How BACKROOMS Succeeds Where Slenderman Failed

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Not gonna lie but I think the backrooms would be more terrifying if there were no monsters, only just yourself

The fear of being trapped in an eternal alternate reality is the same reason I love and fear Junji Ito's Long Dream short story. It's not outright scary in the story, there's a sense of deep dread that overwhelmed me when I first read it and think about how frantic the character is to escape his ever increasing long dreams.

The idea of wandering an endless maze of empty halls and offices alone is terrifying.

Man, hearing Ryan talk about old Slender LPs and saying that Slenderman was the internet horror juggernaut of that generation made me feel like I had just opened the Ark of the Covenant with the amount of age I felt press into my mind as I realized "oh my God; I'm OLD"

it’s nice following a youtuber who is fine with skipping internet trends in favor of doing their own thing. as someone who is constantly out of touch, it makes me feel less pressure to keep up.

I love the vibes of The Backrooms. It feels like if Annihilation and House of Leaves had a baby with an abandoned mall.

I can't be disappointed with Slenderman, even with the oversaturation. For me, Slenderman was a front row seat into how folklore becomes. It started out as one thing, then people grabbed it and took off with it and it became this huge thing. I remember when I first learned about Slenderman (through the short game Slender like many others) and I got curious and researched the origins. It didn't take me long to reach a solid beginning point, even though there was a lot of insistence that this creature had been a part of folklore and myth for a good while. I thought there was more to it, but there wasn't. For a brief moment I was actually disappointed, but I realized what I was witnessing and then I was amazed. Anyone who's thinking of doing their own creepypasta stuff: do it! You never know what your imagination will provoke in the imagination of others!

I’m sure im not the only person who has recommended this book but House of Leaves debuted this concept of a malevolent, infinite space (that may or may not have a monster lurking the maze) that opens up in a family’s living room. Genuinely one of the only books to truly terrify me to my core. Everything about that book is the Backrooms before they were even a thought. I highly recommend it to better understand the mechanics of the BR.

The Backrooms is one of the few pieces of media that has actually scared me in recent years. The kid is incredibly skilled.

A Horror HOYEVER video from Ryan Hollinger is the perfect thing to watch on St. Patrick's Day.

I think if nearly anyone else tried to do the Backrooms series besides Kane Pixels, it wouldve been bland and faded into obscurity. He is absolutely incredible at editing, worldbuilding, and pacing. He doesnt fall into stale tropes and cliches like many creepypasta series do, and it makes it so much more engaging and higher quality than most horror movies

When I was a child I always had this weird reoccurring fear whenever I'd go downstairs at night. We had a closed stairwell and our bathroom was on the first floor, so as not to wake up my parents I had to feel my way down the stairs in the pitch dark anytime I had to go. I always remember the stairs seeming longer at those times, never much, just a step or two more than they should've been, but I'd always wonder what I'd do if that one step turned into ten... or twenty... or more? How long before my curiosity turned to fear and I started up the stairs again only to find them just as endless in the other direction? Would I keep going up or try going back down again? What if it was the wrong way? What if my salvation was only a few more steps away but I chose to turn in the other direction? How long would I last before panicking? Before screaming in terror and loneliness? Before running? What if I tripped and, with nothing to grab onto, couldn't stop myself from tumbling down an infinitely long stairway? And, possibly the worst thought of all, what if time never passed there in the blackness? What if I never got thirsty or hungry, what if I never aged? Merely wandered for an endless eternity without even the possibility of death to free me from my prison...? Every time I think of the Backrooms I'm reminded of those long nighttime treks down the stairs.

Thank you for being open enough to say "I'm too old for this shit" while being able enjoy new things. It just proves being 29 doesn't mean old. Great content as always, a new video to shove down my GF's throat :)

The Jaunt has always been viscerally disturbing to me. And it thrills me that you mentioned it. Thank you. This was a great video.

Another comparison someone can make with the Backrooms is the book House of Leaves, where a family moves into a house only for them to find that the internal spaces are bigger on the inside and eventually having a door appear out of nowhere leading to a seemingly immeasurable labyrinth of corridors and chasms when it should lead to the backyard. Fantastic, albeit very difficult read.

Excited to see you cover some analog horror online stuff… I hope you expand a little into the area of Petscope, this house has people in it, etc And wow, Pixels’ Backrooms is so goddamn good

While I don't agree with your interpretation of things like Marble Hornets, I 100% vibe with this video. The Backrooms are sick.

I'm so glad someone else drew the connection between "The Jaunt" and "The Langoliers" by King to the liminal space horror vibe and the Backrooms. They're horrifying stories when you sit down and think about being either Jaunting or being on that flight, stuck JUST out of time.

I gotta be honest, as someone who's followed both Marble Hornets and Kane's Backrooms as they were/are updating, it's a little sad to see Slenderman remembered as this cringe scar across internet horror to be used as a comparison point to show how Backrooms is fairing so much better in a similar environment, when honestly they are playing, in my eyes, pretty 1:1 in terms of the internet consumption process. The lore of some backrooms games already moves to explain and make too much of the Backrooms defeatable rather than mysterious, and they're a pretty direct comparison in role to what the Slender game did. I think just because we are earlier on in the process with Backrooms, we are being much more forgiving to it right now, but it's going to go the exact same route as Slenderman did. A lot of Slenderman lore complaints come from general internet lore rather than anything Marble Hornets did itself (ie proxies, a concept introduced and not fully delved into in marble hornets tbh its not even an accepted part of its canon, yet extremely outlined due to fandom wants outside of it and other series like tribetwelve) and the general internet is sure putting a lot of odd lore into Backrooms as well currently (almond water, anyone?). I feel like Kane's Backrooms and Marble Hornets are 1:1, just as Backrooms games and Slender boom are 1:1, but we've seen and grown tired of the steps that happened to Slenderman as it branched away from Marble Hornets, but we just haven't hit that splintering stage in full force just yet for the Backrooms. This is probably a little boomer of me with some definite nostalgia talking but its a little sad to see Slenderman get so much cringe and ire for basically not only helping set up the indie horror game scene for a time, but also open some doors and give some pointers in aesthetic direction for a lot of future youtube analogue horrors down the line.