1 00:00:01,680 --> 00:00:08,440 Speaker 1: Also media Hi Sixteenth Minute listeners. Two things. First, if 2 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:11,080 Speaker 1: you're in the Los Angeles area on March second, my 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: movie podcast with Caitlin Durante, The Bechdel Cast is having 4 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,759 Speaker 1: this big post oscar show and general variety show with 5 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:21,640 Speaker 1: some of our favorite guests from the past eight years 6 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:25,000 Speaker 1: of the Bechdel Cast at Dynasty Typewriter at seven point 7 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,280 Speaker 1: thirty right after the Oscars. You can get your tickets 8 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:30,640 Speaker 1: in the description for this episode, or if you don't 9 00:00:30,680 --> 00:00:33,120 Speaker 1: live in the area, guess what. We are going to 10 00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:35,239 Speaker 1: be live streaming the event. If you can't watch it 11 00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:37,160 Speaker 1: in the moment, you can watch it for a full 12 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:40,040 Speaker 1: week after if you can't watch that day. And yes, 13 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:43,480 Speaker 1: we will be wearing costumes from the substance I bought 14 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:48,120 Speaker 1: hair extensions. You're gonna want to see it. Second, please 15 00:00:48,159 --> 00:00:51,360 Speaker 1: stop messaging me. Yes, I know Hawk to a girl. 16 00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:55,680 Speaker 1: Haley welch that story as developments, But Sixteenth Minute is 17 00:00:55,680 --> 00:00:58,160 Speaker 1: a show that gives stuff at least a little bit 18 00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:02,000 Speaker 1: of space to breathe before rushing to a conclusion. So 19 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:06,120 Speaker 1: it is very likely that I will return to Haley's saga, 20 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:10,399 Speaker 1: but not this week. But if you're just tuning in 21 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:15,040 Speaker 1: guess what you're in luck, there's something completely fucking different. 22 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:20,120 Speaker 1: When I was a kid, two things scared me more 23 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:24,399 Speaker 1: than anything. The first was these YouTube videos that people 24 00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:27,360 Speaker 1: sent around when I was in middle school, where you 25 00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:30,640 Speaker 1: would get like really close to the screen to look 26 00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:31,880 Speaker 1: at something mysterious. 27 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:36,000 Speaker 2: The audio would be really quiet, and then all of. 28 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:36,840 Speaker 3: A sudden. 29 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:42,280 Speaker 1: He sorry had to The other was the night I 30 00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:45,119 Speaker 1: went over to my cousin's house to watch the ring, 31 00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:48,520 Speaker 1: and I spent the next seven days convinced that I 32 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:51,880 Speaker 1: was going to die. Like every kid, I liked the 33 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:56,160 Speaker 1: feeling of being afraid, but could not physically handle when 34 00:01:56,240 --> 00:02:00,360 Speaker 1: it actually happened. But like every kid, I did it 35 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:02,440 Speaker 1: all the time to show my older cousins that I 36 00:02:02,520 --> 00:02:06,040 Speaker 1: was just as brave as them, when objectively I was not. 37 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:10,760 Speaker 1: My cousin's family's house is over three hundred years old, 38 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:14,040 Speaker 1: and our grandfather had told us all kinds of stories 39 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:18,840 Speaker 1: about what had allegedly happened there, like in the eighteen hundreds, 40 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:22,240 Speaker 1: a man hung himself in the closet in the front room, 41 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:24,960 Speaker 1: a rich man named Charles Copeland was said to have 42 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:27,800 Speaker 1: blown his head off. He should have slaves who had 43 00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:30,920 Speaker 1: escaped from the South supposedly hid in the basement. A 44 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,560 Speaker 1: maid was locked in a closet and clowed her way out, 45 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:37,440 Speaker 1: leaving faint nail in prints on the door. Countless ghosts 46 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:41,760 Speaker 1: were spotted by my aunt's, my mom, my grandparents, my cousins, 47 00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:44,840 Speaker 1: adopted this dalmatian one year that jumped out of a 48 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:51,000 Speaker 1: third story window and died. Did any of it really happen? Well, 49 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,960 Speaker 1: that last one definitely did and traumatized me. But the 50 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:58,400 Speaker 1: point is we thought all of it was true. And 51 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:01,240 Speaker 1: this was the house that we watched The Ring in 52 00:03:01,639 --> 00:03:04,800 Speaker 1: when I was nine. If you haven't had the pleasure, 53 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:07,960 Speaker 1: The Ring is a two thousand and three American remake 54 00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:11,560 Speaker 1: of the Japanese horror movie Ringu, And while Ringo is 55 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:14,040 Speaker 1: technically the better movie, it was not the one that 56 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:16,400 Speaker 1: I peed myself during, so we're gonna stick with the 57 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:19,760 Speaker 1: American one. It stars Naomi Watts as a woman who 58 00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:24,880 Speaker 1: watches a cursed video tape. So if you watch the tape, 59 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,640 Speaker 1: you only have seven days to live before a little 60 00:03:27,639 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: girl named Samara climbs out of a well with her 61 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:33,280 Speaker 1: hair draped over her face, all wet, and she climbs 62 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:36,280 Speaker 1: out of your TV. That you're playing the tape on and. 63 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:37,080 Speaker 2: She kills you. 64 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:44,840 Speaker 1: It's classic horror technophobia, a movie that makes a popular 65 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:48,600 Speaker 1: piece of technology forced nine year olds to pee themselves 66 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: at their cousin's scary house. But weirdly enough, Ringu and 67 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:58,400 Speaker 1: subsequently The Ring was not originally written to scare kids 68 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:03,080 Speaker 1: out of engaging with the VHS technology. It was based 69 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:06,320 Speaker 1: on a Japanese folktale that went back three hundred years 70 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:10,400 Speaker 1: before Ringu, and originally was a story that followed a 71 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:14,160 Speaker 1: samurai who wanted to make his servant girl Okiku, his mistress, 72 00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:17,640 Speaker 1: which drove her to take her own life and haunt him, 73 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:20,600 Speaker 1: crawling out of the well that she drowned herself in, 74 00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:25,680 Speaker 1: just like Samara climbs out of the well in the movie. 75 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,400 Speaker 1: The story was adapted to a novel hundreds of years 76 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:31,200 Speaker 1: later in nineteen ninety eight, and it's this version of 77 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:34,800 Speaker 1: the story that became a horror hit in the US. 78 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:38,880 Speaker 1: And that's kind of the story of horror stories that 79 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:42,239 Speaker 1: transform as the ones lucky enough to make the jump 80 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:46,120 Speaker 1: from medium to medium survive. By the time The Ring 81 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:50,000 Speaker 1: gets to America, it's no longer about a Japanese samurai 82 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:53,880 Speaker 1: who wants to rape a young woman in his employment. Instead, 83 00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:58,400 Speaker 1: it's about a neglected American daughter whose spirit is trapped 84 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:03,640 Speaker 1: in a piece of almost temporary technology. The core anxieties 85 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:07,000 Speaker 1: that the story explores are basically the same, but the 86 00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:12,120 Speaker 1: technology and personal dynamics that communicate them are constantly shifting. 87 00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:16,440 Speaker 1: Technophobia was a core feature of the early Internet. 88 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:17,080 Speaker 3: One. 89 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:20,279 Speaker 1: I remember my parents and my fellow children with secret 90 00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:24,080 Speaker 1: MySpace accounts got really scared over were these copy pasta 91 00:05:24,160 --> 00:05:27,800 Speaker 1: emails that you had to send to ten friends or 92 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:29,440 Speaker 1: face certain death. 93 00:05:30,720 --> 00:05:35,080 Speaker 4: Every chain has a link. Every link is a life 94 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:41,360 Speaker 4: break the chain lose a life, Send this to five people, 95 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:46,480 Speaker 4: or death will come for you. You have twenty four hours. 96 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:50,000 Speaker 1: These wouldn't work now, and not just because most of 97 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:52,960 Speaker 1: us would welcome the sweet embrace of death. It's that 98 00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:57,400 Speaker 1: the idea of a haunted email sounds kind of silly now. 99 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,640 Speaker 1: But chain emails are a good example of Web one 100 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:05,960 Speaker 1: point zero horror stories that explore that the idea of 101 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:10,039 Speaker 1: a computer or the Internet itself was scary. Like we 102 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:13,600 Speaker 1: talked about in our Hawkta series, Web two horror centers 103 00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:17,479 Speaker 1: anxieties around social networks. I think my favorite in this 104 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:21,080 Speaker 1: genre was probably the movie Unfriended, which takes place on 105 00:06:21,120 --> 00:06:23,800 Speaker 1: a skype call with a killer who hacks in. 106 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:25,520 Speaker 4: Use. 107 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:29,040 Speaker 5: Who is that I just tried to hang up on them? 108 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:31,040 Speaker 1: Can we get rid of this person? I don't know 109 00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:32,039 Speaker 1: is here the whole time? 110 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:33,680 Speaker 6: It's just probably a glitch. 111 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:39,520 Speaker 1: Well, the glitch just tight. Web three horror is a 112 00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:44,000 Speaker 1: hawk Tua era dystopia defined by fears around the blockchain 113 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:49,440 Speaker 1: and the decentralized Internet. So a lot of AI anxiety here. 114 00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:54,000 Speaker 1: My favorite so far is probably the movie Megan, You 115 00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:55,279 Speaker 1: Gotta Love Megan. 116 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,520 Speaker 7: Research shows if you force chilpy vegetables they'll be less 117 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:01,200 Speaker 7: likely to chose those foods as adults. 118 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:07,280 Speaker 1: Does that so yes, experts, you can turn off. I 119 00:07:07,279 --> 00:07:11,280 Speaker 1: thought we were having a conversation. What's consistent in online 120 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:17,000 Speaker 1: horror is a fairly straightforward oral tradition. These are anonymous 121 00:07:17,080 --> 00:07:20,080 Speaker 1: written stories and short films about the corners of the 122 00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:23,880 Speaker 1: Internet that are terrifying. Since the early two thousands, a 123 00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:26,080 Speaker 1: lot of these have come to be known as creepy 124 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:29,600 Speaker 1: pastas a play on the copy pasta term used to 125 00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:34,520 Speaker 1: describe those old copy paste forward this email to ten people, 126 00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:38,840 Speaker 1: or you will die kind of thing. Creepy pastas have 127 00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:42,360 Speaker 1: been an online community that's waxed and waned for two decades, 128 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:47,040 Speaker 1: but there are consistence there. They're tech based horror stories 129 00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:53,000 Speaker 1: and their absolute catnip for middle schoolers. And in twenty nineteen, 130 00:07:53,320 --> 00:07:56,760 Speaker 1: one of the most famous modern horror stories put people 131 00:07:56,960 --> 00:08:01,080 Speaker 1: in a choke hold, beginning only with a photo, one 132 00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:04,880 Speaker 1: that had been circulating in spooky online communities for years, 133 00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:08,800 Speaker 1: but didn't find its foothold in the public imagination until 134 00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:13,680 Speaker 1: it was posted to four chan. The image isn't high quality. 135 00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:15,800 Speaker 1: It looks like it was taken by a two thousands 136 00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:20,840 Speaker 1: era digital camera, you know, crisp, but a little pixely somehow. Still, 137 00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:25,000 Speaker 1: the colors are oversaturated and the contrast is a bit 138 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:29,280 Speaker 1: too high. The space pictured is lit by fluorescent lights 139 00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:32,600 Speaker 1: in the ceiling. There's not an inch of this space. 140 00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:35,280 Speaker 1: You can't see in the queasy sort of way that 141 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:39,280 Speaker 1: fluorescent lights allow. The thing is, there's not a lot 142 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:43,480 Speaker 1: to see because what we're looking at is a series 143 00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:48,160 Speaker 1: of empty rooms, eerily empty rooms, and a space of 144 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:53,200 Speaker 1: indeterminate size. From our vantage point, which is a little crooked, 145 00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:56,640 Speaker 1: as if the image was taken carelessly or when someone 146 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:01,120 Speaker 1: was surprised, we can see through at least three empty rooms, 147 00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:05,560 Speaker 1: all with slightly different off white wallpaper that seems old 148 00:09:05,679 --> 00:09:09,520 Speaker 1: enough to have faded to this sickly kind of yellow. 149 00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:12,960 Speaker 1: There's a number of entrances into this space, but no 150 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:17,280 Speaker 1: windows and no doors. The molding is the same in 151 00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:21,000 Speaker 1: every room. There's electrical outlets with nothing plugged in. The 152 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:24,320 Speaker 1: carpeting is a flat brown with what looks like the 153 00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:27,840 Speaker 1: occasional wet spot. In a previous life, it could have 154 00:09:27,880 --> 00:09:32,240 Speaker 1: been a painfully outdated office space, or maybe a waiting room. 155 00:09:32,520 --> 00:09:35,640 Speaker 1: It's vacant now, but you can't help but feel like 156 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:40,120 Speaker 1: maybe you've been here before. Ian stopped the music. If 157 00:09:40,120 --> 00:09:43,840 Speaker 1: you haven't seen the actual image of the back rooms yet, 158 00:09:44,080 --> 00:09:49,160 Speaker 1: just pause the podcast and look it up. Okay, assuming 159 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:51,720 Speaker 1: you've gotten a proper look now. Audio mediums are tricky 160 00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:57,040 Speaker 1: because memes are famously visual. But hopefully you see what 161 00:09:57,080 --> 00:10:00,240 Speaker 1: I mean here. Okay, you can start the scary music again. 162 00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:04,320 Speaker 1: This image was posted by an anonymous user in response 163 00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:08,400 Speaker 1: to a prompt asking for images that were somehow off 164 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:14,040 Speaker 1: and on May thirteenth, twenty nineteen, for whatever reason, it clicked. 165 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:17,800 Speaker 1: Another anon responded to the photo, soon to be known 166 00:10:17,960 --> 00:10:21,719 Speaker 1: as the back rooms with the lure that would make 167 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:22,680 Speaker 1: it famous. 168 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:26,280 Speaker 8: If you're not careful and you no clip out of 169 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:31,080 Speaker 8: reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the backrooms, 170 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:35,480 Speaker 8: where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, 171 00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:40,480 Speaker 8: the madness of mono yellow, the endless background noise of 172 00:10:40,559 --> 00:10:46,120 Speaker 8: harescent lights at maximum hum buzz, and approximately six hundred 173 00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:50,240 Speaker 8: million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be 174 00:10:50,280 --> 00:10:54,079 Speaker 8: trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering 175 00:10:54,120 --> 00:10:58,160 Speaker 8: around nearby, because it's sure as hell has heard you 176 00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:00,559 Speaker 8: the back room. 177 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:03,360 Speaker 1: Your sixteenth minute starts now. 178 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:08,360 Speaker 9: I'm not. 179 00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:17,880 Speaker 2: Joy stay. 180 00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:57,480 Speaker 1: Six Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we 181 00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:00,400 Speaker 1: look at the internet's main characters of the day, speak 182 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:03,160 Speaker 1: to them or this week the people who discovered them, 183 00:12:03,520 --> 00:12:07,240 Speaker 1: and what that says about us and the Internet. And 184 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:11,680 Speaker 1: in keeping with the absolute yawning void that many Americans 185 00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:15,840 Speaker 1: continue to feel during an absolute brutal start to the year, 186 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:19,720 Speaker 1: I hope everyone is doing okay all things considered. Today, 187 00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:22,400 Speaker 1: I want to explore the world of the back rooms. 188 00:12:22,920 --> 00:12:26,000 Speaker 1: A creepy image that off of a few pixels has 189 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:32,360 Speaker 1: exploded into multiple communities, a philosophical community, an ever growing 190 00:12:32,440 --> 00:12:38,240 Speaker 1: horror fiction community, and a real life mystery. Today we're 191 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:41,440 Speaker 1: going to explore all three, and I'll be honest, this 192 00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:44,520 Speaker 1: episode is a little weird for this show because it 193 00:12:44,640 --> 00:12:49,600 Speaker 1: revolves around these freaky existential communities. But it's a freaky 194 00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:52,640 Speaker 1: existential time, right And if you hang with us until 195 00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:55,880 Speaker 1: the end of this episode, I can tell you exactly 196 00:12:56,320 --> 00:13:00,359 Speaker 1: where the photo of the Backrooms was taken and the's 197 00:13:00,360 --> 00:13:06,000 Speaker 1: actual history. So come with me if you dare to. 198 00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:13,800 Speaker 1: May twenty nineteen, Lewis Varakhan and Milo Uanapolis are banned 199 00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:18,120 Speaker 1: from Mark Zuckerberg's platforms. How quaint? Remember when he used 200 00:13:18,160 --> 00:13:21,400 Speaker 1: to do that? Harry and Megan had a baby, which 201 00:13:21,559 --> 00:13:24,440 Speaker 1: really mattered to one girl from your high school who 202 00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:27,400 Speaker 1: was like, the real family is slaying right now, and 203 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:31,000 Speaker 1: you didn't have the heart to reminder about colonialism. And 204 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:35,800 Speaker 1: after years of random circulation, a four Chan user gave 205 00:13:35,920 --> 00:13:41,000 Speaker 1: shape to what exactly made the back rooms so terrifying. 206 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:44,040 Speaker 1: If you haven't looked at the image of the back 207 00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:47,720 Speaker 1: Rooms yet, I encourage you to look at my Instagram 208 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:50,480 Speaker 1: give it a like while you're at it, because unlike 209 00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:54,160 Speaker 1: a lot of Internet horror, the back Rooms picture hasn't 210 00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:59,080 Speaker 1: been photoshopped to look scarier than it actually is. The 211 00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:03,960 Speaker 1: eeriness isn't because there's something scary in frame, but it's 212 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:07,240 Speaker 1: the tension, the uncertainty. 213 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:11,280 Speaker 8: The God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, 214 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:13,959 Speaker 8: because it's sure as hell has heard you. 215 00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:15,160 Speaker 10: Of it all. 216 00:14:15,559 --> 00:14:18,720 Speaker 1: And the back Rooms only got more popular as a 217 00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:21,400 Speaker 1: site of horror. And there's three or so years to 218 00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:24,560 Speaker 1: follow after it was first posted to four chan in 219 00:14:24,720 --> 00:14:28,920 Speaker 1: this weird thread, because wouldn't you know it, people were 220 00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:32,640 Speaker 1: really susceptible to seeing fear in a lonely room that 221 00:14:32,680 --> 00:14:37,440 Speaker 1: they felt trapped in during the year twenty twenty. Impossible 222 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:40,960 Speaker 1: to say why the back Rooms were the right harbinger 223 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:45,000 Speaker 1: of doom that went viral at the right time. But 224 00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:48,320 Speaker 1: what fascinates me about the back Rooms is just how 225 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:52,080 Speaker 1: much this weird picture of a few empty rooms that 226 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:55,720 Speaker 1: I can't explain why but I know it smells weird 227 00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:59,720 Speaker 1: has inspired to the point where I feel the need 228 00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:05,400 Speaker 1: to explain these separate, opposing camps that devotees of the 229 00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:10,120 Speaker 1: Backrooms fall into, and they seem to attract audiences at 230 00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:15,920 Speaker 1: different stages of life. Reading one the slightly older set. 231 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,960 Speaker 1: From what I can gather find. The most haunting part 232 00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:22,560 Speaker 1: of the backrooms is seeing it as a liminal space. 233 00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:27,720 Speaker 1: We'll call them the liminal backrooms, and I include myself 234 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:31,720 Speaker 1: in this camp. The backrooms became the most popular example 235 00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:37,200 Speaker 1: of this bizarre, familiar but menacing void like image, a 236 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:39,960 Speaker 1: perfect example of what many in the late twenty tens 237 00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:45,240 Speaker 1: were accumulating and distributing on forums as liminal spaces. This 238 00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:48,520 Speaker 1: side of the Backroom's fandom appear to agree that there 239 00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:52,000 Speaker 1: is this feeling of vague danger in this image, but 240 00:15:52,160 --> 00:15:55,880 Speaker 1: not a danger that implies a monster. What the backrooms 241 00:15:55,880 --> 00:16:00,200 Speaker 1: are haunted by is absence, the feeling that anyone who 242 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:04,880 Speaker 1: spent time there is gone. Now it's mystery, it's nothingness, 243 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:10,360 Speaker 1: it's seemingly infinite. Space is where the terror is. And 244 00:16:10,400 --> 00:16:13,640 Speaker 1: then there is the second camp that younger people seem 245 00:16:13,680 --> 00:16:18,760 Speaker 1: to have fallen into during the Backroom's initial popularity. Reading too, 246 00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:23,680 Speaker 1: this view of the backrooms put overt terror into the 247 00:16:23,720 --> 00:16:27,600 Speaker 1: space by putting it in a creepy pasta format, so 248 00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:32,560 Speaker 1: making the backrooms the setting of an extremely online campfire story, 249 00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:36,840 Speaker 1: sometimes using familiar monsters and story beats from within the 250 00:16:36,880 --> 00:16:41,320 Speaker 1: creepy pasta community to spin out fan fiction and web series, 251 00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:44,760 Speaker 1: and almost all of this fan fiction and web series 252 00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:47,080 Speaker 1: that I could learn about the authors were made by 253 00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:50,840 Speaker 1: people about college age or younger. We're gonna call them 254 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:54,960 Speaker 1: the Creepy Pasta backrooms. And in the Creepy Pasta Backrooms, 255 00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:58,960 Speaker 1: you were being pursued through this infinite space by a 256 00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:02,680 Speaker 1: monster who wants to kill you. You can maybe see 257 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:05,439 Speaker 1: why these first two groups tend not to overlap in 258 00:17:05,480 --> 00:17:09,600 Speaker 1: spite of being inspired by the same blurry picture. One 259 00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:12,600 Speaker 1: relies on the absence of context in the image, and 260 00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:16,280 Speaker 1: the other attempts to put something supernatural into that image. 261 00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:19,760 Speaker 1: And while there's no definitive view of the backrooms, the 262 00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:24,639 Speaker 1: Creepy Pasta read is certainly more conducive to internet viral spread. 263 00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:28,840 Speaker 1: For young creative people. It serves as almost a writing 264 00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:32,640 Speaker 1: prompt to make something about what you think is going 265 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:37,600 Speaker 1: to be lurking behind those walls. But there's a third community, 266 00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:43,320 Speaker 1: the lost media backrooms. Unlike the first two, this group 267 00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:47,320 Speaker 1: isn't interested in the emotions that the backroom's image provokes, 268 00:17:47,680 --> 00:17:52,560 Speaker 1: but is concerned with finding the location of the actual backrooms. 269 00:17:52,840 --> 00:17:56,560 Speaker 1: The physical location, a task that takes a lot of 270 00:17:56,600 --> 00:18:02,080 Speaker 1: patience and diligence, and I'm thrilled to report, Yes, the 271 00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:07,600 Speaker 1: backrooms have been identified and they're still there, and the 272 00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:12,720 Speaker 1: journey defining them was goddamn fascinating. The discovery of the 273 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:16,720 Speaker 1: IRL backrooms was a year's long project with hundreds of 274 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:20,800 Speaker 1: contributors from the online lost media community and marked one 275 00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:24,680 Speaker 1: of their hardest spot successes ever. But to fully understand 276 00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:27,679 Speaker 1: these communities and how they interact with each other, I 277 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:32,240 Speaker 1: want to start with reading too the overt horror Creepy 278 00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:37,160 Speaker 1: Pasta backrooms, which became the most famous space for amateur 279 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:46,440 Speaker 1: horror of the last ten years. So what are creepy pastas? 280 00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:51,920 Speaker 1: By definition? Their Internet horror folk tales scary stories told 281 00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:56,440 Speaker 1: from person to person, usually by amateurs, anonymously, and very 282 00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:59,960 Speaker 1: often both. And while there is now an official creep 283 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,720 Speaker 1: past A website, the community began in the late nineties 284 00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:08,320 Speaker 1: into the early two thousands and began pretty decentralized. A 285 00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:11,880 Speaker 1: number of creepypasta folks would pop up anywhere from boards 286 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:14,439 Speaker 1: on four Chan and read it to old school angel 287 00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:18,760 Speaker 1: fire sites and blog platforms. The first story to ever 288 00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:22,680 Speaker 1: formally exist in this space was published online in two 289 00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:27,399 Speaker 1: thousand and one called Ted the Caver, a series of 290 00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:31,000 Speaker 1: blog posts that followed anonymous splunkers deeper into a very 291 00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:34,800 Speaker 1: narrow local cave, who were subsequently driven mad by a 292 00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:40,600 Speaker 1: supernatural being after discovering new cave passages, higheroglyphics, and start 293 00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:44,680 Speaker 1: having nightmares. The story ends with a post saying that 294 00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:47,560 Speaker 1: the splunkers are planning to bring a gun into the 295 00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:52,280 Speaker 1: cave next time, and then the blog was never updated again. 296 00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:55,879 Speaker 1: Part of the appeal of Ted the Caver at the 297 00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:59,080 Speaker 1: time was the ambiguity to the two thousand and one 298 00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:04,000 Speaker 1: audience of whether this really happened or not. The story 299 00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:08,119 Speaker 1: was formatted on an angel fire blog and was updated 300 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:12,000 Speaker 1: over a period of two months and included links. It 301 00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:16,280 Speaker 1: mimicked the real life blogging craze of the time. It's 302 00:20:16,359 --> 00:20:18,880 Speaker 1: kind of an internet version of the Blair Witch Project, 303 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:21,960 Speaker 1: which came out two years before in nineteen ninety nine. 304 00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:25,119 Speaker 4: Can you Believe the O Cult may be involved in 305 00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:30,440 Speaker 4: the disappearance of your son? 306 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:31,840 Speaker 9: I'm So Scared? 307 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:36,480 Speaker 1: And the movie created intentional confusion when it presented itself 308 00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:41,399 Speaker 1: as a true found footage documentary. This approach would be 309 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:45,680 Speaker 1: replicated in later creepy pastas, but like anything, it really 310 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,840 Speaker 1: depends on the writer's skill as to whether these stories 311 00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:53,440 Speaker 1: are actually scary. But I will say, as an adult, 312 00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:57,440 Speaker 1: the best thing about creepypastas to me is that they're 313 00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:02,520 Speaker 1: usually written with this kind of uncanny, amateurist style. And 314 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:05,840 Speaker 1: the reason that is is because it's mostly kids writing them. 315 00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:09,119 Speaker 1: Here's an example of what I'm talking about. This is 316 00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:13,840 Speaker 1: a very successful creepy pasta story called Jeff the Killer. 317 00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:17,120 Speaker 1: And what Jeff the Killer is about is a kid 318 00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:21,040 Speaker 1: named Jeff, and you'll never believe what he does. Here 319 00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:24,640 Speaker 1: is how the anonymous writer describes Jeff being bullied. 320 00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:28,680 Speaker 8: Early in the story, the kid landed and turned back 321 00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:32,600 Speaker 8: to them. He kicked his skateboard up and caught it 322 00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:33,400 Speaker 8: with his hands. 323 00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:36,280 Speaker 4: The kid seemed to be about. 324 00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:42,360 Speaker 8: Twelve, one year younger than Jeff. He wears an aeropostle 325 00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:47,439 Speaker 8: shirt and ripped blue jeans. Well, well, well looks like 326 00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:49,440 Speaker 8: we got some meat. 327 00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:55,800 Speaker 1: Totally exactly and now thankfully, Jeff the Killer later gets 328 00:21:55,800 --> 00:22:00,320 Speaker 1: his revenge when he Jeff that kills this bully. Let's 329 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:01,840 Speaker 1: hear how he does it. 330 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:08,920 Speaker 8: Something inside Jeff snaps, His psyche is destroyed, All rational 331 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:15,120 Speaker 8: thinking is gone. All he can do is kill. He 332 00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:19,199 Speaker 8: grabs Randy and pile drives him to the ground. He 333 00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:21,560 Speaker 8: gets on top of him and punches him straight in 334 00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:25,720 Speaker 8: the heart. The punch causes Randy's heart to stop. 335 00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:30,240 Speaker 1: I hate when that happens. There are hundreds of thousands 336 00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:34,800 Speaker 1: of creepypastas, and they revolve around popular characters or popular 337 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:39,119 Speaker 1: ideas like the back rooms, which means that some are 338 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,760 Speaker 1: going to be better than others. Here's something from one 339 00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:43,600 Speaker 1: of the backroom stories that I liked more. 340 00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,720 Speaker 8: I was about halfway done with filling in my information 341 00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,560 Speaker 8: when I slumped back in my chair. I hadn't gotten 342 00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:54,640 Speaker 8: much sleep the night prior, and I was exhausted. As 343 00:22:54,680 --> 00:23:00,240 Speaker 8: I slumped back, I noticed something very peculiar. My head 344 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,920 Speaker 8: never hit the wall. In fact, it felt like it 345 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:10,760 Speaker 8: went in. I got up, quite frightened and looked at 346 00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:16,560 Speaker 8: the wall. Nothing, not a single hole or dent had 347 00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,280 Speaker 8: been made in the wall by my head. So I 348 00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:23,760 Speaker 8: reached to touch the wall and my fingers went through 349 00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:25,440 Speaker 8: it pretty good. 350 00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:28,199 Speaker 1: Right, But there are a lot of bad ones. And 351 00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:32,560 Speaker 1: I'm not knocking the fact that these stories are amateurish, because, 352 00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:36,560 Speaker 1: to be honest, Jeff the Killer's bullies air apostle shirt 353 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,040 Speaker 1: and that heart punch probably would have scared the shit 354 00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,919 Speaker 1: out of me as a kid. But the more I 355 00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,600 Speaker 1: read through these stories, the more it started to connect 356 00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,200 Speaker 1: with me that creepy pastas are a way for creative 357 00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,479 Speaker 1: kids to navigate their fears in the same way that 358 00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,720 Speaker 1: fan fiction is a way for kids to navigate some 359 00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,960 Speaker 1: of their early sexual or just generally out a lesson feelings. 360 00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:05,880 Speaker 1: The story has depict these experiences of fear and their 361 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,879 Speaker 1: own bodies that in all likelihood they haven't had yet, 362 00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:14,639 Speaker 1: but they think about all the time. For comparison, here 363 00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:19,240 Speaker 1: is a pull from the classic fan fiction story My Immortal, 364 00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:22,840 Speaker 1: which was based in the Harry Potter universe, which will 365 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:24,560 Speaker 1: become clear very quickly. Here it is. 366 00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:30,360 Speaker 2: And then suddenly, just as I Draco kissed me passionately. 367 00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:33,480 Speaker 2: Draco climbed on top of me and we started to 368 00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:38,040 Speaker 2: make out keenly against a tree. He took off my 369 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:42,000 Speaker 2: top and I took off his clothes. I even took 370 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,760 Speaker 2: off my bra Then he put his thingy into my 371 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:47,400 Speaker 2: you know what, and. 372 00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:51,119 Speaker 1: We did it for the first time. There is so 373 00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,960 Speaker 1: much lore around the fan fiction My Immortal, but the 374 00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,399 Speaker 1: short story is that it was written by a girl 375 00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:01,320 Speaker 1: in middle school, and she uses these familiar characters and 376 00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:06,040 Speaker 1: formative crushes in order to imagine herself in a sexual predicament. 377 00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,160 Speaker 1: And so, while the Creepy Pasta and fanfit communities may 378 00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:15,320 Speaker 1: not have full overlap, they serve similar functions and both 379 00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,800 Speaker 1: have crossed over into the mainstream pretty successfully after peaking 380 00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:22,960 Speaker 1: in the mid twenty tens. And while the back Rooms 381 00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,760 Speaker 1: made its debut a few years after peak Creepy Pasta, 382 00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:32,440 Speaker 1: they quickly became a popular recurring location in the Creepy 383 00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:37,840 Speaker 1: Pasta space, not because of its emptiness and scariness, but 384 00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:43,000 Speaker 1: because of the infinite possibilities for hiding unseen monsters. The 385 00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,760 Speaker 1: most famous of these were made by a then sixteen 386 00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,800 Speaker 1: year old filmmaker named Kane Parsons on YouTube, who short 387 00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:54,719 Speaker 1: titled The back Rooms Found footage garnered millions of views 388 00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,800 Speaker 1: when it first dropped in early twenty twenty two, going 389 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,800 Speaker 1: on to inspire about twenty more sh shorts from Cain 390 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:06,240 Speaker 1: after and these shorts are really fucking good. After no 391 00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:09,760 Speaker 1: clipping out of reality, something that can be prompted by 392 00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:14,280 Speaker 1: something as innocuous as a stumble, the mean character ends 393 00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:16,160 Speaker 1: up in the infinite Rooms. 394 00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:18,440 Speaker 4: What the hell? 395 00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:33,040 Speaker 1: This series places the back Rooms explicitly in the world 396 00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:37,760 Speaker 1: of the supernatural, and while purists aren't necessarily happy about it, 397 00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,400 Speaker 1: Caine Parsons recently signed a deal with A twenty four 398 00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,919 Speaker 1: to adapt the series into a feature and as with 399 00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:49,680 Speaker 1: the Creepypastas before it, like slender Man or other longstanding 400 00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:54,320 Speaker 1: alternate reality spaces online, the back Rooms built out a 401 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:59,280 Speaker 1: ton of lore through series like Cain's. In the series, 402 00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:03,879 Speaker 1: there's a reveal of a big secret corporation that discovered 403 00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,679 Speaker 1: the realm of the Backrooms, and it's told in the 404 00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:10,720 Speaker 1: same found footage realism style that made successes of the 405 00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:14,480 Speaker 1: Blair Witch Project and Ted the caver So. At the 406 00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,960 Speaker 1: time of this writing, as I said, the Creepy pasta 407 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:21,800 Speaker 1: interpretation of the Backrooms is far more popular than either. 408 00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,879 Speaker 1: We're going to talk about later in the episode. But 409 00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,199 Speaker 1: what I think makes it special is that, unlike so 410 00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,560 Speaker 1: much of what we see as necessary to make a 411 00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:36,320 Speaker 1: footprint on the Internet right now, the scam, the recognition, 412 00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:41,160 Speaker 1: the desperation, honestly that a companies hoping this moment could 413 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,639 Speaker 1: improve your life during a time that feels so hopeless. 414 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,960 Speaker 1: While the story is about the void that feeling really 415 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:53,800 Speaker 1: isn't present in the creepypasta backrooms. The online video games 416 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,640 Speaker 1: designed to walk through the backrooms you can play for free. 417 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,840 Speaker 1: Caane Parson's work is free to consume, and much of 418 00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,560 Speaker 1: the built out creepypasta lure isn't even attributed to any 419 00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,920 Speaker 1: one person. It's a community built on passion and connection 420 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,800 Speaker 1: over a shared interest and I guess a shared fear. 421 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,080 Speaker 1: And I think that's really cool. We could talk about 422 00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,680 Speaker 1: the types of monsters one finds in the back rooms 423 00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,520 Speaker 1: all day, but I wanted to talk to a true 424 00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:28,240 Speaker 1: scholar of the creepy pasta form enter Sarah Bimo, author 425 00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:32,240 Speaker 1: of The Horror of Networked Experience, which is a full 426 00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:36,080 Speaker 1: look into how creepy pastas and Web two led to 427 00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,040 Speaker 1: stories like this. Here's our talk. 428 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,200 Speaker 7: Hi, my name is Sarah Bimo. I'm a PhD candidate 429 00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:47,640 Speaker 7: at your university in Toronto, Canada. My research really broadly 430 00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:51,360 Speaker 7: is about like kind of like effective experiences of digital life, 431 00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:56,120 Speaker 7: so like sinceations, emotions, like forms of knowledge that are 432 00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:00,440 Speaker 7: not distinctly rational. Yeah. I love creepy pasta and written 433 00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,719 Speaker 7: a book chapter about it and working on a follow up. 434 00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,160 Speaker 1: The chapter that you sent a long dev it's so fascinating. 435 00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,680 Speaker 1: It's called the horror of networked existence. But before we 436 00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,920 Speaker 1: get into sort of the contents of your research, I'm 437 00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,520 Speaker 1: curious in your field of study, what first drew you 438 00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:18,280 Speaker 1: to creepy process. 439 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,400 Speaker 7: I'm kind of like was initially and still am like 440 00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,920 Speaker 7: another object of study and of interest for me was 441 00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:29,360 Speaker 7: the way is that people on social media sites developed 442 00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,720 Speaker 7: like intuitions of algorithms and algorithmic governance. 443 00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,000 Speaker 10: So you're probably. 444 00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,880 Speaker 7: Familiar with a lot of these intuitions, like stuff like 445 00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,640 Speaker 7: I'll go speak, you know, where people self censor themselves 446 00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,200 Speaker 7: to avoid like the purview of like what feels like, 447 00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:47,040 Speaker 7: you know, omnipotent algorithm on. 448 00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:49,400 Speaker 1: A live great sort of that line of. 449 00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:51,120 Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, gotcha. 450 00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:51,640 Speaker 10: Yeah. 451 00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,080 Speaker 7: So that's one example of things that I see as intuitions, 452 00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:58,680 Speaker 7: like forms of knowledge about technological systems that are not 453 00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:03,280 Speaker 7: developed rational and birationally I mean, like necessarily entirely cognitively 454 00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:07,920 Speaker 7: and through gaining like true information about like the code 455 00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,400 Speaker 7: of the algorithm or whatever, but are developed kind of 456 00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:15,719 Speaker 7: tacitly and bodily and creepy pasta I see as a 457 00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:20,880 Speaker 7: similar kind of phenomenon what I classify as classic creepy 458 00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:24,280 Speaker 7: pasta like written let's say, like before twenty ten or so. 459 00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:26,800 Speaker 7: I see it as something that is like kind of 460 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:32,600 Speaker 7: the product of maybe like unconscious anxieties surrounding like digital 461 00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,360 Speaker 7: communication that kind of come to fruition and manifest as 462 00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,120 Speaker 7: this new form of horror. And separately, I just like 463 00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:39,640 Speaker 7: I read it a lot as a kid, and I 464 00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:40,040 Speaker 7: just like. 465 00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,920 Speaker 1: I say, were you a creepy pasta kid? As well? 466 00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:46,120 Speaker 1: You have to out yourself as a creepypasta head, But 467 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,640 Speaker 1: it feels like incorrect me if I'm wrong. But the 468 00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,840 Speaker 1: only sort of creepy pasta that has ever broken through 469 00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,000 Speaker 1: to the mainstream is the slender Man story. 470 00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:56,800 Speaker 5: Definitely. 471 00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,760 Speaker 7: Slender Man is undoubtedly the most popular in. 472 00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,280 Speaker 1: The moment, so cynical way possible. It does make sense 473 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,320 Speaker 1: to adapt creepy pastas because they're of dubious authorship and 474 00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:10,400 Speaker 1: they've already been focus grouped essentially, But to start, where 475 00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,600 Speaker 1: do creepypastas come from? How do they sort of grow 476 00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:14,800 Speaker 1: in popularity over time? 477 00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:20,480 Speaker 7: Creepy pastas are very interesting, and they've often been compared 478 00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:25,720 Speaker 7: to like folk tales or legends or myths because classic 479 00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,680 Speaker 7: ones like the ones that kind of came out in 480 00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:32,080 Speaker 7: the early days of the Internet. 481 00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,080 Speaker 5: Relatively. By that, I mean like the early two thousands. 482 00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:38,880 Speaker 7: Dish are largely anonymous and often kind of crowd sourced 483 00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:44,920 Speaker 7: so collectively authored, so flour chan is the common source 484 00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,920 Speaker 7: for many of them. I know that slender Man began 485 00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:54,120 Speaker 7: on the Something Awful forums where a user named Victor 486 00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,640 Speaker 7: Surge posted these like photoshop images featuring these like tall 487 00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:01,080 Speaker 7: creepy man. But if that's where it started, and then 488 00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,320 Speaker 7: kind of through collective authorship, they the legend grew and 489 00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,520 Speaker 7: grew and grew. This is very similar to folklore practices, 490 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:12,800 Speaker 7: wherein uh there's like a kind of distributed anonymous authorship 491 00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:18,000 Speaker 7: that allows the stories to develop and morph over time, 492 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:22,000 Speaker 7: so that the you know, possibly the most interesting or 493 00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:26,880 Speaker 7: shocking or like memeable elements of them are able to 494 00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,600 Speaker 7: kind of grow and get developed, whereas the boring stuff 495 00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:33,000 Speaker 7: maybe gets like left to the wayside, So that way 496 00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,800 Speaker 7: they're kind of like bread to be as maybe like 497 00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:41,160 Speaker 7: dynamic and as effective affecting as possible. There's also like 498 00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:46,120 Speaker 7: the Reddit slash the r slash No Sleep forum, where 499 00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,680 Speaker 7: obviously you cannot be as anonymous as you can be fortune. 500 00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,240 Speaker 7: So I think that this kind of sense of authenticity 501 00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:58,000 Speaker 7: and of you know, urban legendness is fostered through this 502 00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:02,600 Speaker 7: like collective role play. The folk tale qualities are fostered 503 00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:03,720 Speaker 7: through kind of different means. 504 00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:05,720 Speaker 1: I think it's also interesting that it seems to sort 505 00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:11,120 Speaker 1: of rise to prominence alongside fan fiction forums, which I 506 00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:15,640 Speaker 1: know are their own animal altogether, but the idea that like, yeah, 507 00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,080 Speaker 1: sort of during the web one point zero era, there 508 00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:23,480 Speaker 1: are anonymous writers that are sort of building these worlds collectively. 509 00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,200 Speaker 1: But as far as the Creepy Pasta world goes, what 510 00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,600 Speaker 1: is drawing people to it? And do you have a 511 00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:35,120 Speaker 1: feeling of what sort of age range or demographics participate 512 00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:35,880 Speaker 1: in these groups. 513 00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,920 Speaker 7: I can't say for certain. My impression is that it's 514 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,320 Speaker 7: largely younger people. I have that impression just from you 515 00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,200 Speaker 7: know the fact that when I was a Creepy Pasta kid, 516 00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:52,080 Speaker 7: the intranet was something that like mostly younger people were on. 517 00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,520 Speaker 7: My parents like would never have had any idea, whereas 518 00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:56,400 Speaker 7: now they're kind of like more on social media and stuff. 519 00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,160 Speaker 7: Also just kind of the quality of the writing. Often, 520 00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,240 Speaker 7: I think the fact that traditionally this kind of practice 521 00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:04,840 Speaker 7: of like campfire stories and stuff. It's like it's something 522 00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,279 Speaker 7: really associated with teenagers and young adults. And also I 523 00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:10,520 Speaker 7: think it's kind of a sense of a kind of 524 00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:14,319 Speaker 7: coming of age present through many of these stories. 525 00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:16,319 Speaker 5: Sometimes that's more ambiguous. 526 00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:20,000 Speaker 7: I think there's a sense of being confronted with like 527 00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,400 Speaker 7: the kind of your raucracy and infrastructures of the adult 528 00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:25,279 Speaker 7: world that. 529 00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:27,920 Speaker 5: Is somehow being negotiated in these. 530 00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:33,680 Speaker 7: So in classic creepypasta, there's like often like email is 531 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,440 Speaker 7: a source of horror, So that's one example. Then I'm 532 00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,799 Speaker 7: also thinking of the kind of infrastructural horror ones which 533 00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:45,720 Speaker 7: like makes strange the process of like driving or like elevators. 534 00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,680 Speaker 7: There needs to be like a sense of wonder and strangeness, 535 00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:52,600 Speaker 7: making strange of the mundane to you know, be explored 536 00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,480 Speaker 7: like as thoroughly as it is explored in creepypasta. Another 537 00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,839 Speaker 7: really common theme is this kind of nightmares nostalgia of 538 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,680 Speaker 7: like childhood TV shows or experiences. So like a big 539 00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:07,479 Speaker 7: thing is like theme parks that are scary. Handle Cove 540 00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:09,479 Speaker 7: is about like a kid's TV show that a bunch 541 00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,360 Speaker 7: of people all watched. Within the digesis of the story 542 00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,200 Speaker 7: that turned out to be like demonic and nightmarish. So 543 00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,560 Speaker 7: I just get this kind of strong sense of anxiety 544 00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:21,160 Speaker 7: of a separation from childhood that is being dealt with 545 00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,720 Speaker 7: or negotiated in some way. People who are full adults 546 00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:28,400 Speaker 7: are often like probably like more okay with the transition 547 00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:31,239 Speaker 7: from childhood to adulthood. You're like more established, And I 548 00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:33,600 Speaker 7: don't know, it could definitely be like made strange and alienated. 549 00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,280 Speaker 7: It's like a very common topic, but yeah, the particular 550 00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,640 Speaker 7: preoccupation I just a very very teenage, very young adult. 551 00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,120 Speaker 1: And you're right about this as well of a way 552 00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,080 Speaker 1: of forming the networked self, which you describe as sort 553 00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,080 Speaker 1: of a Web two point zero innovation, but almost as 554 00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:52,279 Speaker 1: a tool to help form identity and navigate anxieties and 555 00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,879 Speaker 1: fears through this genre. How did you sort of come 556 00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:56,120 Speaker 1: to that conclusion as you were. 557 00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:01,279 Speaker 7: Studying Queepypasta as a genre reflects anxieties surrounding the Web 558 00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:05,920 Speaker 7: two point oh model of communication, which is marked by like, 559 00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:11,000 Speaker 7: for example, more interactivity, kind of platformization, you know, social 560 00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:14,799 Speaker 7: media versus Web one point zero, which was characterized by 561 00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:19,000 Speaker 7: like kind of static web pages, less interactivity. The reason 562 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,480 Speaker 7: I kind of came to that interpretation was because of 563 00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:26,520 Speaker 7: this common preoccupation with the affordances of Web two point oh, 564 00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:30,520 Speaker 7: like the modalities of the Internet and the infrastructure of 565 00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,160 Speaker 7: the Internet itself was like the topic of many of 566 00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:37,520 Speaker 7: these stories I mentioned before, Like email is often deployed 567 00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,120 Speaker 7: as like a narrative element. Smile Dog, for example, consists 568 00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:45,360 Speaker 7: of like a cursed image that is shared via email. 569 00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:47,839 Speaker 7: And I think this praise upon this kind of fear 570 00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:52,040 Speaker 7: of surveillance and of exterior forces that can reach you 571 00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,400 Speaker 7: no matter where you are, no matter what time. It 572 00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,920 Speaker 7: is the instantaneity of communication, which is like unprecedented in 573 00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:03,080 Speaker 7: human history. For example, the telephone, like the telegram, letters, 574 00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,640 Speaker 7: like none of these forms of communication are able to 575 00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:05,920 Speaker 7: do this. 576 00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:10,520 Speaker 1: Now that we've moved into Web three point zero, how 577 00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:16,120 Speaker 1: have these stories changed to reflect more contemporary technological anxieties. 578 00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,160 Speaker 7: It's interesting, Like I was thinking about how the back 579 00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:23,200 Speaker 7: Rooms is similar and dissimilar to like classic creepypasta, because 580 00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,520 Speaker 7: I think the Backrooms is the natural inheritor of this 581 00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:30,680 Speaker 7: tradition and it's also quite popular. Another maybe kind of 582 00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:35,040 Speaker 7: similar one is like SCP, like a collaborative wiki wherein 583 00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:38,240 Speaker 7: people post articles about like the SEP Foundation, which deals 584 00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:39,200 Speaker 7: with like paranorl Moor. 585 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:39,920 Speaker 5: Threats and stuff. 586 00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:46,720 Speaker 7: I think that classic creepypasta maybe allows for the possibility 587 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,799 Speaker 7: of a non digital life in that it's almost kind 588 00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,440 Speaker 7: of like moralistic, where it's like if you spend too 589 00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,000 Speaker 7: much time on the internet, if you're always like on 590 00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,800 Speaker 7: your email, you're more likely to become victim to what 591 00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,960 Speaker 7: dark forces like animate the web. But there is this 592 00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,600 Speaker 7: possibility of a non digital like natural life, almost and 593 00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:13,280 Speaker 7: I think that the backgrounds at least no longer engages 594 00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:17,320 Speaker 7: with that, or it's not really committed to the idea 595 00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:20,840 Speaker 7: that there is the possibility for a non digital life. 596 00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,239 Speaker 7: I say this because I don't think there's the same 597 00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,360 Speaker 7: kind of moralizing of don't do this and you'll be safe, 598 00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:29,880 Speaker 7: but rather there's like the acceptance that this kind of 599 00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,440 Speaker 7: mode of reality, which is conditioned by technology and by 600 00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:37,239 Speaker 7: the Internet and by digitalization, is completely pervasive and it's 601 00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,439 Speaker 7: just now a fundational structure of our lives. The source 602 00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:45,600 Speaker 7: of fear becomes maybe more sophisticated or more complex in 603 00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:48,719 Speaker 7: that they're now just engaging with kind of questions of 604 00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:52,719 Speaker 7: appearance versus reality, like more fundamentally like what is reality? 605 00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,920 Speaker 7: There are still these kind of fears of ghosts and 606 00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,719 Speaker 7: demons and forces that haunt web infrastructures, but it's no 607 00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:03,760 Speaker 7: longer possible to escape them by getting offline. They are 608 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:10,239 Speaker 7: perhaps more and more endemic and more unavoidable. So I 609 00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:14,640 Speaker 7: feel like the fear is it feels more existential and 610 00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:17,920 Speaker 7: more kind of deeply rooted. Again, these are This is 611 00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:20,560 Speaker 7: just kind of you know, my thoughts on seeing like 612 00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:21,720 Speaker 7: the backrooms posts. 613 00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:23,799 Speaker 1: But that makes a lot of sense. Is I think 614 00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,560 Speaker 1: a lot of the anxieties or knee jerk reactions to 615 00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:30,640 Speaker 1: earlier forms of Internet anxiety is how do I make 616 00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,960 Speaker 1: this go away? Where now it's more like I can't 617 00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,200 Speaker 1: make this go away? How can I navigate it in 618 00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:38,480 Speaker 1: a way that's comfortable for me? Which is like a 619 00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:39,960 Speaker 1: pretty major shift. 620 00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,120 Speaker 7: The backrooms is really like a case of like children 621 00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:48,080 Speaker 7: yearned for third spaces, because I think that our current 622 00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:50,880 Speaker 7: moment is one in which public space has been largely 623 00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,800 Speaker 7: like neoliberalized and rendered completely sterile and kind of hostile 624 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:55,759 Speaker 7: to forms. 625 00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:57,520 Speaker 5: Of identity formation and community making. 626 00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,000 Speaker 7: And the back rooms in the backgrounds I see a 627 00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,480 Speaker 7: bit of a reflection of this kind of anxiety or 628 00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:07,840 Speaker 7: feeling that there's the home, there's the workplace. There's the 629 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,280 Speaker 7: domain of nature and there's nothing outside of that. Because 630 00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,680 Speaker 7: and this relates to the luminality again, these are places 631 00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:16,799 Speaker 7: you just kind of like pass through. They have a 632 00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:22,680 Speaker 7: standardized architecture, a kind of deindividualized people. Everyone is rendered 633 00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,680 Speaker 7: the same by passing through them. So I think this 634 00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:29,120 Speaker 7: is also a kind of anxiety surrounding late stage capitalism 635 00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:31,600 Speaker 7: and the effects it has on kind of architecture and 636 00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:32,560 Speaker 7: space and identity. 637 00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,719 Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Sarah Bimo. You can find 638 00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,480 Speaker 1: more of her work in the description of this episode. 639 00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,960 Speaker 1: So call me Giata deal a Renis on Halloween, because honey, 640 00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:51,839 Speaker 1: that was some creepy pasta. Give me some horns. And 641 00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,600 Speaker 1: when we come back, we're switching gears to the philosophical 642 00:40:56,160 --> 00:41:15,719 Speaker 1: the liminal Backrooms. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I once 643 00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,719 Speaker 1: got so scared reading a slender Man's story that I 644 00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,920 Speaker 1: had to watch six consecutive episodes of Family Guy to 645 00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:26,080 Speaker 1: calm down. And we're returning to the Backrooms to get 646 00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:30,000 Speaker 1: a better look at the second now vibrant online community 647 00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:34,200 Speaker 1: that helped launch them into fame and stick around because 648 00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,359 Speaker 1: the true story of the Backrooms comes right after this. 649 00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:46,560 Speaker 1: But first, more Glorious Weirdness listener the Liminal Backrooms. The 650 00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:51,279 Speaker 1: liminal space community existed prior to the popularity of the backrooms, 651 00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:55,719 Speaker 1: but for many, including myself, it was through the backrooms 652 00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:59,920 Speaker 1: that I learned that this community and this term exists 653 00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,480 Speaker 1: did at all. So unless you're an ap English expat 654 00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,520 Speaker 1: or just a fan of this genre of weird Internet, 655 00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,279 Speaker 1: you might need a better working definition of what a 656 00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:17,080 Speaker 1: liminal space actually means. Liminal, according to miss Merriam Webster, is. 657 00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:23,000 Speaker 8: Of relating to or situated at a sensory threshold barely 658 00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,920 Speaker 8: perceptible or capable of eliciting a response. 659 00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:31,880 Speaker 1: So threshold is the key word here. When applied in 660 00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:36,880 Speaker 1: a cultural or anthropological space, liminal is something associated with 661 00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:41,600 Speaker 1: a ritual around a life marker. So think bar Mitzvah's 662 00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:49,080 Speaker 1: kinsinirez Sweet sixteens, religious confirmations, all rituals associated with adolescents 663 00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:54,200 Speaker 1: the ugliest, horniest threshold of human life. And the way 664 00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,040 Speaker 1: that this same word is used in the liminal space 665 00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:02,160 Speaker 1: community doesn't ignore the dictionary definie, but it does clarify 666 00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:06,800 Speaker 1: the feeling that accompanies it. If you search liminal space, 667 00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,800 Speaker 1: it becomes obvious that this feeling of transition is present. 668 00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:16,080 Speaker 1: Liminal spaces are pictures of places that you would only 669 00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:20,000 Speaker 1: spend time in on your way to somewhere else. Think 670 00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:24,520 Speaker 1: hotel hallways in the middle of the night, empty airports, 671 00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:29,640 Speaker 1: waiting rooms, old malls, rest stops, abandoned parking lots, specific 672 00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:34,360 Speaker 1: spaces that are associated with a passing through. Very rarely 673 00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:38,080 Speaker 1: someone's actual home. And what's another way to say that, 674 00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:44,000 Speaker 1: oh yeah, thresholds Liminal spaces in this Internet community are 675 00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:48,440 Speaker 1: defined by the uneasiness one gets when looking at them. 676 00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:53,600 Speaker 1: They're usually empty, always of people, and often of lighting 677 00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:58,760 Speaker 1: or objects. If you're in the hotel hallway, you're always alone. 678 00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:03,560 Speaker 1: The mall is more often than not abandoned, and whatever 679 00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,719 Speaker 1: remains of its stores are sparse and feel from a 680 00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,759 Speaker 1: past decade. There is an implied nostalgia to many of 681 00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,640 Speaker 1: these liminal spaces by extension, and that's one of the 682 00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,640 Speaker 1: reasons I think they appeal to a slightly older audience, 683 00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:19,759 Speaker 1: because those are people who can summon the image of 684 00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:24,360 Speaker 1: something they remember that no longer exists, like chunky cheese 685 00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:29,440 Speaker 1: animatronic bands. But there is one small controversy within the 686 00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:34,400 Speaker 1: liminal backrooms interpretation, and that's whether a liminal space can 687 00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,560 Speaker 1: be strictly one that exists in real life, or if 688 00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:42,480 Speaker 1: a digital space can be liminal too, And this disagreement 689 00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:47,960 Speaker 1: appears to be microgenerational. People who associate nostalgia with analog 690 00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:51,560 Speaker 1: technology tend to be purists and say nothing on a 691 00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,880 Speaker 1: computer could be liminal, while people who grew up online 692 00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:58,800 Speaker 1: have a much easier time seeing this quality in older 693 00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:01,640 Speaker 1: digital images. I'm a little bit on the fence about 694 00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,279 Speaker 1: this one, and I tend to find the photos of 695 00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:09,960 Speaker 1: old malls and hallways scarier than AI generated infinity spaces. 696 00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,080 Speaker 1: But there are some digital images that I find eerie, 697 00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,440 Speaker 1: not just because of their implied void, but because of 698 00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,239 Speaker 1: the nostalgia I get when I look at them. An 699 00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:22,040 Speaker 1: example that stands out to me is this old screensaver 700 00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,000 Speaker 1: that would loop in countless elementary school computer labs I 701 00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:29,279 Speaker 1: went into when I was a kid. The screensaver is 702 00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:33,200 Speaker 1: this infinite brick hallway that every few seconds turned to 703 00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:37,880 Speaker 1: corner after corner, and the walls occasionally turn to concrete 704 00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:42,360 Speaker 1: for no reason. The screensaver was amazed and nowhere, but 705 00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:46,399 Speaker 1: every once in a while, this translucent smiley face would 706 00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,480 Speaker 1: appear at the end of one of the hallways like 707 00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:53,880 Speaker 1: almost like it was saying congratulations, you made it, except 708 00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:57,280 Speaker 1: you hadn't made it. You push right through the smiley 709 00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,960 Speaker 1: face and take the next turn into the infinite corridor. 710 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:06,480 Speaker 1: It never ends. That to me is an extremely liminal space. 711 00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,839 Speaker 1: But there's also the matter of timing. Remember the back 712 00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:14,560 Speaker 1: rooms became popular shortly before the pandemic lockdown of twenty 713 00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:18,440 Speaker 1: twenty and would only become more popular through the early 714 00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,319 Speaker 1: years of the decade, culminating with Kane Parsons series in 715 00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:26,200 Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Kane Parsons would have been about fourteen 716 00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:30,160 Speaker 1: years old during the pandemic lockdown, So the audience and 717 00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:33,759 Speaker 1: often the creators of this content were people at a 718 00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:38,120 Speaker 1: liminal place in their lives adolescence, living in this moment 719 00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:43,200 Speaker 1: in history that also felt very liminal, because what were 720 00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:48,040 Speaker 1: the early twenty twenties defined by, if not discomfort, forced isolation, 721 00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:55,680 Speaker 1: fear and uncertainty. Fortunately things have improved, of course, This 722 00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:59,320 Speaker 1: still expanding corner of the Internet didn't invent the idea 723 00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:04,000 Speaker 1: of spaces, but it sharpened the definition and pinpointed the 724 00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:08,040 Speaker 1: feeling that a true liminal space is thought to evoke. 725 00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,680 Speaker 1: There are plenty of artists who pre date the Internet 726 00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:16,280 Speaker 1: who have captured this feeling very effectively, filmmakers like Stanley 727 00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:20,400 Speaker 1: Kubrick with the long, eerie hotel Hallways of the Shining, 728 00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,600 Speaker 1: basically all of the work of David Lynch. And there's 729 00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:29,520 Speaker 1: also the cautionary, very vacant feeling cities of techno dystopia 730 00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:34,000 Speaker 1: movies like Videodrome and Blade Runner. And this aesthetic has 731 00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:37,880 Speaker 1: inspired a fair amount of YouTube horror, which I'll specify 732 00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:42,080 Speaker 1: not the creepypasta corner of YouTube. We'll get there, but 733 00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:48,320 Speaker 1: these videos and stories around eerie, slow moving, empty landscapes, 734 00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:53,040 Speaker 1: and as time marched on, the kids that experienced these 735 00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:57,720 Speaker 1: kinds of liminal spaces grew up and began making liminal 736 00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:02,120 Speaker 1: art of their own. Yile Edward Ball and Jane Schoenbrunn 737 00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,880 Speaker 1: are horror film directors. They're both born in the late eighties, 738 00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:11,319 Speaker 1: and their respectively fantastic movies that reference online horror are 739 00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:15,120 Speaker 1: both influenced by creepy pasta and the movies in film 740 00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:20,480 Speaker 1: that influence that culture. So just an araboris of backroom 741 00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:24,520 Speaker 1: like spaces. Kyle Edward Ball's first feature is twenty twenty 742 00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:28,919 Speaker 1: two's skin amerink a terrifying found footage movie about two 743 00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:32,280 Speaker 1: young siblings who find themselves seemingly alone in the middle 744 00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,040 Speaker 1: of the night, and then the doors and windows of 745 00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:39,120 Speaker 1: the house begin to disappear. It's liminal to its core 746 00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:42,719 Speaker 1: and just full of this sense of claustrophobia, of a 747 00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,719 Speaker 1: space where you're supposed to feel safe, you're home, but 748 00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:50,919 Speaker 1: the space is collapsing within itself. And Ball didn't find 749 00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:55,080 Speaker 1: liminality by mistake. He got his start by making horror 750 00:48:55,120 --> 00:49:00,240 Speaker 1: shorts on YouTube from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one, 751 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,040 Speaker 1: and I fanesked what will become his signature style in 752 00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:06,920 Speaker 1: a series called Fite Sized Nightmares, where he would adapt 753 00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,759 Speaker 1: viewers submitted recaps of their own nightmares and translate them 754 00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:14,080 Speaker 1: into experiment films to post on YouTube. He told The 755 00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,200 Speaker 1: New York Times about his connection to internet horror back 756 00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:18,239 Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. 757 00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:21,440 Speaker 8: I had a YouTube channel where people would comment on 758 00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:25,960 Speaker 8: things that scared them. But as I kept giving that answer, 759 00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,320 Speaker 8: I realized there are a lot of things that inspired 760 00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,239 Speaker 8: this movie that I'm not even comfortable to say. 761 00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:32,040 Speaker 1: At the heart of. 762 00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:37,440 Speaker 8: It is pain and sadness and a little bit of anger. 763 00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:41,080 Speaker 1: And then there's the work of Jane Schoenbrun, whose most 764 00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:45,360 Speaker 1: recent movie is the incredible I Saw the TV Glow. 765 00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:49,600 Speaker 1: They also got their start online. Their first project, twenty 766 00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:54,760 Speaker 1: eighteen's A Self Induced Hallucination, was composed of only found 767 00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:58,720 Speaker 1: online footage that ended up piecing together a narrative about 768 00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:04,120 Speaker 1: the history of creepypasta legend the slender Man, and when 769 00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:06,120 Speaker 1: they moved into films that they shot on their own, 770 00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:10,439 Speaker 1: we get the mother Load, the best example I've seen 771 00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,839 Speaker 1: of how spaces like the backrooms and Creepy Pasta can 772 00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:19,000 Speaker 1: shape and define adolescence. Twenty twenty one's We're All Going 773 00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:23,440 Speaker 1: to the World's Fair. The movie follows a loner, neglected 774 00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:28,440 Speaker 1: teenage girl's obsessive journey doing a creepy Pasta style YouTube 775 00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:32,560 Speaker 1: challenge called the World's Fair Challenge. And for what it's worth, 776 00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:35,640 Speaker 1: boilers ahead for this movie, so please give ahead a 777 00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:37,360 Speaker 1: minute or so if you haven't seen it and you 778 00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:40,000 Speaker 1: want to. It's streaming on Max right now. And while 779 00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,440 Speaker 1: we spend most of the movie thinking that what's happening 780 00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,279 Speaker 1: to her is supernatural, she's flailing in her sleep, she's 781 00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:50,319 Speaker 1: smearing paint on her face. It's revealed in a conversation 782 00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:54,160 Speaker 1: between her and another World's Fair Challenge participant at the end. 783 00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,640 Speaker 1: But this isn't true at all. She's just doing what 784 00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:01,759 Speaker 1: a lot of teenagers do, usaying her feelings of loneliness 785 00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:07,080 Speaker 1: and frustration through an alternate reality horror game, something we 786 00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,120 Speaker 1: only learn when the other player worries that she might 787 00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:11,880 Speaker 1: hurt herself in real life? 788 00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:21,879 Speaker 9: How long until I do it? I need to sure, code, 789 00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:23,200 Speaker 9: I promise you was scared. 790 00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:35,040 Speaker 4: I think I need to ask you something. 791 00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:39,360 Speaker 9: Sure? 792 00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,120 Speaker 7: What is it? But when we need to go out 793 00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:43,760 Speaker 7: of the game first? Is that? 794 00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:44,120 Speaker 4: Is that? 795 00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:48,040 Speaker 7: Okay? Sure? 796 00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:49,319 Speaker 9: What's that? 797 00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:52,719 Speaker 7: That's an expression? 798 00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:55,000 Speaker 4: It means outside the margins of the game. 799 00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:59,799 Speaker 1: World's Fare pinpoints the straddled experiences of the liminal back 800 00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:04,320 Speaker 1: rooms and the creepy pasta backrooms. For the whole movie, 801 00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:08,560 Speaker 1: the protagonist, Casey, retreats into the perceived horror of being 802 00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:12,240 Speaker 1: possessed in order to process the suffering that they're feeling 803 00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:17,680 Speaker 1: as an outsider during an extremely liminal stage of her life. 804 00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:21,080 Speaker 1: When you take a step back, the actual liminal space 805 00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:25,480 Speaker 1: that the character exists in is her own bedroom. When 806 00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:28,080 Speaker 1: asked about the Internet's influence on their work in twenty 807 00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:32,680 Speaker 1: twenty two in Little White Lies, Schonbrunn said, it's driving 808 00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,560 Speaker 1: as much from the dial up wild West, haunted landscape 809 00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:38,120 Speaker 1: that was my childhood online as it is from twenty 810 00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:43,080 Speaker 1: twelve era creepy pasta amateur YouTube aesthetics, and I was 811 00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:45,880 Speaker 1: of that generation where the computer entered the home and 812 00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:49,640 Speaker 1: slowly became more and more of a magnet. Especially for 813 00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,480 Speaker 1: me as a queer creative kid. It was a space 814 00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:54,839 Speaker 1: that was really important for me because it was hard 815 00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:56,960 Speaker 1: to be both of those things. Where I was growing up, 816 00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:00,319 Speaker 1: it was viewed as dark or strange, or danger, risks 817 00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:02,840 Speaker 1: or wrong. I would wait for everyone to go to 818 00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:05,960 Speaker 1: bed and stay up on the computer, writing and reading 819 00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:09,719 Speaker 1: fan fiction, lurking on message boards, and aiming with people 820 00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:13,240 Speaker 1: from school and weirdos I met online. It was something 821 00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:16,120 Speaker 1: I never acknowledged or talked about in my real life. 822 00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:19,719 Speaker 1: That's the dominant experience I was drawing from emotionally and 823 00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:23,120 Speaker 1: trying to explore with the film. I have a strong 824 00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:27,880 Speaker 1: suspicion that combining technophobia with the reality of living in 825 00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:32,560 Speaker 1: a real, three dimensional dystopia is going to dominate horror 826 00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:35,920 Speaker 1: in the years to come, especially as go to creatives 827 00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,840 Speaker 1: have a closer and more formative relationship with the Internet, 828 00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,720 Speaker 1: and if that art is anything like Kyle and James, 829 00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:47,000 Speaker 1: we're in for some good stuff. So I wanted to 830 00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:51,840 Speaker 1: talk to someone who deeply understood the academic and contemporary 831 00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,960 Speaker 1: definitions of liminal spaces to get to the core of 832 00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,239 Speaker 1: what the backrooms means better. And we're better to look 833 00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,160 Speaker 1: for someone with this very particular set of skills than 834 00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:06,000 Speaker 1: the Internet. Peter Heft is a philosopher who spent a 835 00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,520 Speaker 1: hell of a lot of time analyzing the way that 836 00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:12,560 Speaker 1: we interpret space and how it affects us psychologically. I 837 00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:16,800 Speaker 1: learned so much about how liminality originated in his paper 838 00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:23,479 Speaker 1: Betwixt and Between Zones as liminal and deterritorialized Spaces. Here's 839 00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:23,959 Speaker 1: our talk. 840 00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:28,640 Speaker 10: My name is Peter Heft. I'm a doctoral candidate at 841 00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:31,319 Speaker 10: the Center for the Study of Theory and Criticism at 842 00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:33,040 Speaker 10: the University of Western Ontario. 843 00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:37,480 Speaker 1: What drew you to the idea of liminality and just 844 00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:39,560 Speaker 1: sort of realizing that, you know, while there's been a 845 00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:43,000 Speaker 1: lot of writing about space just conceptually, there hasn't been 846 00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,520 Speaker 1: a lot of writing about this phenomenon specifically. 847 00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:48,000 Speaker 10: I think there are I guess a few ways to 848 00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:50,200 Speaker 10: answer that. So on the one hand, right, I was 849 00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:52,960 Speaker 10: drawn to this topic generally because I was reading the 850 00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:57,919 Speaker 10: work of HP Lovecraft, and within his work, this idea 851 00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:01,160 Speaker 10: of thresholds and passing beyond on the known into the 852 00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:05,560 Speaker 10: unknown is this kind of recurring motif. And at the 853 00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:10,080 Speaker 10: time I was also listening to a very interesting podcast 854 00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:14,839 Speaker 10: called Weird Studies that kind of tackles similar topics from 855 00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:17,480 Speaker 10: an academic vein, and I realized, I guess that like 856 00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,960 Speaker 10: this question of zones and liminality was talked about a 857 00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:24,120 Speaker 10: lot in an anthropological register, also in kind of like 858 00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,680 Speaker 10: the weird fiction and weird theory side of things, But 859 00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,880 Speaker 10: the melding of the two was somewhat there, and I 860 00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:33,160 Speaker 10: wanted to try to fill some niche. 861 00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:36,160 Speaker 1: The most basic question I could ask here is what 862 00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:41,719 Speaker 1: is a classic example of a liminal space of this 863 00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:43,880 Speaker 1: threshold like space you're describing. 864 00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:46,239 Speaker 10: There are a few ways to think about it. The 865 00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:50,000 Speaker 10: kind of traditional anthropological account, right, is a more personal 866 00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:55,160 Speaker 10: or subjective accounting, a mental space where someone is kind 867 00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:58,160 Speaker 10: of excluded from a community for the sake of building 868 00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:01,600 Speaker 10: themselves up, and then they're reintegrated within the community. And 869 00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,160 Speaker 10: so this is like a space in a sense of 870 00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:08,359 Speaker 10: like a zone of indistinction where they are kind of 871 00:56:08,760 --> 00:56:11,040 Speaker 10: part of the community but kind of not. And that's 872 00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:14,880 Speaker 10: the traditional anthropological understanding at least. There's also then the 873 00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:18,360 Speaker 10: kind of Internet account which is quite literally like a space, 874 00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:21,400 Speaker 10: which would be like an airport or a bus station 875 00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:24,520 Speaker 10: or things like that, like the copy pasta Reddit post 876 00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,000 Speaker 10: that's like, oh, this is like a scary type of place, right. 877 00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:29,040 Speaker 1: At least in the Internet sense. A lot of these 878 00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:33,000 Speaker 1: limital spaces, Yeah, they definitely look creepy. They're very often 879 00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:38,279 Speaker 1: very like monochromatic and empty. But the point you made 880 00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:42,040 Speaker 1: was that there are ordinarily places that you don't stay 881 00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:45,600 Speaker 1: for very long, rest stops, like waiting rooms, like places 882 00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:49,520 Speaker 1: where you're not where you're intended to be between doing 883 00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:50,440 Speaker 1: other things. 884 00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:52,920 Speaker 10: One of the things that is interesting, and I was 885 00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:55,120 Speaker 10: thinking about this last night, is that I think there's 886 00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:58,200 Speaker 10: a distinction between I guess what I would call an 887 00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:01,560 Speaker 10: intrinsic or an inherently liminal space and one that is 888 00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:06,840 Speaker 10: not in transit clear inherently limital, and the former instance, 889 00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:11,040 Speaker 10: I think it would be like bus stops, airports, train stations, 890 00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:17,120 Speaker 10: things like that, insofar as they are literally designed to 891 00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:22,760 Speaker 10: be threshold spaces between a destination and between destinations, right, 892 00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:26,960 Speaker 10: And we can kind of see this very literally codified 893 00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:29,880 Speaker 10: and like the weird legal status of airports, like you're 894 00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:31,920 Speaker 10: kind of in the country, you're kind of not. It's 895 00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:37,439 Speaker 10: those are very literally threshold spaces. But I think those 896 00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:42,760 Speaker 10: are ultimately not all that interesting because they're so rigidly defined, 897 00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:47,680 Speaker 10: Like they are explicitly defined as spaces in between destinations 898 00:57:47,680 --> 00:57:52,440 Speaker 10: are two more codified locales. I think the more interesting 899 00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:55,040 Speaker 10: instance would be things that are kind of wrenched from 900 00:57:55,080 --> 00:58:00,560 Speaker 10: their ordinary context, or spaces that are changed depending on 901 00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:03,919 Speaker 10: how we interact with them. And I think those can 902 00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:09,560 Speaker 10: become liminal or cease having a level of limonel depending 903 00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:13,919 Speaker 10: upon how we're interacting with them. And certainly there's more 904 00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:15,480 Speaker 10: to say on that as well. 905 00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:17,280 Speaker 1: But I mean, what would be an example of a 906 00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:18,080 Speaker 1: space like that? 907 00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:20,640 Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean I think a school, I think is 908 00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:24,360 Speaker 10: an interesting example, right because on the one hand, right, 909 00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:30,280 Speaker 10: you go to like around any school during the academic year, 910 00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:34,040 Speaker 10: and there are children running around, and there's like garbage 911 00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:37,120 Speaker 10: all around, and there's like bells, drinking and stuff like that, Right, 912 00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:42,920 Speaker 10: But once you enter the school during the winter or 913 00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:47,120 Speaker 10: the summer. It's the context is very different. There's nobody 914 00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:50,600 Speaker 10: running around, it's absent. You hear just the tick of 915 00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:55,480 Speaker 10: clocks on the walls. But our relationship to this space 916 00:58:55,560 --> 00:59:00,880 Speaker 10: has changed dramatically, and I think that provides it's one 917 00:59:00,920 --> 00:59:03,720 Speaker 10: instance of kind of like an unsettling feeling. 918 00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:07,000 Speaker 1: Perhaps I wanted to go back a little bit to 919 00:59:07,560 --> 00:59:12,919 Speaker 1: talk about the anthropological definition of liminality versus what we've 920 00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:16,400 Speaker 1: seen it sort of evolved into on the Internet, because 921 00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:20,160 Speaker 1: it seems like the liminality of anthropology is kind of 922 00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:23,360 Speaker 1: a more psychological state. Could you give me some examples 923 00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:26,520 Speaker 1: of that, because I know you reference that it's related 924 00:59:26,560 --> 00:59:31,760 Speaker 1: to feeling like a ritual or a major change. 925 00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:34,760 Speaker 10: I can't give like a specific example of a like 926 00:59:34,920 --> 00:59:39,640 Speaker 10: specific indigenous group where like such a ritual might take place, 927 00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:42,960 Speaker 10: because I'm not an anthropologist in that context. Right, it's 928 00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:48,000 Speaker 10: a rite of passage insofar as somebody is not wholly 929 00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:51,160 Speaker 10: accepted within the group until they complete some certain task 930 00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:55,080 Speaker 10: or whatever, and that's like this zone of indistinction where 931 00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,440 Speaker 10: they're perhaps still a child, not quite an adult, or 932 00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:00,280 Speaker 10: I guess we can also think of this in kind 933 01:00:00,320 --> 01:00:04,320 Speaker 10: of religious contexts as well. Like in Judaism, right, you're 934 01:00:05,080 --> 01:00:08,200 Speaker 10: still a child, but you're almost an adult as you're 935 01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:12,480 Speaker 10: learning to read the tara for a barmitzvah. Traditionally, like 936 01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:19,040 Speaker 10: cultural things, the jump to the kind of physical register 937 01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:23,120 Speaker 10: in the context of the Internet creepypasta sphere has probably 938 01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:26,880 Speaker 10: just been an appropriation of terms to some extent, insofar 939 01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:32,400 Speaker 10: as the Latin lineman just literally means threshold, So I 940 01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:34,960 Speaker 10: would imagine that there's in that sense just an appropriation 941 01:00:35,040 --> 01:00:38,720 Speaker 10: of terms, but also perhaps kind of this weird recognition 942 01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:43,280 Speaker 10: that like, once you perhaps enter these odd spaces, you're 943 01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:47,720 Speaker 10: somewhat excluded from whatever you had been in previously, Like 944 01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:51,000 Speaker 10: you venture into the back rooms and you're no longer 945 01:00:51,080 --> 01:00:54,080 Speaker 10: in the hotel, or you're no longer amongst the living 946 01:00:54,240 --> 01:00:54,720 Speaker 10: or whatever. 947 01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:57,400 Speaker 1: I mean, being thirteen years old kind of does feel 948 01:00:57,440 --> 01:01:01,200 Speaker 1: like being in a haunted room. It's extremely lonely and 949 01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:04,160 Speaker 1: a little scary. I can see how people get from 950 01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:05,280 Speaker 1: A to B there. 951 01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:07,440 Speaker 10: You could say that I guess middle school would be 952 01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:11,600 Speaker 10: a like that kind of threshold space in a weird way. 953 01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:15,200 Speaker 1: Cool, Yeah, is there anything else that you'd like to touch. 954 01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:16,840 Speaker 10: On the other thing that I was thinking about, I 955 01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:19,680 Speaker 10: suppose is you were. There's also kind of for anyone 956 01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:22,720 Speaker 10: that plays video games in your audience, right, there's the 957 01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:26,360 Speaker 10: phenomenon of no clipping or clipping out of a map, 958 01:01:26,960 --> 01:01:30,600 Speaker 10: which in the context of video games, right, you are 959 01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:34,120 Speaker 10: wandering around and given a map that's been created, and 960 01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:36,840 Speaker 10: you run up against the edge and there's a glitch 961 01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:38,800 Speaker 10: and you kind of jump out of the map and 962 01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:41,160 Speaker 10: you can see the entire world that you're in. And 963 01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:44,520 Speaker 10: that's an example of I guess this like kind of 964 01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:48,080 Speaker 10: a weird digital version of of the back room. Is 965 01:01:48,080 --> 01:01:51,120 Speaker 10: that I think that one who is familiar with video 966 01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:55,000 Speaker 10: games has probably encountered at some point like the world 967 01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:58,200 Speaker 10: has not fully been rendered yet. 968 01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:00,680 Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Peter. You can find more 969 01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:03,920 Speaker 1: of his work in the description of this episode. And 970 01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:07,480 Speaker 1: when we come back, we solve the real life mystery 971 01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:27,240 Speaker 1: of the back rooms. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I've 972 01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:31,640 Speaker 1: rewritten this episode no fewer than three times, because man, 973 01:02:31,680 --> 01:02:34,280 Speaker 1: does the Internet know how to complicate a series of 974 01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:37,720 Speaker 1: pixels and buckle in because now that you know the 975 01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:43,080 Speaker 1: world built around the backrooms, let's meet the rooms themselves. 976 01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,040 Speaker 1: We're making room for the rooms, if you will. I've 977 01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:50,360 Speaker 1: seen this week, people are taking the lyrics of defining 978 01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:54,040 Speaker 1: gravity and really holding space with that and feeling power 979 01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:57,200 Speaker 1: in that. I didn't know that that was happening. In 980 01:02:57,280 --> 01:03:01,760 Speaker 1: the final read of the back Rooms, as discovered by 981 01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:06,840 Speaker 1: the online Lost media community, please meet eight o seven 982 01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:14,920 Speaker 1: Oregon Street in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oshkosh nineteen twelve a Wisconsin 983 01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:18,760 Speaker 1: city named after a menomine chief. It's a small Midwestern 984 01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:22,120 Speaker 1: city of around thirty three thousand people by the year 985 01:03:22,160 --> 01:03:25,800 Speaker 1: that the fictional movie Titanic takes place in It was 986 01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:28,160 Speaker 1: first famous for being the site of a number of 987 01:03:28,240 --> 01:03:31,600 Speaker 1: lumber mills, but a great fire consumed most of the 988 01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:37,200 Speaker 1: city's businesses in eighteen seventy five. They eventually rebuilt, and 989 01:03:37,240 --> 01:03:42,640 Speaker 1: by nineteen twelve, their local paper, the Oshkosh Northwestern announces 990 01:03:42,760 --> 01:03:46,120 Speaker 1: there's a new bomb and calend apartment store that'll be 991 01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:49,160 Speaker 1: built on the south side of town, and it's completed 992 01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:53,560 Speaker 1: and opened by the end of nineteen thirteen. The second 993 01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:57,680 Speaker 1: floor of this location where the eventual back room's photo 994 01:03:57,760 --> 01:04:01,080 Speaker 1: will be taken, because yes, the backrooms are on the 995 01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:04,640 Speaker 1: second floor, not a basement. The second floor is said 996 01:04:04,680 --> 01:04:12,000 Speaker 1: to be devoted entirely to women's ready to wear apparel, millinery, rugs, carpets, draperies, 997 01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:16,440 Speaker 1: et cetera. Fast forward to nineteen forty five. The store 998 01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:19,720 Speaker 1: changes its name to Hirschberg's after it's sold and the 999 01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:24,320 Speaker 1: building is remodeled panty girdles for only two ninety five 1000 01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:28,640 Speaker 1: Sign me up. The building is sold again in nineteen 1001 01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:32,600 Speaker 1: fifty five and is remodeled, this time as Rohner's Furniture, 1002 01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:38,680 Speaker 1: who expanded the building again ten years later. By the seventies. 1003 01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:42,240 Speaker 1: They installed the carpet that we now associate with the 1004 01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:47,720 Speaker 1: back rooms and installed drop ceilings, those being the dull 1005 01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:51,760 Speaker 1: gray ceiling portions that those freaky fluorescent lights are installed 1006 01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:55,720 Speaker 1: in in offices. I was curious why these panels and 1007 01:04:55,800 --> 01:04:59,480 Speaker 1: lights are so associated with the seventies to me, and 1008 01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:02,960 Speaker 1: after looking into it YouTuber and would you believe it? 1009 01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:05,720 Speaker 1: A woman I once shared a desk with at the 1010 01:05:05,720 --> 01:05:10,520 Speaker 1: Boston Globe, Hendre Gaylord, made a wonderful video about why 1011 01:05:10,600 --> 01:05:13,960 Speaker 1: this happened. It doesn't make the drop ceilings any prettier, 1012 01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:17,160 Speaker 1: but it does place the back rooms firmly in the 1013 01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:22,080 Speaker 1: story of twentieth century American architecture. Here's the explanation in 1014 01:05:22,120 --> 01:05:22,680 Speaker 1: her video. 1015 01:05:23,520 --> 01:05:25,800 Speaker 3: But the other thing that made drop ceilings so popular 1016 01:05:25,800 --> 01:05:28,480 Speaker 3: in the seventies was the increase in oil prices, and 1017 01:05:28,520 --> 01:05:30,800 Speaker 3: this renovation was right in between two big ones in 1018 01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:34,200 Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three and nineteen seventy nine. The lower ceiling 1019 01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:36,800 Speaker 3: can reduce seating costs, and in a big, old building 1020 01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:39,360 Speaker 3: like this, I bet that was very enticing. If you 1021 01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:41,440 Speaker 3: have a drop ceiling in your house or your apartment 1022 01:05:41,480 --> 01:05:44,360 Speaker 3: and you're wondering when it was added, there's a pretty 1023 01:05:44,360 --> 01:05:46,680 Speaker 3: good chance that had happened right in this period. 1024 01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:50,600 Speaker 1: Eight oh seven Oregon Street was expanded again in nineteen 1025 01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:55,000 Speaker 1: seventy seven and then nineteen ninety. By ninety four, Roner's 1026 01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:57,720 Speaker 1: Furniture went out of business and the space that it 1027 01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:00,680 Speaker 1: used is subdivided to be used by a series of 1028 01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:04,680 Speaker 1: small businesses, and after a short stint as the Miles 1029 01:06:04,760 --> 01:06:09,000 Speaker 1: Kimball Warehouse outlet and as an estate sales space, in 1030 01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:13,120 Speaker 1: two thousand and two the iconic photo of the backrooms 1031 01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:17,080 Speaker 1: was taken, and all of this explains a lot of 1032 01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:20,080 Speaker 1: why the back rooms looks as weird as it does. 1033 01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:23,360 Speaker 1: By the time that current owner Bob Maza bought the place, 1034 01:06:23,920 --> 01:06:27,240 Speaker 1: eight o seven Oregon had been a department store, a 1035 01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:31,520 Speaker 1: furniture store, and a state scale location, and allegedly had 1036 01:06:31,560 --> 01:06:35,040 Speaker 1: been used at various times for office or storage space. 1037 01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:40,240 Speaker 1: Why are there seven slightly different wallpapers in the backrooms? Well, 1038 01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:43,520 Speaker 1: imagine if a floor of an Ikea was just cleared out. 1039 01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:47,280 Speaker 1: They're intended to look slightly different. They're displays that are 1040 01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:51,320 Speaker 1: meant to look like somewhat different rooms. It also explains 1041 01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:55,200 Speaker 1: that too many walls and no windows because these weren't 1042 01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:59,680 Speaker 1: real walls, they were separators for furniture departments. And as 1043 01:06:59,760 --> 01:07:03,240 Speaker 1: Kent explains so well, the weirdness of this space is 1044 01:07:03,320 --> 01:07:07,600 Speaker 1: also connected to its many many renovations over the course 1045 01:07:07,640 --> 01:07:12,680 Speaker 1: of nearly a century, leaving this kind of unintentional architectural 1046 01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:17,440 Speaker 1: charcutery board vibe. When Bob Maza bought eight oh seven 1047 01:07:17,480 --> 01:07:20,160 Speaker 1: Oregon Street and took the picture of what we now 1048 01:07:20,200 --> 01:07:23,160 Speaker 1: call the back rooms, it was on a Sony Cybershot 1049 01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:27,400 Speaker 1: digital camera on June twelfth, two thousand and two, at 1050 01:07:27,480 --> 01:07:31,640 Speaker 1: eight twenty one a m Yes, lost media detectives are 1051 01:07:31,720 --> 01:07:34,280 Speaker 1: that good, and he took the photo with a purpose. 1052 01:07:34,960 --> 01:07:37,640 Speaker 1: He had plans to turn the building into something it 1053 01:07:37,720 --> 01:07:42,840 Speaker 1: hadn't been up until this point. A hobby store. HobbyTown USA, 1054 01:07:42,880 --> 01:07:46,120 Speaker 1: to be exact, a national chain with about one hundred 1055 01:07:46,120 --> 01:07:50,200 Speaker 1: locations still open today, so the plan for the back 1056 01:07:50,280 --> 01:07:53,360 Speaker 1: rooms were to clear them out and turn it into 1057 01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:56,760 Speaker 1: an RC racer track. If you don't remember, these are 1058 01:07:56,960 --> 01:08:01,160 Speaker 1: remote controlled cars that make this horror flying weird whale 1059 01:08:01,240 --> 01:08:10,000 Speaker 1: when they move around. That plus RC boats and planes 1060 01:08:10,040 --> 01:08:14,160 Speaker 1: and trains and models were what HobbyTown USA was all about, 1061 01:08:14,600 --> 01:08:17,160 Speaker 1: and Bob's vision was not just to make his location 1062 01:08:17,320 --> 01:08:20,680 Speaker 1: a place to buy stuff, but to have community and 1063 01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:23,680 Speaker 1: really spend time with people who were just as passionate 1064 01:08:23,760 --> 01:08:27,519 Speaker 1: about this stuff. The famous Backram's image wasn't the only 1065 01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:31,000 Speaker 1: picture he took that morning. While many of them didn't survive, 1066 01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:34,720 Speaker 1: there is still another angle of this same space on 1067 01:08:34,760 --> 01:08:38,960 Speaker 1: the Internet, and you can see more brown carpets some 1068 01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:42,040 Speaker 1: buckets on the ground, but the contrast of this photo 1069 01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:46,519 Speaker 1: is less scary and more normal. These two images are 1070 01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:50,080 Speaker 1: the only ones that survived on the Internet archive. In 1071 01:08:50,120 --> 01:08:53,040 Speaker 1: a blog post Bob made in two thousand and three, 1072 01:08:53,479 --> 01:08:57,679 Speaker 1: which was an announcement that HobbyTown USA Oshkosh was going 1073 01:08:57,760 --> 01:09:01,200 Speaker 1: to include this really cool RC track when it opened, 1074 01:09:01,760 --> 01:09:05,480 Speaker 1: and in March two thousand and four. It did reopening 1075 01:09:05,520 --> 01:09:09,520 Speaker 1: after Masa's previous location near a Walmart got too expensive 1076 01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:13,920 Speaker 1: with rent, and that HobbyTown is open at eight oh 1077 01:09:13,960 --> 01:09:18,280 Speaker 1: seven Oregon Street to this day, even though the track 1078 01:09:18,320 --> 01:09:21,320 Speaker 1: that was set up in the backrooms is not presently there. 1079 01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:24,240 Speaker 1: From what I could find from video footage taken there 1080 01:09:24,320 --> 01:09:27,559 Speaker 1: over the years, the physical space that the backrooms were 1081 01:09:27,640 --> 01:09:31,439 Speaker 1: used for was actually a space filled with a lot 1082 01:09:31,479 --> 01:09:36,840 Speaker 1: of joy and community where hobbyists spent time together and 1083 01:09:37,400 --> 01:09:40,799 Speaker 1: you basically know the rest of the story. In twenty nineteen, 1084 01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:44,320 Speaker 1: the backroom's image was posted and one random person on 1085 01:09:44,360 --> 01:09:49,680 Speaker 1: Twitter correctly identified the location immediately, but was ignored. It 1086 01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:54,080 Speaker 1: was ultimately a group of four discord users who found 1087 01:09:54,160 --> 01:09:58,160 Speaker 1: the original backroom's location, almost five years to the day 1088 01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:04,200 Speaker 1: of it becoming a part of niche internet life. I've 1089 01:10:04,240 --> 01:10:07,080 Speaker 1: been vaguely aware of the Lost Media world for some 1090 01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:10,920 Speaker 1: time because they make these really great annual round up 1091 01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:16,240 Speaker 1: videos basically videos on YouTube that summarize the previous analog 1092 01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:20,360 Speaker 1: or digital media that the group is collectively tracked down 1093 01:10:20,720 --> 01:10:24,240 Speaker 1: and archived within the year. And it seems like there's 1094 01:10:24,280 --> 01:10:28,559 Speaker 1: a pretty wide definition of what constitutes a lost media person. 1095 01:10:28,960 --> 01:10:32,880 Speaker 1: They can be generalists, or, like the Backroom's folks, can 1096 01:10:32,920 --> 01:10:37,160 Speaker 1: be uniquely honed in on finding one piece of media. 1097 01:10:38,080 --> 01:10:42,560 Speaker 1: Some highlights from the twenty twenty four lost Media video. 1098 01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:46,240 Speaker 1: They found Celebrity number six, a mysterious figure on a 1099 01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:50,240 Speaker 1: two thousands era fabric pattern, finally identified to be an 1100 01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:56,200 Speaker 1: obscure Spanish model, an unaired pilot of the Boondocks, and 1101 01:10:56,280 --> 01:10:59,519 Speaker 1: a previously thought to be lost Bram Stoker short story 1102 01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:03,920 Speaker 1: but no contest. The biggest discovery of the last year 1103 01:11:04,479 --> 01:11:11,439 Speaker 1: was the physical location of the back rooms. Users named Leon, Semliot, Zarara, 1104 01:11:11,840 --> 01:11:15,599 Speaker 1: and Zaft used a shared discord to organize a series 1105 01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:20,000 Speaker 1: of challenging maneuvers. So all's well, that ends well? Right? 1106 01:11:20,479 --> 01:11:24,960 Speaker 1: Tale as old as time, man takes photo, photo inspires 1107 01:11:25,200 --> 01:11:29,760 Speaker 1: existential paranormal communities, and the image is traced to a 1108 01:11:29,960 --> 01:11:34,200 Speaker 1: shockingly wholesome small business history. But I still had a question. 1109 01:11:35,160 --> 01:11:38,800 Speaker 1: Did Bob Maza, still the owner of HobbyTown, USA to 1110 01:11:38,920 --> 01:11:43,280 Speaker 1: this day, have any idea that this picture he took 1111 01:11:43,600 --> 01:11:46,880 Speaker 1: on an early morning in two thousand and two had 1112 01:11:46,920 --> 01:11:50,800 Speaker 1: inspired all of this? There is one more chapter to 1113 01:11:50,960 --> 01:11:55,240 Speaker 1: this story. Almost immediately after the backrooms were traced to 1114 01:11:55,400 --> 01:11:58,880 Speaker 1: eight oh seven Oregon Street. Local YouTubers that were either 1115 01:11:58,920 --> 01:12:02,759 Speaker 1: a fan of the creepy pasta or liminal communities started 1116 01:12:02,800 --> 01:12:07,680 Speaker 1: to just show up the HobbyTown USA Oshkosh like they 1117 01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:09,799 Speaker 1: started the next day, what. 1118 01:12:09,680 --> 01:12:11,200 Speaker 2: The fuck is up, darnn family? 1119 01:12:11,520 --> 01:12:15,080 Speaker 11: Today, We're actually like, we just like found out that 1120 01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:19,280 Speaker 11: like the original backrooms photos was tooken in our hometown, 1121 01:12:19,840 --> 01:12:22,240 Speaker 11: So we're actually going there like like no joke, being 1122 01:12:22,320 --> 01:12:25,000 Speaker 11: dead ass bro. We were so nervous because we saw 1123 01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:25,599 Speaker 11: in our friend's story. 1124 01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:26,400 Speaker 2: We were like, what the fuck? 1125 01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:27,800 Speaker 9: And it started technically like we. 1126 01:12:27,720 --> 01:12:31,880 Speaker 1: Should do it, prompting owner Bob Masa to ask the 1127 01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:34,640 Speaker 1: what rooms. But he doesn't do what I think a 1128 01:12:34,680 --> 01:12:37,439 Speaker 1: lot of people in his position would have and told 1129 01:12:37,479 --> 01:12:38,439 Speaker 1: these kids to go away. 1130 01:12:39,120 --> 01:12:39,320 Speaker 12: Here. 1131 01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:43,280 Speaker 1: He is on local news station WTAQ with a reporter 1132 01:12:43,439 --> 01:12:47,160 Speaker 1: Rob Sussman on June nineteenth, explaining why he bought the 1133 01:12:47,160 --> 01:12:48,280 Speaker 1: building to begin with. 1134 01:12:49,040 --> 01:12:51,920 Speaker 6: So I started started looking at old buildings in town here, 1135 01:12:51,960 --> 01:12:57,559 Speaker 6: and this old crept thing was available, and thought, hey, 1136 01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:00,519 Speaker 6: I could combine the store, move away from we were 1137 01:13:00,600 --> 01:13:04,320 Speaker 6: out on the highway maybe and if it was popular enough, 1138 01:13:04,360 --> 01:13:06,759 Speaker 6: the racing program could survive in this place. 1139 01:13:07,479 --> 01:13:10,559 Speaker 1: So Bob explains that the fake walls that inspired so 1140 01:13:10,800 --> 01:13:15,360 Speaker 1: much backroom content was thrown away almost immediately by both 1141 01:13:15,400 --> 01:13:19,439 Speaker 1: him and the volunteer RC enthusiasts who helped him clear 1142 01:13:19,479 --> 01:13:23,280 Speaker 1: this space for competition. He documented the renovation process on 1143 01:13:23,360 --> 01:13:26,920 Speaker 1: an early blog because he was a hobbyist and at 1144 01:13:26,960 --> 01:13:29,559 Speaker 1: the time the Internet was thought of as little more 1145 01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:33,880 Speaker 1: than a gadget. And then over twenty years later, Bob 1146 01:13:33,920 --> 01:13:37,960 Speaker 1: describes starting to get weird phone calls about this picture. 1147 01:13:38,080 --> 01:13:39,479 Speaker 1: He has no memory of. 1148 01:13:40,320 --> 01:13:42,360 Speaker 6: Oh, it was kind of weird, and I, you know, 1149 01:13:42,439 --> 01:13:45,920 Speaker 6: obviously everybody's done Internet searching and stuff. But we were 1150 01:13:46,800 --> 01:13:51,000 Speaker 6: in the car heading home and my wife got a 1151 01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:55,519 Speaker 6: call and took the call, and it was somebody asked 1152 01:13:55,560 --> 01:13:58,240 Speaker 6: if they knew who Robert was in, which I thought 1153 01:13:58,280 --> 01:14:01,200 Speaker 6: was kind of weird, but they and they must have 1154 01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:03,880 Speaker 6: gotten you know, that cross connection, you know when you 1155 01:14:03,920 --> 01:14:07,120 Speaker 6: look up someone's name and it's affiliated phone numbers or whatever. 1156 01:14:07,160 --> 01:14:08,360 Speaker 5: And they tried calling. 1157 01:14:08,080 --> 01:14:12,800 Speaker 6: It, and she answered and they started to explain what 1158 01:14:12,840 --> 01:14:15,360 Speaker 6: it was, and that was the first we had heard 1159 01:14:15,400 --> 01:14:18,840 Speaker 6: about it. And of course then we just went and 1160 01:14:19,280 --> 01:14:22,280 Speaker 6: obviously immediately to the internet and you could find it. 1161 01:14:22,280 --> 01:14:25,200 Speaker 6: It was very easy, and it started to explode right 1162 01:14:25,240 --> 01:14:27,160 Speaker 6: at that point. We get a lot of calls. For 1163 01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:29,320 Speaker 6: the most part, most of them been pretty cordial, some 1164 01:14:29,400 --> 01:14:30,160 Speaker 6: of them pretty weird. 1165 01:14:30,439 --> 01:14:30,680 Speaker 4: You know. 1166 01:14:30,720 --> 01:14:34,040 Speaker 6: They'll just call up and and even like just ask 1167 01:14:34,160 --> 01:14:36,240 Speaker 6: some weird question, like you say, like is this the 1168 01:14:36,280 --> 01:14:38,400 Speaker 6: back room or something, and you're like, you know, this 1169 01:14:38,520 --> 01:14:40,920 Speaker 6: is this is hobby town, and they're like at that point, 1170 01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:43,840 Speaker 6: they don't even know what to say, and but yeah, 1171 01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:46,840 Speaker 6: it's it's been a little bit of an annoyance for 1172 01:14:46,920 --> 01:14:49,680 Speaker 6: the store. And but we've been you know, we let 1173 01:14:49,720 --> 01:14:51,920 Speaker 6: people come in and come up and take pictures and 1174 01:14:51,960 --> 01:14:53,960 Speaker 6: do the selfie thing. You know, we just appreciate that 1175 01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:55,640 Speaker 6: they don't spend a lot of time talking to the 1176 01:14:56,880 --> 01:14:59,920 Speaker 6: people at work here to take them away from their jobs. 1177 01:15:00,439 --> 01:15:04,480 Speaker 1: Maso would do a second interview with YouTuber Ferrell maguire, 1178 01:15:04,840 --> 01:15:08,080 Speaker 1: who was very involved in the discord that was looking 1179 01:15:08,080 --> 01:15:12,080 Speaker 1: for the backrooms, and the story keeps going. After doing 1180 01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:16,320 Speaker 1: a little searching, Bob would later provide ninety more photos 1181 01:15:16,640 --> 01:15:21,040 Speaker 1: from this original cash of early two thousands Sony cybershot 1182 01:15:21,120 --> 01:15:26,000 Speaker 1: data and backrooms fans freaked out when these dropped, which 1183 01:15:26,080 --> 01:15:30,040 Speaker 1: is extremely charming and also so weird because what they're 1184 01:15:30,080 --> 01:15:32,840 Speaker 1: rooting for is a series of blurry images of an 1185 01:15:32,840 --> 01:15:36,520 Speaker 1: empty building from before they were born. But the excitement 1186 01:15:36,640 --> 01:15:40,080 Speaker 1: is contagious. There's no denying it. But you can't help 1187 01:15:40,120 --> 01:15:42,800 Speaker 1: but wonder what's in it for Bob. Now there are 1188 01:15:42,840 --> 01:15:46,200 Speaker 1: backrooms teens who were raised on creepypasta and four chan 1189 01:15:46,320 --> 01:15:49,400 Speaker 1: forums who were more interested in the empty room upstairs 1190 01:15:49,760 --> 01:15:52,800 Speaker 1: than buying something from the struggling hobby shop beneath it. 1191 01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:56,400 Speaker 1: But don't worry. Bob may not be a redditor, but 1192 01:15:56,479 --> 01:15:58,960 Speaker 1: he is a businessman, and he took advantage of the 1193 01:15:59,000 --> 01:16:01,840 Speaker 1: press by star starting a go fundme to fix the 1194 01:16:01,920 --> 01:16:05,320 Speaker 1: roof of the store so that ideally he could help 1195 01:16:05,400 --> 01:16:08,759 Speaker 1: keep the business he loves alive by holding backrooms events. 1196 01:16:09,360 --> 01:16:13,000 Speaker 1: On this GoFundMe, he also shared testimony from people who 1197 01:16:13,080 --> 01:16:15,960 Speaker 1: had been racing our sea cars at HobbyTown over the 1198 01:16:16,040 --> 01:16:20,439 Speaker 1: years and deeply loved the community that Bob made space for. 1199 01:16:21,320 --> 01:16:25,519 Speaker 8: From the GoFundMe, the store I have nearly rebuilt and 1200 01:16:25,720 --> 01:16:29,439 Speaker 8: cared so deeply for, and that so many online have loved, 1201 01:16:29,479 --> 01:16:33,680 Speaker 8: would be lost forever. I am asking for help, and 1202 01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:37,360 Speaker 8: in return, I am committed to preserving the legacy of 1203 01:16:37,400 --> 01:16:41,800 Speaker 8: both the backrooms and our beloved hobby Store. If the 1204 01:16:41,840 --> 01:16:45,680 Speaker 8: repairs are funded, we will organize and hold some Backrooms 1205 01:16:45,720 --> 01:16:49,719 Speaker 8: day events where we recreate the room where the iconic 1206 01:16:49,720 --> 01:16:54,559 Speaker 8: photo was taken using removable carpets, walls, et cetera. This 1207 01:16:54,600 --> 01:16:57,879 Speaker 8: will allow us to keep the amazing RC tracks available 1208 01:16:57,920 --> 01:17:00,920 Speaker 8: for use on days that a backrooms event isn't happening. 1209 01:17:01,600 --> 01:17:02,760 Speaker 4: We would welcome. 1210 01:17:02,520 --> 01:17:06,799 Speaker 8: Everyone to take pictures and walk around the truly bizarre 1211 01:17:06,880 --> 01:17:10,439 Speaker 8: layout of that old furniture store. I will be working 1212 01:17:10,439 --> 01:17:14,280 Speaker 8: with the fans to make these events something truly special, 1213 01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:17,240 Speaker 8: something that can bring as much joy to them as 1214 01:17:17,320 --> 01:17:19,840 Speaker 8: this place brings to the local community every day. 1215 01:17:20,560 --> 01:17:24,160 Speaker 1: This go fund me has made twenty thousand dollars a counting, 1216 01:17:24,680 --> 01:17:27,040 Speaker 1: but that is not enough to fix the store. So 1217 01:17:27,080 --> 01:17:29,280 Speaker 1: if you've got a little extra cash, you can donate 1218 01:17:29,280 --> 01:17:32,559 Speaker 1: to Bob's GoFundMe to replace the roof of HobbyTown at 1219 01:17:32,560 --> 01:17:35,320 Speaker 1: the link in the description. I made a contribution to 1220 01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:39,639 Speaker 1: get us started. Bob had no clue that the culture 1221 01:17:39,840 --> 01:17:44,040 Speaker 1: around the back rooms existed, but he does understand what 1222 01:17:44,160 --> 01:17:47,639 Speaker 1: it's like to obsess over a niche interest and build 1223 01:17:47,640 --> 01:17:50,320 Speaker 1: a community around it. And while the back rooms may 1224 01:17:50,360 --> 01:17:54,760 Speaker 1: have become popular as this site for conquering your fears 1225 01:17:54,760 --> 01:17:58,200 Speaker 1: in a poorly written, creepy pasta and the site of 1226 01:17:58,400 --> 01:18:02,080 Speaker 1: existential horror for the lit middle crowd. In real life, 1227 01:18:02,600 --> 01:18:06,920 Speaker 1: The Backrooms is eight o seven Oregon Street, a small 1228 01:18:06,960 --> 01:18:11,479 Speaker 1: business and a community space, a space that, like so 1229 01:18:11,640 --> 01:18:14,799 Speaker 1: many like it, needs help to survive in a world 1230 01:18:14,920 --> 01:18:19,679 Speaker 1: increasingly hostile to community spaces. It remains to be seen 1231 01:18:19,760 --> 01:18:23,400 Speaker 1: what happens to the Backrooms. Only time will tell if 1232 01:18:23,439 --> 01:18:26,080 Speaker 1: the new roof will make it to Oshkosh, or if 1233 01:18:26,200 --> 01:18:28,240 Speaker 1: Kane's a twenty four movie is going to take the 1234 01:18:28,240 --> 01:18:31,880 Speaker 1: world by storm. Maybe the Backrooms will be a moment 1235 01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:35,240 Speaker 1: in Internet history, the right symbol at the right time. 1236 01:18:35,680 --> 01:18:38,400 Speaker 1: But for all the horrific elements of the Internet we 1237 01:18:38,520 --> 01:18:42,679 Speaker 1: spend so much time on during this show, this freaky, 1238 01:18:42,880 --> 01:18:47,400 Speaker 1: liminal space does give me some hope. From one blurry photo. 1239 01:18:47,960 --> 01:18:53,080 Speaker 1: There has been so much creativity, so much community built 1240 01:18:53,360 --> 01:18:56,000 Speaker 1: during a time where real life space is to commune 1241 01:18:56,560 --> 01:19:01,479 Speaker 1: wasn't safe. So backrooms people know clipped and ended up 1242 01:19:01,520 --> 01:19:06,280 Speaker 1: finding each other there and maybe, just maybe they will 1243 01:19:06,320 --> 01:19:10,560 Speaker 1: manage to save an RC club in Wisconsin in the process. 1244 01:19:11,400 --> 01:19:20,599 Speaker 1: The back Rooms your sixteenth minute ends now and for 1245 01:19:20,640 --> 01:19:24,519 Speaker 1: your moment of fun. From Pharaoh Maguire's Wonderful Backrooms video, 1246 01:19:24,680 --> 01:19:27,920 Speaker 1: which is linked In the description, Bob Maza tells Ferrell 1247 01:19:27,960 --> 01:19:32,400 Speaker 1: about his favorite moments in the back rooms homes HobbyTown, USA. 1248 01:19:34,240 --> 01:19:37,599 Speaker 12: My favorite memory is and always will be my favorite 1249 01:19:37,640 --> 01:19:42,040 Speaker 12: memories is of all of the racers and RC airplane 1250 01:19:42,080 --> 01:19:45,960 Speaker 12: clubs and even just customers that when I call out 1251 01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:48,719 Speaker 12: back in the day, like twenty years ago, so many 1252 01:19:48,760 --> 01:19:51,679 Speaker 12: people would come and help. Over the years, the amount 1253 01:19:51,680 --> 01:19:55,400 Speaker 12: of the friends and the smiling faces that you see 1254 01:19:55,439 --> 01:19:58,360 Speaker 12: coming through the doors, and you know, kids walk in 1255 01:19:58,400 --> 01:20:01,400 Speaker 12: the store and or you know they're life just awesome 1256 01:20:01,479 --> 01:20:04,400 Speaker 12: and wow, and that's the kind of stuff that really 1257 01:20:04,479 --> 01:20:05,200 Speaker 12: keeps you going. 1258 01:20:09,520 --> 01:20:13,120 Speaker 13: Sixteenth Minute is a production of Pool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. 1259 01:20:13,680 --> 01:20:16,960 Speaker 13: It is written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus. 1260 01:20:17,200 --> 01:20:20,200 Speaker 13: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. 1261 01:20:20,400 --> 01:20:24,599 Speaker 1: The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. 1262 01:20:25,160 --> 01:20:28,960 Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is 1263 01:20:29,000 --> 01:20:32,040 Speaker 1: from Grant Crater and pet shout outs to our dog 1264 01:20:32,080 --> 01:20:35,080 Speaker 1: producer Anderson my Kat's flee and Casper and my pet 1265 01:20:35,160 --> 01:20:37,719 Speaker 1: rock Bert, who will outlive us all. Bye.