The Backrooms Are a Transmitted Narrative

The backrooms has once again taken the public by storm with the new A24 film. As someone who’s watched it already I’d highly suggest that you go check it out, Kane Parsons did some incredible work. But another idea itched the back of my mind when I started to see more fan content come out about it.

There’s been a recent trend on TikTok to draw people from different eras stumbling upon the backrooms. I’ve seen everything from dinosaurs stomping through the liminal yellow hallways to 50s housewives clipping through the fabric of reality. The art pieces are wonderful and touch upon just about every culture one could imagine.

But that makes me think, what if every culture did have their own version of the backrooms?

The backrooms originated on 4chan when an image of a yellow walled office building. The image is unsettling – it’s completely empty, devoid of life, but the lights are still one. Clearly, something is still there. It was this image that inspired the interpretation that someone could “noclip” through walls, like in a videogame, and accidentally end up in the backrooms only to stumble around aimlessly unable to escape.

That’s a horrifying concept in itself, one that humanity has grappled with for a long time. That’s when we return to that previous itch I had. There was something in my head that told me I knew stories like this before. Then, one afternoon, it hit me.

The backrooms are a transmitted narrative.

Transmitted narratives are something I came in contact with during an ancient history class I took. Basically, these are stories that people have passed down from generation to generation, culture to culture, to share some sort of information like law codes and cultural histories.

The transmitted narrative most people are familiar with is the story of the Great Flood. See, there wasn’t just one flood story in history, there isn’t even just one flood story in the Middle East. Currently, there are four Great Flood stories that appear to be connected in some way. The oldest story of the Great Flood we have comes from the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) almost 4,000 years ago, that’s about a thousand years before Noah’s Ark. This story was then transmitted from the Sumerians to the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Israelites.

There are several aspects of these stories that make them similar. Someone is chosen by the gods, that chosen one is told to build a boat of some sort, and they’re told to bring animals upon their boat. For a myth that’s survived for so many thousands of years, that’s quite a lot of similarities.

Historians believe this story may have come from the Black Sea Flood in 5500 BCE which broke a land bridge that previously isolated the Black Sea. For the individuals living in the surrounding area when this occurred, it really would have felt like their entire world was ending. So, the memory of this event may have been passed down through the story of the Great Flood.

The backrooms may work a little differently in comparison. The modern iteration is a far cry from any kind of maze out there waiting to be dug up, but that doesn’t mean there’s no similarities.

The clearest connection between the backrooms and ancient history is Daedalus’ Labyrinth. The first mention of Daedalus arrives around 1400 BCE where he's described as a brilliant architect and inventor. In the 5th century BCE, Daedalus pops up again and this is where the Labyrinth is written about. Built by the command of King Minos, the maze was created to house the Minotaur – a half bull half man creature. Then, to satiate the beast, fourteen young nobles were sacrificed.

Upon first hearing, the Labyrinth doesn’t seem all that similar to the backrooms. Some major details overlap though. Both are mazes that those who enter are not typically supposed to exit – for the backrooms that’s just about anyone in them and for the Labyrinth the young nobles. Both also house a monster of some sort. Some iterations of the backrooms have many monsters or creatures on different levels, but the monster well known example is from the previously discussed Kane Parsons with one looming entity. Seeing things from that angle the backrooms and the Labyrinth have more in common than most would think.

There are other labyrinth stories throughout time. There was the Labyrinth of Egypt that was believed to be a massive funerary temple built around 1800 BCE. Pliny the Elder wrote about two labyrinths: the Lemnian labyrinth, possibly used for ceremonies, and the Italian labyrinth, a tomb for Lars Porsena. There are labyrinths outside of Europe too such as the Hoysaleswara Temple in India and the I’itoi of the O’odham peoples in Arizona. We even see labyrinths today in media like The Maze Runner and The Shining.

While labyrinths of old may have been for more religious purposes, I still think the fact that humanity has kept this story going for so long demonstrates some sort of transmitted narrative. The structures of a labyrinth and the backrooms both play human’s deepest fears: being alone and the unknown.

Starting with being alone, humans are social creatures. We thrive when we’re in society and struggle when we’re stripped from it. Labyrinths and the backrooms play on this fear – in an empty space with nothing but winding halls, dead ends, and the sound of your own breath, you realize you’re completely alone. Sure, maybe there’s something out there, but you won’t know until you see it.

That ties into the second fear: the unknown.

Humans have always been trying to figure things out; we’re curious! That’s why myths and religion develop so we can try to understand the world around us when it just doesn’t make sense. What’s more unknown than a maze? Where walls all look the same, when you can’t tell what’s left and right anymore, you’re totally lost. There’s a looming feeling in your gut that perhaps you aren’t as alone as you once thought, and that thought will haunt you until you find another living being or you find your way out.

The backrooms may be just another silly internet creepypasta, but I also think it’s a continuation of a story we’ve been telling for thousands of years. It may take a few more centuries for someone to spin something different, but I assure you they’ll be another labyrinth myth in the years to come.