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BACKROOMS DATABASE

Oh, come on. You know what this is.


The Backrooms is a horror subgenre based off of a series of fictional extraspacial locations— a counterpart to the defunct "liminal spaces" scattered across our real world, grown to an overwhelming size. This idea originates from a single really old 4chan post, but has since grown far beyond the bounds of its premise with countless fanworks expanding upon (or delving into) the premise of: What if there was a bunch of scary empty rooms you could go to.

Listing every medium the Backrooms has been adapted into would be a Sisyphean task, but as a web horror oddity first and foremost it takes a few major avenues.

  • In the spirit of the original 4chan post, lots of Backrooms storytelling is done through fictional wiki articles. There are a few major wikis out there, but plenty of other lesser known ones. Wikis tend to be collaborative, with many authors contributing their own ideas and places.
  • The Backrooms has seen mild-to-moderate success in video adaptations in recent times. Besides that one guy who got a film deal with A24, there's a myriad other equally excellent Backrooms films/series on YouTube... if you know where to look.
  • A handful of Backrooms-inspired video games exist out there. Plenty wear the inspiration on their sleeve (and even implement the wikis' locales and characters!), but many take the liminal-space horror premise and put their own spin on it.
  • Despite this not being a mascot horror IP, there's lots and lots of slop. How do they do it.

I first got introduced to the Backrooms through a bland Youtube series listing levels from its Wikidot wiki, and at first I was content to limit my exposure to just that. At some point in the summer of 2021, I ended up going to the wiki itself and making an account... and it's all spiraled from there!

I'd hardly consider myself an expert on the subject, or even a veteran (I'm now friends with folks who have been around far longer than I), but I've been involved in the Wikidot community for the better part of the four years since then. I poured most of my free time at university into engaging with fellow authors and readers! Nowadays I mostly just lurk and vote up articles I like. >BP

Though I'm no seasoned author, I still like to think I learned plenty during my time in the Wikidot— not only about writing horror, but about writing in general... and what it means to both respect and deviate from a (perceived) rigid formula. What follows is a library of works, musings, and media yoinked directly from those weird stinky rooms for your enjoyment.


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