“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.
God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.”
For most, This quote doesn’t mean much to the average person. People will look at this photo and its caption and just say that it is a bit unsettling. However, you should never judge a book by its cover because this photo inspired the work of an artist who was only 17 years old at the time and created one of youtube’s most iconic videos ever. This video became an internet sensation as every youtuber was talking about this video and how eerie it was. The video I am talking about is, of course, The Backrooms, Found Footage.
If you want to watch these series of videos for yourself, there is a link below.
The first video of this series opens up with a group of kids recording a video for a school project. This video turns out to be the worst day for Kane, Our protagonist. He takes a few steps back to get the shot angle when suddenly the camera becomes staticy and he appears to fall through the floor. His friends don’t know it at the time but he has just entered another reality known as the Backrooms. Kane stands up and sees yellow walls with a carpet and loud hum buzzing lights. He starts to walk around exploring this new place, however something is stalking him. It only shows up at certain times but for half a second, you’ll catch a glimpse of the creature. This creature is known as The Bacteria which I’ll get to a bit later. After a bit of exploring, our protagonist stumbles across decals on the walls which are encouraging him to follow them. When he finally approaches the destination, it’s a drawing on the wall with eyes, a nose, a window. He’s initially confused at the drawing. It seems whoever was there was trying to pass the time by reminding himself of the real world. Kane takes a step closer and notices a message underneath the drawing. This message is a warning to anyone who stumbles upon it. It reads “Don’t Move, Stay Still” As Kane reads the words out loud, The bacteria from early decides to strike. It roars from down the hallway charging at Kane. This is Kane’s first true encounter with the entities of this dimension. Kane starts to run for his life. He is backtracking everything he has explored up until that point. He’s desperate to stay alive. The Bacteria is closing in on him. This is when Kane runs into a room with seemingly thousands and thousands of doorways. He quickly makes a sharp turn to try and throw the creature off his path. Soon Kane is cornered in a room with a hole.
With no other choice, Kane jumps down the hole in an attempt to escape. This seems to work as when Kane gets up, he only suffers minor injuries. The monster seems to have lost interest in him because it isn’t seen again for now. Kane is now in a new area. It looks like a living room with a kitchen and a bathroom of some sort. He soon walks up the stairs but the lights mysteriously turn off behind him. He starts walking through what appears to be an office of some sort except. After a bit of traveling, he stumbles upon a fire exit. Believing he found his ticket out, he heads up the stairs. When he opens the door, he’s back in the Backrooms again with the hum buzz lights and the carpet. Shortly after, A monster launches a chair against the wall as a warning to Kane. Kane quickly seeks refuge in a small room he found. While in that room, he finds a large slope leading downstairs. Before he can go down and explore. The monster sneaks up on Kane, Makes a small auditory noise, and suddenly grabs Kane and starts to consume him immediately. His camera falls down the slope he was going to explore. From here on out, it is presumed Kane is dead as if you watch that clip in slow motion, you can see Kane getting picked up. The camera appears in the real world but in the sky. It soon lands in someone’s backyard where it is still filming. Before the camera cuts, you can hear birds chirping and the grass rustling before the video ends.
This video leaves the watcher with so many questions. Who was The Bacteria? What are The Backrooms? How did Kane end up there in the first place? Well if you were to watch the entire series Kane Pixels (The creator of The Backrooms series) created, then it would be explained that a company known as Async was experimenting with gravity and magnetics. They made a breakthrough one day creating a portal to the backrooms. The Backrooms were originally designed to help the world with a storage crisis so there can be more space. However what they didn’t know was that The Backrooms already had inhabitants and they were not thrilled. Ever since the portal opened, small glitches throughout the world began to appear which caused unsuspecting people to “fall through” into The Backrooms. This video single handedly changed how analog horror could be represented in the future. Kane Pixels is now working with A24 to create his own Backrooms Movie which is expected to be released early 2025.
I highly recommend you go watch this series. There are 16 episodes total so if you enjoy theorizing on videos, movies, or just anything in general, this series is the one for you.
