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The Backrooms is a fictional location invented in a 2019 thread on the imageboard website 4chan.

The Backrooms are usually portrayed as an impossibly large extradimensional complex of empty rooms, accessed by exiting reality. They are one of the best-known examples of the liminal space aesthetic and the creepypasta genre. The concept began with an anonymous interpretation of a photo showing a large, empty room with an uncomfortable yellow atmosphere. The photo was taken in 2002 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at a former furniture store while the new tenant was renovating the site, and had been posted on the store's blog. The photo's origin had been widely unknown until it was discovered in 2024. Internet writers have expanded on the concept, introducing "levels" of interconnected backrooms with different themes and hostile "entities" which roam these spaces. Fans have adapted both the classical and expanded settings into video games and short films. In early 2022, American YouTuber Kane Parsons published a Backrooms short film on YouTube, which ultimately grew into a 24-episode web series. These viral videos have been credited with igniting a surge in Backrooms content and taking the concept into the mainstream. Parsons directed a film adaptation of his series produced by A24, which was released in May 2026.

Within days of the creepypasta's original posting, writers had shared stories about the Backrooms on subreddits such as r/creepypasta and later r/backrooms. As new levels were devised in r/backrooms, a faction of fans who preferred the original Backrooms split from the fandom. Dan Erickson, creator of the television series Severance (2022), included the Backrooms among his many influences while working on the series.

Until 2024, the source of the original Backrooms image was not widely known. Among the photographs was the one which began the Backrooms creepypasta, uploaded with the file name "Dsc00161.jpg", depicting a carpeted, open room with yellow wallpaper and fluorescent lighting on a Dutch angle.

In January 2022, a short horror film titled "The Backrooms (Found Footage)" was uploaded to YouTube. Created by then-16-year-old Kane Parsons, known online as Kane Pixels, of Northern California, it is presented as a VHS tape recorded by a filmmaker who accidentally enters the Backrooms in the 1990s and is pursued by an unknown monster. Expanding his videos into a series of short films, Parsons introduced plot aspects such as Async, an organization which opened a portal into the Backrooms in the 1980s and conducted research within it. It is also credited with lifting the Backrooms from obscurity into the mainstream internet and causing a surge in Backrooms content, particularly on YouTube.

On February 6, 2023, A24 announced that they were working on a film adaptation of the Backrooms based on Parsons's videos, with Parsons directing. In May 2026, Kane Parsons confirmed that he was not finished with Backrooms, and that there were already things "in the works".

An episode inspired by the Backrooms was included in the third season of American Horror Stories, a direct spin-off to American Horror Story.

The Backrooms have been adapted into numerous video games. Many others, such as Enter the Backrooms, Noclipped and The Backrooms Project, were released in the following years. Co-op multiplayer Escape the Backrooms by Fancy Games was praised by Bloody Disgusting for its depiction of the extended lore, while The Backrooms 1998 (both 2022), a psychological survival horror game independently released by one-person developer Steelkrill Studio, was noted by reviewers for its found footage visuals and limited save system. Dreamcore, a 2025 first-person psychological horror video game developed by Argentinian studio Montraluz, takes inspiration from the Backrooms.

The concept has been adapted by Internet users as a level or part of the Backrooms. Kane Parsons's 2026 film Backrooms briefly features a scene with his adaptation of the Poolrooms.

"An Analysis of The Backrooms—Also Known as the Internet's Horror Rooms".

Quick Facts

• Internet writers have expanded on the concept, introducing "levels" of interconnected backrooms with different themes and hostile "entities" which roam these spaces.
• In early 2022, American YouTuber Kane Parsons published a Backrooms short film on YouTube, which ultimately grew into a 24-episode web series.
• The Backrooms are usually portrayed as an impossibly large extradimensional complex of empty rooms, accessed by exiting reality.
• The photo was taken in 2002 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at a former furniture store while the new tenant was renovating the site, and had been posted on the store's blog.
• As new levels were devised in r/backrooms, a faction of fans who preferred the original Backrooms split from the fandom.

Source material: Wikipedia - "The Backrooms". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.