The Backrooms

The Backrooms is a collection of liminal spaces nicknamed "levels" located outside normal reality, filled with a possibly infinite number of levels inside of it, with each one having varying levels of quantum stability, manifesting as large or small areas that mirror normal reality in some ways. Many have considered them 'liminal spaces', 'heterotopias', or 'déjà vu enducing nightmares'. The first nine levels (Level 0-8) are confirmed and nicknamed "The Main Nine", Levels 9 and above are more mysterious and anything can happen suddenly.

Several levels are inhabited by strange beings nicknamed "entities". Most of them are hostile and should be avoided.

Levels
There are thousands of levels inside the backrooms, possibly even infinite. But, the ones listed are the most important. If you wanna learn more about the Backrooms, go here.


 * Level 0: Level 0 is a non-euclidean space, resembling the back rooms of a retail outlet. All rooms in Level 0 appear uniform and share superficial features such as yellowed wallpaper, damp carpet, and inconsistently placed fluorescent lighting. However, no two rooms within the Level are identical. The installed lighting flickers inconsistently and hums at a constant frequency. This buzzing is notably louder and more obtrusive than ordinary fluorescent humming
 * Level 1: Level 1 is a large, sprawling warehouse that features concrete floors and walls, exposed rebar, and a low-hanging fog with no discernable source. The fog often coalesces into condensation, forming puddles on the floor in inconsistent areas. Unlike Level 0, this Level possesses a consistent supply of water and electricity, which allows indefinite habitation by wanderers providing that appropriate precautions are taken. It is also far more expansive, possessing staircases, elevators, isolated rooms, and hallways. But watch out, because when the lights go out, entities can appear unexpectedly.
 * Level 2: Level 2 is a dark level, containing more industrial-like architecture and a plenty of "entities". It is described as being reached when one simply wanders around Level 1 for a long enough period of time, and featuring a much higher temperature than other levels. "Survivors" of the Backrooms claim that the only way to escape it is to remain calm, stating that "Only when the backrooms have become your home can you depart.
 * Level 3: Level 3 is the most dangerous level of the first five. It takes form of an electrical station. Despite that, the level is filled with tons of useful supplies.
 * Level 4: Level 4 is an endless office consisted of 45 floors (it gets more destroyed when you go downwards) surrounded in a perpetual storm. The level is completely devoid of entities and safe, that's why many people live here. The main danger however is the storm itself.

Other examples of levels include:


 * Level 11: An endless city similar to that of the real world.
 * The End: A trap level that makes the illusion of escaping the Backrooms.
 * Level 3999: An escape to the real world.

Media Reception
The Backrooms received acclaim from writers and Internet users, most of which commented on its uncannyness. The verse has also been cited as the origin and most-well known example of the liminal spaces Internet trend, which are photos that evoke "a sense of nostalgia, lostness, and uncertainty". When a woman named Claire Scheulin found an abandoned mall below her Airbnb, Internet commentators compared her photos of the place to the original Backrooms image.

Patston compared the location to the conspiracy theories of UFOs in Area 51, to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's work The Shining, to the Minecraft urban legend of Herobrine, and to the 2019 film Us. The writer felt that even those do not "quite reach the uncanny valley" as the Backrooms, and concluded that "True horror exists with one foot in reality and the other dangling off a cliff." Dazed called the Backrooms an example of "internet folklore".

The Backrooms has also been compared to Everywhere at the End of Time (2016–2019), an album series depicting dementia using samples from the 1920s, some of these from The Shining. According to Marta Ferro of Italian news website Antropia, the Backrooms' hallways are similar to the ones from The Shining 's Overlook Hotel, while the similarities to Everywhere come from the progression of unrecognizability that the levels contain.