Origin of The backrooms, a picture of liminal space deemed creepy because it won Internet and gaming stardom, I'm a detective familiar with four images scrubbing 4chan

In case you're not familiar with what the backroom is, here's a summary. In 2019, an image was posted on 4chan showing a set of spooky rooms without natural light, vividly capturing people's imaginations to create their own lore. 

It is considered a marginal space, which is loosely defined as a region that is not very surreal, but is approaching. It is an artificial equivalent of a mysterious valley, a building or space made from ordinary parts, but arranged in an unusual and unsettling way. There are corridors that lead to nowhere, rooms that do not serve a natural purpose, brutal interiors with flickering or, in some cases, a swimming pool. There is no exact criterion for what constitutes a marginal space — when you see 1 you know 1. There are also creepy little monsters that'll maybe jump you and steal all your bones.

That last bit has become the origin of many indie horror games, including (deep breath) Escape The Backrooms, Inside The Backrooms, Backrooms Rec, The Backrooms1998, and many derivatives that quote that vibe, but don't fully reflect Backrooms. 

There are even SCP-style wiki pages documenting levels of mountains, ranging from cursed farms to roller links spanning hundreds of miles. References also made their way to other games— in Remnant 2, for example, you have to access a backroom to unlock secret archetypes.

The scaffolding underpinning this vast Internet culture maze is a humble racing hobby shop that had made some renovations more than two decades ago. Speaking with Jason Koebler of 404Media, the sleuths said that the investigation into this mysterious space took place over the years, inspired by a 2022 video from liminal enthusiast Virtual Carbon. Taking to YouTuber discord, they got to work.

The musketeers who solve these mysteries are called by the names Semilot, Serrara, Leon, and Xaft. The team asked Koebler to use a tool to scrub 62chan for the exact dimensions of the image ("640kb and 480x4"), and to "remove" the backroom from another archive, perhaps the oldest shared barge of the backrooms image

, which turns out that someone may have cracked the case in 2019. I connected to Hobbytown Oshkosh, a Wisconsin chain store that sells "hobby-related products, including model planes, remote-controlled cars and games," but the link in the tweet is broken. 

Fortunately, Internet archives are things — and it just happened to have a version of the page from 2003. In a very fitting twist of fate, every single image on the page is broken, except for the back room. 

This page has (or had) photos before and after the store's renewal. Under the image, the site says: "Above is the original view of the eastern (oval) room. Note that the windows are not visible'You can not see the degree of water damage in the photo, but it must all of this material to come out

"The owners were also really cool, they helped quite instantly and provided information about the photo," Leon tells Koebler.

What surprised the staff and owners of Hobby Town Oshkosh more than anything was the revelation. Heading to the store's facebook page, the announcement reads: "Your Oshkosh building is nostalgic and a bit strange, with a photographic genre called "Liminal spaces" and "back rooms" that is strange on the Internet for photos taken there long ago. It's fascinating and pretty fun.Here is a picture of the back room in 2017, to be shared in the store.

So you have it. Backrooms, the images that created the whole Wiki value of lore, a few games, and a resurgence of interest in liminal space were humble photos taken during the renovation of the chain hobby store, which now has a cool RC race track. 

Honestly, this is just one of the things behind the curtain peep that adds to the myth 1. The "level" of the back room can be anything from an arcade to a coffee shop, so the Oshkosh in the hobby Town can snuggle cozy to the current Canon. But the detail that remains in my mind is the Wayback Machine page from 2003. What is the chance that the two most liminal images from the history of the store will survive the test of time "The Internet was strange this week.