Um. I need to ask something.
What *is* "The Backrooms" ... ? I don't mean what is the fictional world concept about, but what do you call the way that people are ... playing? Making? this ... RPG? Game? Campfire Story?
If you aren't familiar people interact with "The Backrooms" mostly by making up new areas that can be explored. It's like a RPG where everyone is the DM.
Is there a word for this?
This. Or tall tales if you prefer a folksier take.
I was going to say it's an ARG, but that's not quite right. It's more like a crowd-souced urban legend. SCP fits in the same category.
There really should be a word, shouldn't there...
Wiki-legend?
This playlist from Game Theory/Film Theory is my sum total of knowledge of the Backrooms, it's not at all comprehensive, but it is what allows me to say that I know of the Backrooms
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYAq7jTz8DYIthDhpmhtguDTQ8WO6vdO2&si=br57oncnepivROsb
I gotta go through that thing...
I think it's a bit different from the SCP universe. Informed by it, but I think there's a difference in how people are engaging with the world.
SCP was this shady thing you could read about ... but people do a lot of "how to survive level 34" type stuff, it's very "this could totally happen to you"
@futurebird
I think "The Backrooms" as a creative phenomena straddles some genres.
I think it partly fits into:
* Urban Legend
* Creepypasta
* Shared Universe
@fivetonsflax @futurebird
I'm sure you're right.
Mythology certainly seemed to be that way. Each locale or author had their own variant of events.
Even what came to be thought of as canonical scripture (not intended as fiction) had multiple authors with their own perspectives on things.
I'd heard things to the effect that Cervantes rushed the second part of Don Quixote so he wasn't overtaken by the many fanfic/knockoff followups being circulated.
@fivetonsflax @futurebird
There was a whole genre for awhile of "Edisonades", which sometimes actually involved Thomas Edison as the protgonist DURING EDISON'S LIFETIME, without his approval.
@fivetonsflax @futurebird
I tend to think this kind of thing decreased particularly due to a couple factors:
* Easier printing over time made single-author ownership of a work more of a thing. Less time for a story to circulate and community variants to arise.
* Stronger legal copyright protections made it easier to wall off ideas, for better or ill.
* Increasing corporate ownership of IP made defense and exploitation of works more cutthroat and rigorous.
@futurebird ARG: Alternate Reality Gaming? I think the backrooms stuff counts as an ARG, usually it's a game concept that can be overlaid on real life
*Edit, asked my 12yr old: apparently it started as an ARG but over time morphed into something much more expanded so it can't really be considered one anymore
@futurebird As others already said, mythology/mythos seems like the best descriptor to me, but it's almost like we need a new term for this sort of thing.
The development of it reminds me of the Slenderman phenomena from years ago. Both originated from an image on a forum, spawned YouTube short film projects that further defined the mythos, and the overall lore is continuously developed and evolving from the additions of all the fans.
Hmm, this is a fun question to ponder..
I mean I think most people just like to think about "what if it was real?" and find out about the levels people make up (and decide which ones are "real" for myself) ... There aren't any characters, just a lot of world building.
Similar to memes, tropes and other shared worldbuilding like scp foundation.
Also "collaborative storytelling"?
In experiences role-playing, the players might be "part-time DMs" in such a way that they extend the story by themselves, only being nudged back into line when they make up stuff that goes against the overall concept.
As in: "I jump behind a nearby crate to hide."
We are in an abandoned warehouse, a crate being there sounds reasonable, alright.
But not: "I jump behind a nearby crate and discover that it is filled with magical gatling guns."
Unless we have been looking for explicitly that crate, absolutely not...
Also I'm fascinated by how everyone treats changes to the THREE wikis as "history"
"This level used to be this way, now it's that way"
The SCP universe kind of did that, but it was more formal and stilted. The people playing this world just keep aggregating more changes and ideas.
@mads @futurebird Since we're talking about the need for new terms:
Is there a term for cultural phenomena that emerge from the introduction of new communication technologies?
(Specifically, I'm thinking here about TikTok, and the short-lived fascination with sea shanties - I'd gone years w/o thinking about that musical style, and one day, I couldn't be online for 10 minutes w/o someone pushing that Wellerman song into my feed. And two weeks later, it was gone...)
So, is QAnon a literary topos?
Is there a useful distinction between the QAnon collective discourse game and the Backrooms collective discourse game?
Are you talking about Shared-worlds / shared universe?
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Shared_Universe
or are you talking about memes?
John Mastodon might be called a shared universe creation, as is the fictional movie Goncharov.
@futurebird No idea, but I feel like whatever it is, is a sibling to whatever Goncharov is.
Arguably, some specific subset of "meme."
@futurebird trying to view it from the viewpoint of a historian from the future, I’d say it’s a mythology.
I’m looking forward to see how this evolves :)
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