Kane Parsons believes his interpretation of the backrooms is ‘minor cultural shorthand’ for the abstract space—just look at South Park’s recent episode

It’s always fascinating to see a niche aspect of the internet break containment and make its way into the centre of our collective cultural consciousness. It happened with cottagecore, putting “maxxing” at the end of any word, and it happened with the backrooms, largely thanks to the astronomical success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms film.

It didn’t take long for brands to jump on the bandwagon and make parodies of Parsons’ film. McDonald’s dropped its beloved Grimace into the unending maze, Ikea posted themed horror-shorts, hell, even the sponge brand Scrub Daddy posted a backrooms clip. Other than this all being proof that we do indeed live inside a simulation, it’s indicative of just how successful this movie was.

Parsons’ version of the backrooms has become almost “minor cultural shorthand” for all things liminal right now. “South Park just did a backrooms episode,” Parsons adds. “And you can see already how the version of the backrooms that was presented in the film is overriding and altering the version of the backrooms that existed before this film.”

But the hope is that it won’t always be like this. Parsons has stressed how his film is just an adaptation of the backrooms; it’s not canon, because nothing in the backrooms is. “It’s not meant to be any one thing, it’s not meant to conform,” Parsons says. “It’s meant to become blurrier in your head over time and just be an abstract thing that sits with you. If you never watch it again, in 20 years it’ll just be a vague cultural [moment].”

This nuanced understanding of not only what the backrooms is, but also how to treat it, was ultimately the driving force behind why the film was so great. “It’s an idea and a project that exists in empty space,” Parsons says. “I love going into detail… like what type of nails are they using inside the wall, where do they source the timber from… but I think you’ve got to be really careful and deliberate when walking the line and not getting to a place where it’s like all someone’s dream… I don’t think people enjoy that.”

Ultimately, the best part of the backrooms, as with SCP, is that it cannot be contained. It’s a story that belongs to everyone: “You can’t harness the backrooms in an IP, it’s just going to dissolve over time and who knows where that goes.”