminds us that there’s something out there that we don’t know. I call it a doorway because I don’t consider liminality a separator but instead a connector; by looking at an image of a liminal space, we’re standing right next to the unknown.
On Nostalgia
Another important topic related to liminality is nostalgia. While not all liminal space imagery is nostalgic, nostalgia is its frequent companion. Liminal images often reach into childhood memory to deepen the discomfort. Tanni specifically mentions that liminal space images focusing on childhood evoke nostalgia and “remind us of memories”4. Think of a photo of an elementary school classroom that resembles one you once sat in. You’ve likely never been inside of that room, but you recognize the general appearance of the room. You remember your real childhood classrooms because that image, while inaccurate, is just close enough. Your nostalgia for the past is a powerful guiding force in liminal spaces. The familiar is what you know. The unfamiliar lies beyond it. Liminality is the place where the two join hands, and nostalgia assists in making that connection.
The following observation from Tanni completely changed the way I view the whole concept. She quotes Svetlana Boym’s essay The Future of Nostalgia: “Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy.”5 Tanni follows this up by saying, “[t]he ideal terrain for nostalgia is therefore not memory, but imagination.”6 We so often think of nostalgia as a byproduct of our memories. It comes about because we’re reflecting on our memories, but how much is actually about accurate reflection? If you consider nostalgia to be another form of imagination, quite a few things make sense. It explains how people hold nostalgia for something they never experienced. It explains how people are nostalgic for the past despite the lower quality of life in those times. It explains how people seemingly make up completely fabricated versions of the past to be nostalgic for.
At the risk of sounding silly, nostalgia is fan fiction about the past that we create for the purpose of escapism.
On Escapism
Why do the Backrooms exist? Why are we so scared of an idea so far removed from something that would actually happen to us? There are plenty of fears that are unlikely but still more grounded in reality, like car accidents, armed robbery, or gas explosions. We know that these kinds of terrible events happen, because we hear about them through sources we trust to be factual and provable. Many people fear these examples of calamity too, and yet the internet has packaged these negative emotions into a place that doesn’t exist.
The world as we know it today is large. The sheer volume of information we’re inundated with on a daily basis, whether our choice or not, is nearly impossible to comprehend. People joke about learning about something “against their will”. Every person has their own lived experiences and their own truth that we can easily access. Even the phrase “their truth” introduces us to the fact that truth and reality aren’t one single, concrete item. What’s true is multiple. What‘s real is manifold. There is so much instability in the world that we are instantly privy to, even if for just a moment. It’s natural that we would come to fear the constantly shifting and sheer amount of reality.
Tanni argues that this is why the internet is obsessed with multiple realities and dimensions beyond our own. We see our world, and we see an existence in disarray spanning so much further than we can even comprehend. If that’s the way reality is, why is it unthinkable that it extends past what we assumed were its borders? The internet itself is a liminal space, says Tanni, and I’m inclined to agree. It’s through the doorway of the internet that we first see the unknowns of our reality. Think of the sheer amount of information we take in through the web. It’s no wonder that we love the Backrooms so much; it’s just another version of our own lives, taken to the extreme. If the whole world could blow up any day, there’s no denying the possibility that reality could blow up too. So much happens without rhyme or reason that we can comprehend. How different is that from real life, anyway? What is noclipping but a physical version of being exposed to information that we never intended to find?
A Matter of Perspective
Liminal spaces aren’t necessarily horror. This might come as a strange statement after paragraphs of explanation regarding why they unsettle us, but horror is merely a response to a liminal space.
What’s the opposite of love? You might say that it’s hate. Then, what’s the opposite of horror? In my opinion, it’s wonder. Horror comes from revulsion and rejection of something, often from the sense that the source of the horror is harmful. It’s why most people are put off by the sight of blood, dead bodies, and such. These signify danger. A liminal space invoking horror does so because it causes the viewer to assume danger in the unknown. It stands to reason that you can invoke other emotions too, if you present it correctly.
Liminal Horror: Purgaliminal
The video series Purgaliminal7 by YOURLOCALBREADMAN is set in a dystopian Earth, where human hubris led to otherworldly powers striking down humanity and leaving reality trapped in a tilted, ruined, “diagonal” state. The background images that appear in the videos are liminal space photos (hence the name of the series), and scenes are inhabited by monsters and formerly human Voidforms in combat or dialogue with the player. If the empty and broken landscapes, roaming demons with psychic abilities, and Voidforms slowly losing themselves aren’t haunting enough, there are also two powerful entities at war with each other, both trying to mold what is left of reality to their own liking. The main character, the Traveler, acts as the viewer’s guide in understanding this strange world.
What I find interesting about the liminal backgrounds in Purgaliminal is that they’re directly relevant to the story. Earth’s inhabitants are a shell of what they once were, and reality itself is in a questionable state. Liminal spaces fit very well with life in this universe; the familiarity of Earth as we know it is juxtaposed with its unfamiliar and often hostile inhabitants. Those with their minds intact and bodies still functional try to survive and live meaningful lives, reaching for the stability of the past that might be impossible to regain. Reality has distinct dimensions as well, as the "player" is shown having "[s]hifted one dimension down"8 in the introductory video of the series. The universe of Purgaliminal is inherently liminal in its existence. Even its story is told through the eyes of a transient being; the Traveler is constantly on the move because of the consequences of their actions and decisions.
Liminal Wonder: Zooliminology
Liminality as a source of wonder drives the tone of the video series Zooliminology9 by Quiietjay, in which researchers explore the Far Plane and the extraplanar entities that live there. The Far Plane is obviously inspired by the Backrooms, but the videos have a humorous undertone with a cozy, wholesome feel overall. The creatures of the Far Plane are cute and benign, designed with gentle curved shapes; as of writing, all entities featured in videos are non-hostile. There’s no implication that the researchers are in any significant danger, other than mishaps caused by their own goofy lack of good sense.
As much as liminality inspires terrors, it can also inspire comfort. If the unknown is a wonder to be discovered rather than a horror to be avoided, then the liminal space is a welcome entrance. Think back to what drives nostalgia—the desire for something that we once had. That place of imagination is desirable. A 90’s VHS aesthetic guides the viewer to this mindset, despite the style representing horror more often in current online use. One video jokingly subtitles the sound of a VHS player as “analog horror noises”.10 The sound evokes no horror here—only curiosity and an eagerness to be mentally transported into this mysterious realm.
And Yet, They Combine
Horror and wonder are not mutually exclusive. People often find liminal space imagery both scary and comforting at the same time. Reading through Exit Reality, it was the first time that I properly internalized the way that horror and wonder connect in the same way that love and hate do. And, just like love and hate, horror and wonder don’t exist on a singular sliding scale. You ponder about the unknown just as much as you fear it.
The two works discussed above have this crossover of emotions, too. Purgaliminal’s creatures sometimes have genuine words to say to the Traveler about accountability and self-reflection. They stop being terrifying monsters in those moments, and the viewer starts to question who is the actual danger. In a world where everything is assumed to be a horror, uncertainty actually encourages the viewer to wonder if things are as dangerous as they seem. Meanwhile, Zooliminology has its own moments of unsettling fear for its cute entities. How terrifying it would be to flee from the path of an enormous Longlegs, its feet multiple times as wide as you are tall? How would you feel being watched in your sleep by an uncontainable creature loose within the research facility where you live? For all the adoration that the Far Plane’s “friend-shaped” creatures inspire, giving them too much thought can create creeping unease too.
Now What?
Liminality is a space between the known and unknown. Nostalgia is a form of imagination. Our escapism is characterized by the very thing we’re trying to escape. Responses to liminality aren’t fixed. These four traits are crucial to understanding what the Backrooms is about and how to write the Backrooms effectively. The doorway of liminality is neutral. How we approach the unknown is how we feel about a liminal space. For people who live in a world full of so much terrible information that very much harms our mental state, it’s understandable that the place beyond the figurative doorway is a terrible, scary place. At the same time, we haven’t quite lost our desire to learn. We try to escape our overwhelming lives yet still lean into that largeness of reality while using nostalgia to warp ourselves away from mental chaos.
Images play a massive role in generating the feeling of liminal spaces, and this is why writing about the Backrooms is so difficult. With only text, the reader is forced to create the image of the liminal space in their mind, at which point it’s no longer liminal. Formed from the memories and beliefs held by that person, the mental image loses the presence of the unknown. It’s too familiar. There’s nothing to fear or wonder. To say that images are crucial for successful Backrooms written fiction isn’t too unreasonable, in my opinion.
The Backrooms could be seen as symbolizing knowledge, extending the comparison between falling into the Backrooms and overexposure to too much information. Wade into the pools of awareness and risk being sucked into their terrible truth. Cover your ears and block out the harsh buzz of data to maintain your stability. Walk into the impenetrable grasslands and hear the secrets hiding between their swaying stalks. Look into the darkest corners of hallways, and ponder what you might discover in them. There is an entire Backrooms to consider, and your own powerful imagination to transport you there.