The Backrooms (Found Footage)

About

The Backrooms (Found Footage) refers to a series of found-footage analog horror videos based on The Backrooms creepypasta showing people experiencing strange phenomena and going missing while exploring the location, as well as showing people in hazmat suits and researchers of the fictional research facility "Async" studying it. As the series evolves, it is revealed that Async discovered the facility and wanted to utilize it for housing and storage to avoid further polluting and overcrowding the earth. The first video was uploaded to YouTube in early January 2022 by Kane Pixels. The series received praise for its overall quality, particularly for the animation of the backrooms location, becoming the subject of reactions and discussion online.

History

On January 7th, 2022, YouTuber^[1] Kane Pixels posted "The Backrooms (Found Footage)," a roughly nine-minute-long found-footage horror production. The video begins with a few friends making a student film before one is mysteriously transported to the backrooms, where he wanders around and yells for his friends. He explores the area and finds a ladder leading into a hole in the wall, which he enters. He follows some dark hallways and finds graffiti on the wall showing eyes, a face and various phrases, including "don't move stay still." A noise then echoes through the backrooms and the camera glitches as he sees a shadowy, monstrous figure to his left and runs. He escapes up a flight of stairs leading to a white office-like series of hallways, explores more, ends up back in the backrooms and is attacked by the creature again, which throws him down a flight of stairs. Suddenly, the protagonist, or at least his camera, is seen falling from the sky and lands in the grass, ending the video. The video gained over 10.3 million views in three weeks (shown below).

On January 8th, 2022, the video was shared to the /r/backrooms^[4] subreddit, gaining over 2,300 upvotes. In the comments section, Kane Pixels describes the making of the piece, writing, "The whole thing (with the exception of the first bit of course) was rendered in Blender! I edited the whole thing together and then ran it through a VCR to get the authentic analog look."^[5]

Backrooms – First Contact

On January 17th, 2022, Kane Pixels uploaded a second part of the series to YouTube^[2] titled "Backrooms – First Contact." In the video, which begins with a logo reading "A-Sync" and takes place eight years before the original video, numerous strange machines are shown working in the location of the backrooms through security cameras. The lights in one room with a machine surrounding what appears to be a doorway go dim and a swirling pattern appears in the doorway as the camera glitches, eventually causing the whole room to shake and fall apart. Voices are heard begging someone to "turn it off," but one says they can't because there's an "obstruction." There is a cut and the doorway is shown again, leading to the backrooms. The video gained over 1.7 million views in two weeks (shown below).

Backrooms – Missing Persons

On January 28th, 2022, the Kane Pixels released the third part of the series on YouTube,^[3] titled "Backrooms – Missing Persons." This part, based roughly a year after the second, starts with flashes of missing person posters, assumedly missing due to the backrooms. A graph is then shown depicting growth in missing person cases. The rest of the video shows men in hazmat suits exploring the backrooms and finding a body sitting against the wall, covered in a black substance. The video ends with a cut to blue and the backward text, "if anybody, blame him." The video gained over 1.2 million views in three days (shown below).

Backrooms – Autopsy Report, Motion Detected, Prototype

On February 23rd, 2022, Kane Pixels released "Backrooms – Autopsy Report" on YouTube.^[9] The video is a mock autopsy report for a person found in The Backrooms, detailing how some portions of his body were stopped from decaying. The video gained over 4.4 million views in 10 months (shown below).

On March 11th and 28th, Kane Pixels released "Backrooms – Motion Detected" and "Backrooms – Prototype" to YouTube,^[10][11] garnering over 9.2 million and 3.3 million views respectively in nine months (shown below, left and right). "Motion Detected" begins with footage from 1990 of people in hazmat suits exploring The Backrooms with lights and scaffolding set up, as if they are building it. It is explained that seven motion-detecting cameras are set up around the building. After the 1:45 mark, all the footage collected by the cameras is shown, including videos of hazmat suit wearers walking and a creature. "Prototype" shows footage from 1982 of a mysterious machine.

Backrooms – Pitfalls, Report, Presentation, I Remember

On May 1st, 2022, Kane Pixels released "Pitfalls" on YouTube,^[12] garnering over 7 million views in seven months. The video again begins with footage from 1990 showing the initial exploration of The Backrooms by men in hazmat suits. They find a room filled with square holes. One man falls down a hole and ends up in a lower segment of the rooms, then finds an opening to an outdoor area resembling an empty town street. He enters a house and finds street sings inside it, then hears someone calling for help. He finds the Backrooms monster and runs out of the house (shown below).

"Report" was released on YouTube^[13] on May 20th, 2022 and shows a number of men in labcoats watching footage of The Backrooms, specifically footage from "Pitfalls" of the researcher finding the monster, followed by footage of workers constructing a wall to cover up the open segment of The Backrooms, garnering over 4.3 million views in six months (shown below, left).

On June 25th, "Presentation" was posted to YouTube.^[14] The video starts with a presentation about ASync Research Institute and gives more backstory into their ventures. The presentation explains how ASync is working on the "low proximity magnetic distortion system," aka The Backrooms, a large area of space they want to utilize for storing goods and housing people without taking up space and resources on earth (shown below, right). The video gained over 5.8 million views in five months.

On August 30th, Kane Pixels published "I Remember" to YouTube,^[15] garnering over 2.1 million views in three months. The video features a distorted voice narrating about how he used to have a home looking over the sea that was taken by the sea as well (shown below).

Backrooms – Reunion

On December 8th, 2022, Kane Pixels uploaded "Reunion" to YouTube,^[16] gaining over 689,000 views in a day. The video begins with a researching for Async writing in a notebook, then cuts to footage from 1990 during the initial exploration of The Backrooms. Researchers remove the boards from the previously covered section of The Backrooms and send a drone to investigate the section. The hazmat workers then move into the room with all the holes. They cover the holes with wood. The workers then explore a dark section of The Backrooms brandishing guns and flashlights. They find a map of the facility drawn on on the wall, then their radio signals go out. One of the workers is shoved over and his gun is stolen by one of the workers who previously went missing for months. He is acting erratic and shoots one of the workers.

Online Presence

Reactions

The first part of the series became a prominent piece of reaction content the month it was released. For example, on January 14th, 2022, YouTuber 8-BitRyan reacted to the video, gaining over 1.5 million views in two weeks (shown below, left). On January 24th, YouTuber GTLive reacted to the video, gaining over 965,000 views in a week (shown below, right). The video also received media attention from sites including Dread Central,^[6] Screen Crush^[7] and Pop Horror.^[8]

Related Memes

The Backrooms

The Backrooms is a creepypasta inspired by a comment on a picture of an "unsettling room" on 4chan's /x/ board. The comment inspired an expanded creepypasta based on the location.

Search Interest

External References