Imagine you find yourself entering the wrong door one day, only to get yourself trapped in a seemingly endless hallway. As you make your way around, there is nothing but the humming of the fluorescent lightbulbs above and the dull, yellow walls stretching on. In what feels like hours, just walking through the unchanging scenery, there comes the dreaded feeling that someone, or something, is lurking nearby. This horrific scenario is the main image most associate with the ever-so-popular "Backrooms." How did it come to be?

As a concept, the "Backrooms" originated as a 2019 4chan forum post on its paranormal board. Yes, the very same 4chan that serves as home to edgelord memes, grotesque gore footage, and questionable explicit content.

Using an image of a building found in Wisconsin, US, an anonymous user started a thread about locations that feel just “off.” What followed were several photos of seemingly abandoned locations, all meant to channel a liminal space. Liminal spaces are considered transitional or “in-between” areas, where people are not meant to stay for long. Think airports, mall hallways, gas stations, and staircases that are often spots whose sole purpose is to get you from point A to point B.

One user replied by creating lore behind the mysterious photo, laying the foundations for the "Backrooms," including the tease that once you make your way around inside, you are not alone. It also established how there are over 600 square miles to navigate.

Naturally, once the myth of the "Backrooms" was established, other internet users started to pitch in and add to the initial lore. Users would then share these stories on forum sites like Reddit as Creepypasta posts. Creepypasta is a term used to refer to short horror stories written online.

Different liminal photos were used to represent other rooms, referred to as levels within the "Backrooms." Level 0: “The Lobby” is the yellow-walled area everyone is most familiar with. To leave Level 0, one has to find the Manila Room, a safe space that leads to other levels. It gets its name from the patterns on the wall and the wallpaper color being similar to the color of Manila paper.

Among the more popular ones is Level 188: “The Windows.” In reality, the location featured in the image is the Holiday Inn Express within the London Heathrow Airport in the UK. There are now thousands of fan-made levels added to “Backroom” lore, though the initial canon has nine levels to go through.

As the popularity of the "Backrooms" grew, 16-year-old Kane Parson started to create a series of found footage videos based on the "Backrooms" and posted them online on YouTube. His first video, “The Backrooms (Found Footage),” became a viral hit and currently sits at 81 million views.

Kane then established plot points in the web series, creating the fictional research facility Asynch, which was used as the company behind the found footage inside the "Backrooms." As his videos garnered him a sizeable following of 3.19 million subscribers, Kane was approached by different studios hoping to make his videos into a full series.

Eventually, he was approached by A24 in 2023 to create a full-length film about it. “Backrooms” was released in May 2026 and quickly grew to dominate the US box office, earning over ₱5 billion ($81.5 million). It came out in local theaters on Wednesday, June 3.