The terrifying internet urban legend that inspired Severance

Severance is a pretty spooky show; after all, which of us hasn’t had a nightmare or three about a never-ending workday?

Just imagine it: an eternity of boring stories, microwaved fish, and poorly made cups of tea. The mere thought of it sends a shiver down my spine and makes me glad to have such considerate (and remote) colleagues.

Yet there are other reasons Severance is so eerie. I’ve already written about how the Apple TV+ show cleverly uses liminal space to create a sense of unease, but did you know that the show’s partly inspired by a rather horrifying internet urban legend?

I’m talking, of course, about the mundane terror of the Backrooms. 

The show’s creator, Dan Erickson, admitted as much during an interview with Inverse, where he said he was inspired by movies like The Truman Show and Office Space but then added: “Then there’s stuff like The Backrooms, which is a weird online urban legend.”

Sadly, Erickson didn’t elaborate further on what exactly from the Backrooms inspired him, although it’s evident to those who know about this strange internet legend.

What are the Backrooms?

Bill Magritz

The Backrooms is a fictional extradimensional space that can be found by exiting our reality. The rooms are usually portrayed as endless office spaces or as infinite labyrinths of corridors and empty rooms.

They were created by anonymous 4Chan users on the /x/ board (a forum for posting paranormal-themed content) in 2019 on a thread asking users to “post disquieting images that just feel ‘off.'”  The initial post included a photo that seemed to depict a confusing abandoned office space.

In response to the picture, the unknown user described the Backrooms as a place you can enter when you “no-clip out of reality” where there’s “nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.”

Since that original post, the Backrooms have exploded in popularity, and several new strands have been added to the myth, including other floors, monsters, and more. 

Why are the Backrooms scary?

Apple TV+

The Backrooms are scary for several reasons. Most obviously, because they’re an alternate dimension where you could be trapped for all eternity with god knows what, but there’s something more fundamental to their horror. 

They are scary because they’re uncanny in the truest sense of the word, by which I mean they’re unsettling yet oddly familiar. Think of times in your life when you’ve walked through empty spaces like hotel halls, offices, or even schools. It’s likely while there, you felt some creeping unease. You wouldn’t necessarily have gone into full panic mode, but perhaps you picked up the pace a little. 

This happens when places are stripped of their context (a hotel should have visitors and an office needs workers); they slide into the uncanny valley because you subconsciously perceive the emptiness as wrong. It’s a primitive response to our fear of the unknown, and the backrooms, which seem so familiar yet strangely odd at the same time, are a perfect example of this phenomenon.

How is Severance like the Backrooms?

Lumon’s labyrinthian corridors and empty offices are explicit references to the terrifying alternate dimension, but Severance also uses the same liminal architecture that the Backrooms use to create a sense of dread in the viewer. Regularly, you’ll see the Macrodata Refinement team take impossible turns or wander into physically impossible rooms. This is done to discombobulate the audience and leave you with the unmistakable feeling that something isn’t quite right at this wicked workplace.

If you love Mark and his Macrodata Refinement team then why not read our interview Dylan Cherry we’ve also got some news on Severance Season 3.