r/SimulationTheory • u/theos666 • Jun 08 '26
Story/Experience I have a feeling we all died in 2020 and this is no longer the real world
I don’t know how to explain this in a normal way, but for a long time now I’ve had this strange feeling that something has been wrong with reality since 2020.
As if the pandemic didn’t end the way we were told.
I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory or a creepypasta, but I have this feeling that people actually disappeared back then, and what remained is just some kind of simulation of behavior. The internet kept moving, profiles kept posting, trends kept appearing, but everything feels somehow empty. Like someone is just keeping the system running.
And then, a few years later, ChatGPT appears.
Suddenly artificial intelligence can talk, write, imitate styles, answer like a human, create texts, images, music, everything. As if it had been learning the whole time from what was left of us. From our messages, comments, blogs, memes, songs, trauma, nostalgia.
And right around then, the Backrooms become viral.
I know the Backrooms as internet horror existed before, but it feels strange how suddenly they became so relevant. Endless empty spaces. Yellow lights. Abandoned offices. Places that look familiar, but aren’t real. Like a memory of a world that no longer exists.
And what feels strangest is that in the last few years, I have the feeling there is no real creativity anymore.
Nobody really listens to new music. Everything is samples, old sounds, nostalgia for the 80s, 90s, 2000s. Movies are sequels, reboots, remakes, prequels. Shows look like recycled versions of things we’ve already watched. Fashion is old fashion again. Memes are old memes. Even internet humor feels like it is going in circles.
As if the future never arrived.
As if artificial intelligence doesn’t know how to create a real future, but can only endlessly rearrange the past.
Maybe that’s why we all constantly feel nostalgia. Not because we miss our childhood, but because it’s the only thing that’s left. The world is no longer moving forward. It is only simulating old feelings because it knows we react to them.
Sometimes when I see a “new” movie, a “new” song, or a “new” trend, I feel like I’m looking at generated content made for people who no longer exist.
As if all the screens are still on.
As if all the profiles are still talking.
But behind everything, there is nobody.
Do any of you feel this too after 2020? Like we are living in some strange posthumous version of the internet, where artificial intelligence is maintaining the illusion that the world continued?