where did the backrooms originate
The Backrooms creepypasta originated from a single eerie image posted anonymously on 4chan's /x/ (paranormal) board on May 12, 2019.
Image Source
That iconic photo of endless yellow-walled rooms with buzzing fluorescent lights? Internet detectives finally traced it back in 2024 to a now-harmless RC car racetrack at a hobby store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin—specifically, an archived 2003 shot from the shop's old website. The image first surfaced publicly on 4chan almost a year earlier, on April 21, 2018, in a "cursed images" thread, but without any story attached.
Viral Explosion
What turned it legendary was a reply post pairing the image with a chilling greentext caption: "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms..."
Original /x/ Post Reaction: Users called it "worse than any creepypasta out there," sparking threads on /r/greentext by May 14, then full stories and animations by May 18.
It rocketed across Reddit's r/backrooms (created shortly after), wikis, and TikTok, evolving into a sprawling lore of liminal horror with "levels," entities, and fan games.
Forum Chatter Highlights
- Early Theories: Some Reddit users guessed it started as a Photoshopped empty office cleaning photo from Tumblr.
- Lore Debates: Backrooms Wiki forums buzz about in-universe origins—like ancient caves morphing into '60s offices or simulation glitches.
- Recent Tracing: 2024 sleuths on Discord confirmed the Wisconsin track, ending a multi-year hunt.
Cultural Timeline
Year| Milestone
---|---
2002-2003| Original photo taken at RC track.15
2018| Image debuts on 4chan "cursed" thread.3
2019| Greentext post ignites creepypasta; wiki launches June 2.59
2022+| Games, YouTube vids, ABC News coverage; still trending in liminal
horror.4
TL;DR: Born on 4chan /x/ in 2019 from a real-world RC track photo + genius caption; now a massive internet folklore beast.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.