The Mythology of the Backrooms Explained

Ever felt like a place seems real yet oddly unsettling? Welcome to The Backrooms, a digital folklore phenomenon that blurs the lines between reality and fiction, exploring the eerie and uncanny through playful, yet terrifying, community-driven digital storytelling. For audio descriptions, go to Settings - Audio Track - English Descriptive. ***** PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateStoried ***** Written and Hosted by: Dr. Emily Zarka Director: David Schulte Executive Producer: Amanda Fox Executive Producer: Dr. Emily Zarka Producer: Thomas Fernandes Editor/Animator: P.W. Shelton Illustrator: Samuel Allan Executive in Charge (PBS): Maribel Lopez Director of Programming (PBS): Gabrielle Ewing Additional Footage: Shutterstock Music: APM Music Descriptive Audio & Captions provided by The Described and Captioned Media Program Produced by Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios. Follow us on Instagram:   / monstrumpbs   ***** Bibliography Farris, Anelise. “Experimenting With the Occult: The Role of Liminality in Slumber Party Rituals.” Preternature, vol. 6, no. 1, 2017, pp. 154–79. Land, Ray, Julie Rattray, and Peter Vivian. “Learning in the liminal space: a semiotic approach to threshold concepts.” Higher Education, vol. 67, 2014, pp. 199-217. Necpál, Ján, and Marcela Šoltýsová. “Functional Movement Disorders Triggered by Reality Shifting and the Backrooms—Another Social Media Traps.” Journal of Neurology, vol. 270, no. 7, 2023, pp. 3647–49. Somer, Eli, et al. “Reality Shifting: Psychological Features of an Emergent Online Daydreaming Culture.” Current Psychology, vol. 42, no. 14, 2023, pp. 11415–27. Stephen, Samantha J. “‘The Backrooms’: exploring the unconscious together through collective meaning making.” Journal of Psychosocial Studies, vol. 15, issue 3, November 2022, pp. 201-208. Virloget, Katja Hrobat. “Between Archaeology and Anthropology. Collective Memory, Liminal Spaces, and Mythical Landscape.” Ars & Humanitas, vol. 17, no. 2, 2023, pp. 21-40. Wisker, Gina. “Crossing Liminal Spaces: Teaching the Postcolonial Gothic.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Culture, and Composition, vol. 7, no. 3, 2007, pp. 401–25.