Themes of Nostalgia and Modern Life

Support for Eless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MatLab and Simulink software. to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science Learn more at mathworks. com upport for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Miotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like why is innovation in healthcare so hard? ESG just greenwashing? And of course, is business broken? Listen wherever you get your podcasts WR Podcasts Boston One truly gorgeous summer day earlier this month, Ben and I decided to opt in to a maze of corporitish empty rooms, also known as A movie theater To see a movie on a topic some of you threadheads may remember Backoms Backrooms is this kind of horror, creepy pasta or meme about a video game glitch where you can slip or as it's called no clip into a video game prison of empty rooms This all started on F Chan, which then moved to Reddit and YouTube and Then Endless th. Yeah, we did an episode on the backroom subreddit back in twenty twenty. And a time jump skipping a hop later, there's a major motion picture coming out on this topic It's directed by a young guy named Kaine Parsons who actually did a YouTube series based on the subreddit and the F Chan Creepy pasta before making this film So we headed over to the movie theater just off the Boston Comm in downtown But there was a gaggle of noisy but joyful children who had no respect for our ambitions to record a little movie pre game conversation So we ducked into a quiet fancy residential building with a very nice door in that just so happened to have a little nook set up withith a lamp, a table, and two chairs almost like it was waiting just for us Well, well, well isisn't my old back rooms friend We're kind of in a backroom right now. Is that weird? to say This is not what I would call a backroom, but I do feel like we happened we lcked into something. We kind of mayaybe unlucked into something. It's kind of the opposite of the backroom situation. Instead of no clipping into a place we can't escape, we were trying to escape something And we no clipped into a beautiful oasis of air conditioned, quiet. Silence, yes.. We were on the Boston Common. it's just like the most gorgeous day. It's a crime that we're about to go spend two hours plus inside Hot day Matinee. That's me. But I like a hot day Mat summer Yes, Set us up. Set us up. What are we doing here? Five years ago. Oh my God. In the midst of COVID. Yeah. You and I sat down to record a endless dread snack time. people who don't know the term snack time. That's just when we like tell each others stories. It's it's a snackier style episode as opposed to our full meal Dive episodes. That's right We We're throwing stories at each other and I brought you backrooms subreddit. how would you describe backroom subreddit picture like yellowish beige is walls, endless hallways and fluorescent lighting and just the buzz of the fluorescent lights. And what makes it so creepy is like the endlessness of the labyrinth, but also the absence of anything else seemingly, like are there people behind the walls everywhere you turn It's just more endless hallways There might be a creature in there. There might be a creature. Yes. To me, it's like a fascinating sort of horror concept. because it's very video game related and It was five years ago that the twenty year old director Kaine Parsons. Kaine Parsons. he was supposedly, you know, in all the press where they sort of talk about this like young director who is making YouTube horror series And is like maybe one of the youngest major motion picture directors of recent Mmory to release a wide release film He was sixteen years old when he got his start quotes And that was like basically the exact time that you and I were talking about this. Oh. Isn't that crazy? to think about Did we make this happen? Did we make the backrooms? We should find out pict Samin might be an endless thread, listener. M does an endless thread to A twenty four film pipeline is so down. Same, same He said something interesting. I was watching an interview about the movie, which we're about to go see, made eighty one million dollars in its first week. Yeah. The biggest A twenty four box office debut. but he also talked about this kind of modern feeling of unfettered urbanization industrialization information overload peopleeople have no connection to. we should test this theory as we go into watch it. Part of the sort of horror aspect of this movie is kind of like a what hath we wot Peace. of this kind of, again, sort of like feeling that We just don't have enough humans in humanity and soul to inhabit Um these like empty spaces and these buildings that we've constructed Um everywhere all over the place So that's like a thing that I'm interested in thinking about and seeing if the movie explores. Yeah And also To me, what's exciting about it is that Caine Parsons is the director of this film, but he didn't write the script And so The fact that there was acknowledgement from you know, someone in the industry to say, hey, here's this thing that went from four Chan to a subreddit to Now to YouTube to Actually, maybe we could make a whole movie out of this You just never would have seen this coming. You would never you would never guess that that particular, it's not even like IP. it's an open source idea of creepiness. that it would become a movie that who knows? we could walk in and come out and be like, let's suck back. But I have a good feeling about it. Yeah, me too. Hopefully we don't get too scared talk to you guys on the other side If we make it out. which we probably won't to begin with. See this is is I mean, this is too colorful to be backroomsy, but yeah, a hallway No people, lots of doors Sounds like it's still preused And me you guys together, please. ject objective C you p way standard standard I saw something picked up. He put down the camera. he was eas to film everything and then Something baked it up, somethinghing bed up theure. Pheew, we made it out of the backrooms. After the break, we'll talk to some fellow escapees In twenty twenty six, FIFA World Cup Meal at McDonald's is underway with one of nine legendary cups in the lineup. Christian Pulisk, David Vickham, Lainam Mal, Ronald Digno, Tier Henri, Son Hng Min, Alfonso Davies, Santi Jermenez, and between the posts, E grrimous! Get one of nine collectible cups with a FIFA World Cup meeal P participating Mcal's for limited time. while supplies last, Allrightes reserve twenty six McDonald's FF World Cup twenty six. 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All episodes are out now, the Midnight Rebellion Listen at wbuR d. org slash midnight or wherever you get your podcasts Okay, we are now back outside the theater on the Boston Common where we find three women who were just at the same screening of the Backrooms movie with us Two friends, Min and Olivia, who just decided to catch a movie on a summery Friday morning. And a woman named Indigo by herself We started with Indiga. Okay, so what made you come see this movie today U I came because I was really into the web series beforehand I love analog horror. I love that type of thing. and it started off as an analog horror. That's why like you see in the movie, it's kind of like has that same thing where it's kind of like a found footage type thing Analog horror just meaning there's no like, like CGI monsters or No analog hore basically is kind of like telling like a horror story through like, VHSs and, you know, old cameras and things like that, you know analog media Okay, fair enough. Right. what made you to come see it and Olivia. I mean for me, Olivia was like this morning, she was like, Hey, like, do you want to watch this movie? And I was like, Oh yeah, sure because I had nothing else to do. And I like horror movies. Yeah, I didn't think it would be this terrifying actually. I thought it would be more like psychological thriller, but there's a lot of jump scares in there Yeah. I think yeah, I'm also drawn to the concept of like liminal space kind of, so I was really interested. But yeah, I think we were just bored. so you came to the movie. Were you familiar with the concept of backrooms before this? No, not at all. No. You'd heard nothing about it. No, Whereas Indigo here, you knew a lot about backrooms. Yeah I did. Okay. What do you think, Oliviaman, what do you think makes it feel so Sary U I think like the fact that like it's like all open space and then like you don't know when something's gonna come out of like nowhere. Yeah. S same. I think like The horrors that you cannot see but could only hear and feel are the worst ever Yeah, how do you interpret the ending of the movie It feels like whatever's in the mind of, you know someomebody that Uh, has I don't know, something happened to them or something like that, or just memories in general Um, it can become so warped within somebody else's mind Any other theories about what the movie means or if there is like not that every movie needs a lesson or a takeaway, but do you think that there's like a deeper meaning or something that you will take away as you go about doing whatever you're going to do on this beautiful day For sure not. I don't wantanna take any of that with me seriously. I wan to leave that in there.hing It has got nothing to do with me I think my main kind of takeaway though is kind of like you can let something that is a flaw within you fester up until it literally eats you alive. Indigo in, Olivia, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us. Would you recommend the movie? I would. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, you heard it here ree empty rooms out of five empty rooms. That's own review. Just kidding. Really? No, I thought it was good. I enjoyed it. I thought it was good tension. Good tension build upp throughout the movie didnidn't care too much about the characters didnn't feel like deeply other than the psychiatrist. Yeah But also her story didn't get super developed. It was sort of like impressionistic. No, I feel like both of the main characters. So there's Clark, who is in this case, like the patient. He owns the furniture store He's the patient of Mary, the therapist. and neither of their characters feel that developed, which is why in trying to come up with a theory about do the backrooms mean? what do they represent for each of them? How do they end up there It's hard Yeah. But it's sort of like not a deeply character driven storyline, right? Or like when you think about the lore that it came from, it's like an idea, not a story. Right. And so there's something interesting about trying to build like a a pretty substantial movie around that. And I'd heard that they like there's a thirty thousand square foot stage or you know set that they built so that it would be an actual labyrinth that they were going through. Oh and so they weren't like it's not all CGI. it's's not all. they use some they use some CGI, I think. but it's there it is like a thirty thousand square foot actual labyrinth that they that the cast and crew claimed to have gotten lost in themselves That's it working on it. Yeah. I was thinking about some of the themes. Like I think they really explored the colustrophobia of wide open space. in an interesting way, you know? He is said Caustrophobia. Yeah. inststead of claustrophobia. Caustrophobia like Caustrophobia bag Like when you're afraid of your callaustrophy situation. I am also callaustrophobic. S. I'm also claustrophobic. But like I feel like that, you know, exploring the claustrophobia of wide open space is interesting Well, there's yeah, there's like physical claustrophobia and that they have to like wriggle their way through tight spaces. But the irony of that is that it's nothing but wide open space. It's like being lost in the desert Yeah. And also I thought a theme that I was thinking about was and maybe this is what comes up for me and it's not relevant, but like Uh It reminded me a lot of this idea. Because so much of it is like it's based in the nineties, right? And like there's this like huge nostalgia thing that's happening right now And so much of that nostalgia is basically based around yearning for a time before the internet effectively or when the internet was brand new and you were still in much more in the real world much more than the internet. And there are also these like interesting conspiracy theories. I don't even know what they're described. It's not like a Mandela effect, but it's sort of like alternate timeline conspiracy theories, like some of them around like nine hundred and eleven, for instance, like someomehow like we switched realities In two thousand one and now we're like on this like different path that we can't get out of. And so it like reminded me in some ways of that that you have these two different worlds. You have this world from the nineteen nineties, that is the real world that the characters are in. and it's like broken and messed up in certain ways. but it's still like real and navigable And then you have this world that some would compare more to the world we live in now, which is this like endndless you have this like you know, it's like the prison of Infinite choice Right? And like the back rooms sort of like connect to that when you're like thinking about the internet or the internet that we've lived in for the past twenty to thirty years or twenty years or something like that. Does that make any sense? I don't know. does Well, what I'm the sense that I am making of it is that Oftentimes on the internet you startart in one place, you end up in a totally different place through a series of like you know, figurative turns. And then You're like, wait, how did I get here? How do I get out How do I How did I get here? How do I get out? How do I I this internet rabbit. Yes, yes, toally Yeah One thing that I'm gathering from Just the little bit of Reddit feedback that I've seen. peopleeople in the back room subreddit so far A very good point that was made is that att least our understanding of backrooms is that you're not supposed to be able to get out. In, it's a labyrinth You can't find your way out, but this idea of someone like tying a rope to you and being able to pull you out feels Um, like not true to the nightmare that is Yeah, that's that's a good point. And I feel like it's also it's also this like challenge that you have with a movie like this, which again, it's sort of like Most horror movies that I've seen and with at least one person getting out So I think it sort of makes sense in a way that some people have to escape. Okay, well, what do you take away from this experience? I'm going to go back to the thing that Can Parsons like talked about or Kane Pixels, if you follow them on YouTube. which is this like There's an aspect of horror that we all feel from uh this sort of Endless construction of humanity and fact that we are in a world where a lot of the things that we are making ultimately are not you know, they're They are uninhabited Um And there's something very soulless about that. And so to me, there's That's what I take away from it. is this kind of like Something something capitalism, modern society, lots of homeless people wouldn't know where to live, but we've got lots of empty buildings. I don't know That that's the part of it that sort of resonates with me Mm. What about you? Well You know, mental illness is a theme throughout the movie and the characters Um att least the two main characters have some connection to either personal experience or connection to mental illness? And therapy too, right? Like And do you feel like therapy is treated How do you think the movie views therapy I don't know how it views it, but it's definitely The idea of like a path for your life, I thought the real A new path A new path. window. Yes, opening a window and a new path to life. I was thinking, oh, these are people who want to escape their actual life. And that's what pulls them to the backroom is this idea that there's something better on the other side of that M False hope. Yeah. I don't know what to I don't know what to make of it, but it it's certainly It's very depressing to see those walls. Yes for an hour and forty five minutes. Those yellow walls, No good. You definitely feel so maybe that's maybe this is my takeaway is like you just feel so much better being outside Ething about like