When I lived in Portland there was this one Target slightly outside of town that I went to a couple times to track down a few things I had trouble finding closer to home.
This is an interesting angle, but I suspect that the connections flow the other direction. The reaction to AI comes from the same place as the uncanny valley and the liminal space, which is much older than either AI or the backrooms themselves.
In 1991 Terry Pratchett wrote Reaper Man, which (somewhat awkwardly) features an attack on the city by a sentient shopping mall. The text is garbled, the dimly lit hallways are eerie, the space is liminal; I should reread the book and write a proper post about it.
But coming 28 years before the original 4chan post, I think the creepiness of the empty page building is the real driver of these connections
re: men wanting to explore the backrooms and women not, i'm reminded of an AliceFromQueens tweet:
"Never feel more female that when men display an interest in colonizing the moon.
I'm not just like "That's expensive. We have bigger problems on Earth."
I cannot fathom their interest. If the moon were in Long Island and free to visit I might not go."
https://x.com/AliceFromQueens/status/1219459846401069056
ha yeah i think that’s also a similar vibe
See also Andy Ayrey's "infinite backrooms" project
https://dreams-of-an-electric-mind.webflow.io/
yes, i wanted to mention this but couldn’t find a good way of doing it and also had trouble tracking down a good link
I've been working on something about it for a little while and hope to publish this week! Mind if I link you to it when it's done?
sure, go for it!
This is an interesting angle, but I suspect that the connections flow the other direction. The reaction to AI comes from the same place as the uncanny valley and the liminal space, which is much older than either AI or the backrooms themselves.
In 1991 Terry Pratchett wrote Reaper Man, which (somewhat awkwardly) features an attack on the city by a sentient shopping mall. The text is garbled, the dimly lit hallways are eerie, the space is liminal; I should reread the book and write a proper post about it.
But coming 28 years before the original 4chan post, I think the creepiness of the empty page building is the real driver of these connections
yeah that might be a stronger reading overall. the liminal uncanny parrot…
🎯🤝