FAQ

The Backrooms is a surreal and often creepy internet urban legend, or "creepypasta," that has evolved into a massive collaborative horror mythos. It combines elements of liminal space aesthetics, psychological horror, and speculative fiction.

What Are the Backrooms?
The concept originated from a 2019 4chan post, which featured a yellow, dimly lit, office-like room and the caption:

“If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms...”

In essence, the Backrooms are a labyrinthine maze of empty, decaying spaces—such as old office buildings, basements, and abandoned malls—that exist outside normal reality. The initial idea describes it as:

Endless yellow-tinted rooms

Buzzing fluorescent lights

Moldy carpet

A claustrophobic and disorienting atmosphere

A place where time doesn’t behave normally

🧩 Levels of the Backrooms
As the mythos grew, fans began to expand the lore into “levels,” each with distinct themes, dangers, and rules. Here’s a simplified summary of a few commonly accepted levels:

Level 0 – "The Lobby"

The classic yellow rooms with stained carpet and buzzing lights.

No known exits. Claustrophobic and silent.

Some versions include hostile entities.

Level 1 – "Habitable Zone"

A darker, warehouse-like space with flickering lights.

Contains supplies and more frequent entity sightings.

Level 2 – "Pipe Dreams"

Long, dark maintenance hallways filled with steam pipes.

Hot, loud, and extremely dangerous.

Level ! – "Run for Your Life"

A chaotic, red-tinted hallway where you must run from hostile entities.

Very fast-paced and panic-inducing.

There are now hundreds of fan-created levels, entities, and lore elements—such as The Smilers, Hounds, and The Partygoers. Each level often has unique physics, rules, and survival strategies.

🧠 Themes and Appeal
The Backrooms taps into several deep fears and aesthetics:

Liminal spaces: Empty transitional places (like abandoned schools or malls) that feel eerie and nostalgic.

Fear of the unknown: You're trapped in a space with no logic or clear escape.

Isolation: You're completely alone—or maybe not.

Distorted reality: Familiar yet wrong environments trigger psychological discomfort.

🎮 Backrooms in Games and Media
The popularity of the Backrooms has led to several indie Backrooms games, YouTube series, and even films. Notable examples include:

Kane Pixels’ YouTube series: A viral analog horror story that adds narrative depth and an experimental vibe.

The Backrooms: 1998: A survival horror game using found-footage style gameplay.

Inside the Backrooms / Escape the Backrooms: Multiplayer co-op horror games where players try to survive and escape together.

A24's upcoming Backrooms movie (in development with Kane Parsons directing).

🧪 How to "Enter" the Backrooms (In Lore)
The idea is that you can accidentally "noclip" out of reality—like glitching through a video game wall—often while in mundane places like elevators, office buildings, or liminal spaces. Once you're in, escaping is extremely difficult, and you might wander for days, weeks, or years.

📜 Community and World-Building
There are entire wikis (like backrooms-wiki.wikidot.com) and forums where fans:

Create new levels, items, and entities

Share survival guides and exploration logs

Post fictional journals from lost wanderers

Debate lore and theories

It's become a collaborative horror universe, similar to SCP Foundation or analog horror genres.