#i might have gotten some of the backrooms stuff wrong idk i wasnt really in there when it was booming

[sephirothmon]

i see a correlation between the backrooms and its fandomization to how it was with creepypastas. the backrooms started with a 4chan post, which introduced a scary concept of an out-of-bounds liminal space dimension. then kane pixel's video series on it takes the concept and expands upon it, using the concept of it but making it its own separate thing. same thing happened with slenderman. it started as an image post about a creepy figure captured in photos of children at a playground. then marble hornets was made, and used the concept of the character but made an entirely new and unique story with him, making it a separate creation from the original slenderman post but still incorporating the character.

then the same thing happens to both: the fandomization makes them less scary. i will admit first that i'm very biased into liking the creepypasta fandom bc i grew up really liking it. but anyways, fandomization of slenderman and other creepypastas, taking them from their sources, and making them into silly cartoon antic characters took away from the scare factor a lot of them had. this is why, understandably, many people who were a part of the original slenderman post hated when he got popular. because people were making memes of him, making silly art, drawing him in a big mansion with other creepypastas acting like a family (or other interpretation of slender mansion), etc. it was upsetting to see this mysterious creepy entity being turned into.. for lack of better terms: a meme, tumblr sexyman, and funny guy.

same thing happened (or is still happening?) to the backrooms. i will also be clear i was not into the fandom of it and know very little of this, i only know of the original post and the kane pixel series and the roblox game. as it got more popular, people in the fandom and on fan wikis added more and more layers and characters to the backrooms. it made it less 'creative' in the way where many ideas were based on something already existing and not wholly original. and since it was many people contributing, the ideas didnt mesh together. the cohesion of a single person or small team working on a project wasnt there. people also add in things that make it akin to scp's, but from what i've seen its almost never as scary or intriguing as actual scps (who have moderators comb through submissions to post). basically, because of many different people wanting to add many different things, and a lot of those things lacking intrigue, scariness, or original horror/otherworldliness, it made the 'backrooms world' very watered down very quickly. many people are upset because of this; something so scary in concept, that also got even more popular because of an indie video series around the concept, got way too popular, and the fans and resulting fandom watered it down, took away what made it scary, and turned it into 'everybodys playground'.

im not making this to say either of these fans or fandoms are bad, theyre not. but if i had a nickel for every time i saw this happen, i'd have two, which isnt a lot but its weird that it happened twice. i guess what i'm getting at is that i saw history repeating itself in real time. although the backrooms fandomization happened so much faster than the creepypasta one, im assuming because of how media consumption has changed in the past 5 or so years (memes last weeks instead of years etc etc). i dont have a way to solve it, and i dont really think something like this can BE solved. its just something i noticed and i wanted to talk about it.