i know the kids have created an extensive mythology and cast of "entities" for the backrooms but that really misses whats spooky abt them tbh. for the backrooms or the poolrooms or whatever the fuck to maintain their eeriness they need to be empty, i think. they're not a haunted house. we're not in the realm of "this place hates you," its more like "this place is completely indifferent to you." cosmic horror adjacent. i think thats the key. i like the og explanation for those original backrooms images, theyre what pops up while reality is loading. thats fun. but it invites too much worldbuilding..
but MY PROPOSAL. is that we scrap like 90% of the backstory. the question "why does this place exist" needs to be answered "for no reason at all." some development corporation created an automated system for building stuff, a machine or set of machines, and a minor programming mistake sent it out of control, making vastly more space that it was originallly set to do, now its still out there making rooms and realms and we can't find it or stop it. set the system to "spa" and you get the poolrooms, set it to "office space" or "hotel" and you get the original backrooms, etc.
theyre inadvertently terraforming reality with unreality. and now it's so vast that we're stuck with it. these huge labyrinths of useless, faintly malevolent rooms. they're not here for us, they're not here for anything. but they're here. and you can get lost for days without seeing another human face. its the horror of the suburbs distilled. spaces created with humans as an only tangential concern.
