Once you exit reality, where do you go? According to a 2019 internet theory, you would find yourself in The Backrooms, an impossibly large extra-dimensional expanse of empty rooms. The Backrooms lore really took off in 2019 when someone posted an image of an empty, depressing room on 4chan with the caption: “If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms.”

Things got weirder when YouTuber Kane Parsons started making short films in 2022 that visually brought The Backrooms to life. In 2024, a bunch of internet sleuths on a Backrooms-themed Discord server tracked down the origin of that infamous photo. Turns out, it wasn’t some paranormal snapshot from another dimension, but a mundane 2002 office renovation.