The Backrooms (found original source of image from Creepypasta; 2002)
The Backrooms image.
Status: Found
Date found: 29 May 2024
Found by: Virtual World Discord server
The Backrooms is a Creepypasta about an extra-dimensional, purgatory-like realm one can become trapped in forever. It manifests as an infinite office building totally devoid of any furnishing, which gives a disconcerting "liminal space" effect. The carpet is moist, the lighting is harsh, the wallpaper is ugly, and all three have an unpleasant yellowed hue. Throughout the early days of the story's circulation on the internet, there had been many attempts to find the source of the original image most commonly associated with the story of the Backrooms, and all had come up short until May 2024, when a Twitter user announced how a friend of theirs had traced the photo to a now-defunct blog from 2002.
Origin
The Backrooms phenomenon, as it's known today, was born on May 12th, 2019, on 4chan's /x/ (paranormal) board[1]. An image of an eerily empty room (known to many as a "liminal space") was posted, along with a thread requesting "disquieting images that just feel 'off.'" A reply to this thread would then create the concept of the Backrooms[2]. This story would then get reposted, with the thread's original image attached, rather than the story's image[3]. This created the widespread concept of The Backrooms.
This image, however, originated much earlier than the lore and widespread attention, having been first spotted on 4chan's /b/ "random" board, on Sun 08 Apr 2018.[4] This image is the earliest found upload of the image, and is posted as a simple "creepy image." The filename for this image is 1342377940136.jpg, which could be a Unix Timestamp which translates to Sun Jul 15 2012. This could be the date of an original 4chan post, that was posted on this date, and saved by the person who would post it in 2018. However, due to 4chan's constant deletion of old threads and how expensive hosting archives is, many 4chan archives from 2012 are deprecated or do not involve the most popular boards, making it very difficult to search for, and due to this, no thread has been found yet, or the filename simply isn't a Unix date / doesn't originate from 4chan.
False Leads
There have been many false leads in search of the original Backrooms image. The Backrooms image was uploaded to the Collins Cold Storage website by an anonymous contributor, which led people to believe that it was the origin of the image. A yellowed room was seen in the background of a photographer's liminal space collection in an abandoned parking garage, but the photographer debunked any connections with the Backrooms. 3D Backrooms images were uploaded to a specific set of coordinates on Google Earth, but this turned out to be a part of an ARG.
Discovery
On the 29th of May, 2024, the Virtual World Discord server found the original image on the Wayback Machine from a 2003 announcement to promote the construction of a new RC car interior raceway for the Hobbytown USA Racing Team at their new address in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The post detailed their progress in the renovation of their new building, with one of the pictures on the page being the famous picture that would go on to be reposted on 4chan.
