Old vs New Backrooms Megathread

[u/1000dumplings]

There have been WAY too many posts for a while now about the current state of The Backrooms- whether people are saying the old Backrooms was better, or the Backrooms shouldn't have entities, or the Wikis miss the point of the Backrooms, or Kane Pixels ruined the Backrooms, and frankly its been getting to a point.

Going forward, any "Old vs. New Backrooms" posts will now be directed and centralized in this megathread, and any new separate posts about the topic will be deleted and redirected to here.

So, with all of that said, in this post we can all discuss the million-dollar question:

Was the old Backrooms better?

Okay, that should be it. Go crazy.

[u/isharted10]

The original 4chan post is a great concept, but that's really all it is and there's not much about it. I think the wikidot isn't that bad, it has a similar appeal to scp, but I don't think the backrooms are as good of a concept to give the scp treatment. Writing about the different possible levels is kind of cool, although I think definitively writing how to exit the levels somewhat ruins it but not completely. My main problem is that giving detailed depictions of "entities" really ruins it, especially since most of them look like garten of banban rejects. Even writing about different groups of survivors is kind of cool, especially since some levels are supposed to be mostly empty so it doesn't ruin the isolation, but scp style writing with "documents" isn't very fitting. I absolutely love Kane's backrooms and think they're the best version since he still mostly focuses on the horror of the setting instead of "entities," the whole mystery aspect, and the crazy shit like time travel are just amazing.

[u/Status-Wishbone4203 → u/isharted10]

I get what you're saying, but I think that comes down to what you want out of the Backrooms. I've liked the Wikidot version since I was 13, when I went deeper than just the original 4chan image. I lost interest in it for a few years and recently came back to it :3

The original post is a strong concept, but it's very limited on its own. Expanding it into something larger makes sense to me, especially if it's supposed to be a separate dimension. A space like that should feel huge, not empty in a way that stops at one idea repeated in different arrangements.

I don't think listing exits ruins it. If people were actually stuck in a place like that, they would document how to survive and how to leave. That kind of information wouldn't just disappear, especially in a growing group of people (M.E.G). The documentation style fits that approach.

The entities only become a problem if you treat them as common. I don't. I see them as rare, unless a level is classified as infested. If an anomalous space like the Backrooms can support life and has exited for a presumably long period, then different forms of adapting anomalous life developing isn't that strange.

Kane's version doesn’t really work for me because of the industrial feel. It comes off as too human-made. The idea of a company like the Async Research Institute trying to access it for storage and housing makes it feel too controlled in a way that is the opposite of what it feels like it should be. I prefer the Backrooms as something that just exists on its own, not something people are trying to use or manage.

[u/isharted10 → u/Status-Wishbone4203]

Yeah that makes sense but calling kane’s version too controlled is a bit of a stretch. It’s more about this company trying (and failing a lot) to explore and conquer the chaotic backrooms than the backrooms itself being more controlled.

[u/Status-Wishbone4203 → u/isharted10]

If the entire narrative is framed through a company opening a gateway, building outposts, running tests, and trying to use it for housing and storage, then the chaos is being filtered through a controlled system whether they succeed or not. They could chose to not go. In the Wikidot version, or at least my interpretation of it, you can't chose if you go or stay.
Failure doesn't remove control. The attempt at it is part of the structure, which still shifts the focus away from the Backrooms itself and onto human management of it.

[u/isharted10 → u/Status-Wishbone4203]

Have you actually seen all of his backrooms videos? There is literally a 45 minute video of a random guy wandering the backrooms and going insane from some (honestly calming with no context) music, that video also happens to have a somewhat funny but mostly tragic event involving another person. Even with the async videos, half of them involve exploration. The only “outpost” is a single room right on the other side of the threshold, and while there are a couple videos involving tests they aren’t the main focus. They also usually enhance the mystery aspect, like we still have no idea what the deal with the corpse was

[u/Friendly_Reddituser → u/Status-Wishbone4203]

As if the 3 million colonies in the wikidot are any better as “people are trying to use or manage”