#categories overlap there's logic but there isn't!! idk!!!

[rambunctioustoons]

come to realize I can't write characters, unless I mentally seperate them into one of three categories.

cat. dog. bird.

[gunpowder-gemini]

I love liminal spaces but I think we're all using that term wrong

Like ok, hear me out. I ADORE liminal space vibes and playlists and photos etc. I think the backrooms are great! I love the unsettling-yet-oddly-comforting vibes of all this stuff. But I don't think we're using the term right. Or rather, we're using it too broadly I think. Putting the rest under a cut because writing down my thoughts turned into a whole ass essay.

So the definition of liminal according to Merriam-Webster is:

of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold : barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response

of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between, transitional.

When talking about spaces and locations we're generally meaning the 2nd one. (Though the first one sounds like shit you can barely see and I do love the idea of exploring that in terms of like, houses that you aren't sure are there or a place that you can only sort of see out of the corner of your eye but I'm getting sidetracked).

So these are places that are transitional and are unsettling because they are places that we are familiar with but we don't think about when we aren't actively there. Seeing them outside that context is odd and feels kinda wrong (also because they're generally portrayed as always empty and lit strangely, but we'll come back to that). Good examples are like stairwells, hallways, train stations, airports, bus stops, gas stations, etc.

So we agree on that, yeah? Great. Now where I'm saying we're wrong is in OTHER kinds of creepy spaces that give the same sort of vibe, but AREN'T inherently transitional spaces.

For example, I don't think offices are liminal. Office spaces are horrifying and endless office rooms DO sound like my personal hell, but that's because you spend a LOT of time in them. Like, office spaces full of cubicles and computers and shit is a JOB, a DESTINATION. It isn't somewhere you're just passing through or waiting in while you move to another location. Now the office hallways or stairwells I WOULD say are liminal, but the rooms themselves? Unsettling but not liminal, and I think are unsettling BECAUSE they aren't liminal.

I would apply this same logic to a lot of other popular "liminal space" places that get thrown around, such as shopping malls, playplaces, hotels (this one could go either way tbh), classrooms, houses (come on, you literally live in those), etc. Some examples of what I mean:

These aren't liminal imo, they're just empty and/or poorly lit. Empty places that feel like they should have people, especially places that feel familiar, can evoke that same sort of uncanny uneasiness that liminal spaces do.

There is, of course, overlap and gray areas and nuance. Places that do not normally exist as liminal spaces CAN be liminal spaces if the place itself is in a state of transition.

For example, the backrooms. Office spaces are not inherently liminal but EMPTY office spaces I would say are. Without the cubicles and desks and computers and whatnot, the space ceases to be a destination. No one is working in the completely empty backrooms. So the space is in a period of transition either into a usable workspace or going from a workspace into something else. I would say this applies to things like empty houses before you move in/after you move out. Waffle House at 3 am is liminal because it's not a destination you just end up there somehow. There's more but you get the gist, here's some examples.

The last category of liminal spaces are ones I'm not sure where to put, because they aren't real. These are things like the poolrooms and bathrooms that don't make sense and stuff like that. I see these labeled "dreamcore" more than anything which is a good label, but since they do get brought up as liminal spaces I figured I'd mention them here too. Idk, I don't think they're liminal if only because they aren't real.

SO all of that explained, I'd like to bring back that thing about emptiness and strange lighting. Because all of these images I found by searching for liminal spaces (and specifying like, bathroom or whatever) and I DON'T think they're all liminal but I DO think they are all unsettling and weirdly familiar in the same way. We're using liminal to describe this vibe, but I think what we all ACTUALLY mean is uncanny.

Like, all of these places are places that look familiar even though we may never have been there, but they look WRONG. They're all too empty, the lights are either too bright or too dim and many of them look abandoned. They're such a strange marriage of nostalgically familiar (for those of us that grew up in the us in the 90s/00s anyway, ymmv) and horrifyingly unsettling. They're like the uncanny valley, but for locations. Thus, I think this aesthetic should be called something like uncanny spaces and that liminal spaces would be a subset of this.

Obviously I'm just some guy on the internet and I can't make anyone stop using liminal to mean uncanny, it's just something I've kinda thought a lot about and wanted to yell those thoughts into the void that is the internet lol.