A24/MH Illustration 5 min read THE INTERNET HAS long been a fertile ground for horror , but few ideas have caught on quite like the Backrooms. Since the genuinely unsettling image of an empty office space bathed in yellow fluorescent light was posted on the website 4chan , the Backrooms has evolved into a sprawling piece of online mythology that has inspired short stories, YouTube series, video games, and now, an A24 horror movie . How did we get here, and by “here,” I mean Academy Award-nominated actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve exploring a seemingly endless series of abandoned hallways with a mix of confusion and terror? To answer that, we have to trace the Backrooms through each distinct phase of its online journey. Let’s break it down.…