I Long for Liminal Spaces
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- Опубликовано: 24 ноя 2024
- Why are we so drawn to places that do not exist? From childhood basements to endless hallways, this video explores the places we cannot.
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I’ve been SEARCHING for more liminal space content that actually dives into what they’re about and less “creepy Backrooms har har har”, so so far: thank you.
YESSS AGREED
I am REALLY annoyed that gen zers have turned the interesting concept of liminal and nostalgic places into just yet another cheap horror-subgenre, when horror originally had NOTHING to do with liminal spaces. Just younger people can't deal with quietness or anything that isnt' CONSTANTLY OVERSTIMULATING their brains 24/7 because they've never known a world without iPads and instant and constant stiulation The entire concept of "rest" or "quiet" outside of going to sleep is foreign to them. Good god that's sad.
@JamesR624 It was forced on them by your generation and the ones before. You reap what you sow. But alas, they're still annoying.
THANK YOU. Could not agree more.
When you didn't already find him, maybe the channel of GregBroDudeMan is for you. 😊
Tbh liminal spaces never really scared me. I find them incredibly comforting in a weird, melancholic way
1# a skulldoggo
2# i dont find melancholic, is just purely comforting.. i just love the feeling of being in an empty space.. if i gone to these liminal spaces sure im alone i cant feel stronger peace.
lol they scare the crap outa me
Agreed
Same no people would be great
I agree, but that's what makes them such a fascinating thing to base horror on.
My finger reflexively clicked
how did ur finger click
XD
Might want to get that checked out
Lol me too
When I think of liminal spaces I enter scared and leave paranoid
“I long for liminal spaces”
Me too brother, me too
there is one way to get to these liminal spaces, through lucid dreaming, it would also feel as real as real life as well, plus you could choose how u want ur liminal space
@@griefer5846 i want that so bad i am breaking up right now cuz i want it so bad
@@la_sassin same, unfortunately im not an expert at lucid dreaming, but imagine you lucid dream and you chill in some comforting, relaxing poolrooms for a few hours
@@la_sassin being able to explore a very relaxing liminal space and just chilling would be something i’d like
@@griefer5846 i would love that except i get that feeling that im being watched when i think of myself in places
like those... but i dont care
Anemoia is the feeling if nostalgia for a time/ and or place you've never been to. This is what the liminal spaces seem to evoke in a lot of people.
YOOOO my favorite word spotted in the wild!!! Thank you kind Mx. I greatly appreciate this
if you want to describe something as nostalgic, but it's from a time you've never known, the word is "fauxstalgic"
i still use the word anemoia though when im not describing something
I always loved liminal spaces. Then I also became a night worker at a gas station, then moved onto a hotel. It is an environment that can make or break people. It's not the night hours, it's being alone that seems to really bother people.
How would you rate working nights at a hotel?
@@Luna_Knight_vods much preferred to the gas station that's for sure. The hotel is rather nice. I work at a hotel with stars though so there isthat. If I worked at a seedy dive my milage would be dfferent.
This gives strong Magnus protocol vibes. There's an episode about almost exactly this
@@beans_boi I am actually going back through the magnus archives in preparation to listen to the magus protocol for the first time all fresh! You just made my day!
And yes, I am listening while being the solo caretaker of a hotel throughout the night. 😅
@IrishMorgenstern you know what's seems nice, like my dream job mabey a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
When I was three years old my mom took my sister's and I to a pool party for my cousin
All I remember from this trip was breaking down hysterically because I had suddenly found myself completely alone in an empty room of shallow warm water with a ceramic dolphin at the center
As I started to cry desperately for someone I knew or any of the people I had thought I was with previously eventually my bigger sister ran up to me picked me up and asked where I had wandered off to.
I had never done anything more than turn in a circle
I feel like there may be more to the backrooms lore now
“You played minecraft as a kid”
Don’t make me feel old, i was 25 when I first played minecraft when it was beta 1.7.1!
every time basements are brought up as an "innate childhood experience" i always feel cheated by having grown up in louisiana. we don't have basements here because sea level reasons, alas 😔
heartbreaking. basements are prime spooky locations.
Same! Florida is not made for basements, even if basements are made for nostalgia
Same in California, but due to earthquakes. I always wanted to have a cool basement.
same in philippines. so far, ive never found a home with neither an attic or basement. probably because of floods and typhoons.
We had basements in Pennsylvania, but not after moving to Indiana for some reason, despite the incredible amount of tornado warnings we get here...
I swear there's something in the water here making our house designs go to shit! JUST BUILD A GODDAMN STORM SHELT-
I just want to get lost in a forest, fog so dense i cant see more than 20 feet around me, with it raining. My ideal liminal space right there
absolutely. nailed it. i love going on hikes in the winter when it’s a little icy out- it’s a harder walking experience, but you’re almost guaranteed no one else will be out there. when you’re totally alone, it’s something else.
@@spookymcg😊😊
@@spookymcg😊😊
That’s on some Slenderman shit, like some of the original photoshops
I really want to be in an abandoned play place like chuck e cheese is my ideal, that or a long grass plain that just goes on for eternity, that I can just walk forever with my thoughts.
The grain of the liminal photos remind me of when you just woke up and your vision is blurry. It’s like when I used to fall asleep in the car, and would wake up and try to figure out my surroundings.
I think part of the reason why liminal spaces are so creepy is (not just the nostalgia) but also that it takes away everything safe and comforting about a room. There’s no people there, so we can’t get help or comfort from them, there’s no furniture, so we can’t sit down on a comfy sofa and every single exit is removed, so we can’t escape and doomed to wander these endless spaces for all eternity. And just to add salt to the wound, in the Backrooms, there’s also creepy creatures wandering around, trying to kill you and eat your brains. But again, that’s just part of what makes it so effective as a horror genre.
I’ll die on this hill I think nostalgia plays the biggest factor in liminal spaces. Yes “lack of people 🙄” and “emptiness of the room 🙄”so on and so forth. But I can’t drill this in enough I swear it has to do with 2000s architecture and nostalgia the most. Which , makes them even more interesting to me. Each liminal space photo I see I can almost associate a year with it. Ex: 2004, 2002, 2005, etc. In conclusion - I think we need to start deep diving more into 2000s architecture and the effects it has on your subconscious that make these spaces feel THIS heavy for us.
TY. also dreams. i cant believe people dont mention dreams more often, its so obvious
@@TPNsBiggestFan true. I remember when I was young I had a dream about a place that looked exactly like something you would see in a dream Core Video 🤣 and it’s funny I had known what dreamcore is / existed for like two years until I remembered the dream was similar. It was like a big white interior mall / pool room looking building with play place stuff on the inside
Nostalgia has never felt good to me. It's makes me deeply sad. And I feel like a lot of people also dont interpret nostalgia as a pleasant feeling. I suspect this dissonance has something to do with it
You’re so right. 2000s shit was just different. The inside of 2000s houses had that ‘apartment’ kind of feeling. The fast food restaurants were colorful and inviting and just popped. Now the inside of houses look like they’re trying too hard to look rich and the fast food restaurants looks flat and lifeless like they’re shadows of the past. Just two of many examples.
@@crispykornflakes5990 you are also 100% right. There was so much color before. And home felt like home. Can’t explain it. The newer homes are all trying to look minimalistic and “rich” like you said. Everyone has a “live, laugh, love” sign in the house along with white pillows. Very bland if you ask me
I am a commercial driver which means I'm often out working during hours when everybody else is asleep and most everywhere is closed and empty. I see liminal spaces all the time, and it's comforting to me not horrifying.
I love Liminal Spaces, the eerie feeling familiarity of this place i don't know. I love this kind of terror, not a momentary jump scare, but the growing uneasiness
That's what horror should be about.
It shouldn't boo you with a quick little image and a loud sound, it should make you feel uneasy the whole time you're playing it, like you hear footsteps behind you, but theres nothing.
I think with constant traffic, the over-population of human beings and the fact that you can’t go anywhere without human interaction makes liminal spaces so intriguing and beautiful
I take walks at 1 or 2 in the morning around my old neighborhood and there’s no cars, no humans, just me and the environment. It’s so special and always soothing and like you’re the only existing person
I spent the first 10 years of my life in a suburb of Detroit where a majority of the houses were built in the late 1940s to early 1960s and were of similar design. We moved when I was 10 to the other side of the state where each house was very different. Sometimes, I go on real estate listings to look at houses in my old hometown, and it is such a surreal feeling. I know the tile in those basements. What it feels like. What it sounds like when it cracks. I know those bathrooms and closets.
Amazing! Especially after The Magnus Protocol's last episode, I wanted more liminal space content
Such a crazy coincidence. When I heard the premise of the episode, I was delighted!
You’ve got a gift for putting these impossibly abstract thoughts and feelings into words that somehow completely hit the nail on the head. Glad I found your channel man!
Thank you so much! I love talking about these kinds of things, and it means so much that other people do too!
i have an obsession with video essays about liminal spaces, that fundamentally understand the concept behind them and analyze the feeling they provoke in people. It´s one of my favorite topics of disscussion, but i don´t have anybody to talk to about it. So whenever i encounter these videos i feel understood. There are so many people out there that think endlessly about these random internet niches just like i do, and i love finding them. Thank you for sharing your thoughts:)
Some of the most chilling memories are that of these little spaces. To the point where you don’t know if it’s memories or dreams you had when you were young. For example my grandmother‘s house is a important place for me specially when I was a kid. I have vague memories of sitting on the floor in warm light. Everything is bigger than you. I remember being afraid in a weird way during these times. Like I remember it being around Christmas. So many things you don’t understand. but the scenes are like the memory is like darkened around the edges. Whether that be how your brain processes your surroundings as a child or if it’s weird dreams but you have as a kid. It’s both terrifying and comforting. It’s so hard to explain and get you some manage to do so well. This video is really well-made.
so glad people are still doing long form videos on liminal spaces tbh
This is the video essay I wish I would have thought of, written, and had the energy to make. This is just about my favorite topic regarding liminal spaces; connecting the backrooms to nostalgia is my favorite thing!
Happy to help!
Liminal spaces are so comforting to me because i've always been into abandoned places and most of them just look really comforting
This is great! One of the reasons I love hotels is that if you walk around the endless halls at night, there's this overwhelming liminality like you're separated from your real life.
Most liminal spaces freak me out because of how alone you are in them. Idk im more scared of actually being alone or thinking I am when in not, but both give me a bad feeling.
We fear the things that have made it so different, like when forests normally full of sound go silent after a leopard attacks
I wondered for a while why I never really got drawn into the "empty basement" photo you go in-depth describing-- at least, not the way I'm drawn into a lot of other popular "liminal spaces." Your analysis opened my eyes. I never moved houses as a child, so I never had that unsettling moment of seeing my home fully stripped of what made it *my home*.
I love learning more about why people think and feel the way they do, and I think you really captured the essence of liminal spaces here
Thanks so much! I’ve always wondered about this exact phenomenon, and I’m glad to have gotten a few other comments affirming my ideas!
As a child, I always looked for places to be alone. I would wander into backrooms, empty locker rooms, basements - anywhere empty of life. It was this draw that I can't really explain. I only heard the term liminal space in the past few years and it feels weird to hear other people talk about what I for so long couldn't describe.
The pool rooms are almost comforting in their horror because I've been in so many places like that when I was small, drawn their despite my fear.
In that way, I love this video and it makes me sick.
Very relatable
I do wanna just wake up in some kind of place like that... but knowing that it wont be real... its so sad
Long before I knew what the poolrooms were, back when I was 14 or so, I used to have dreams of watery halls just like that. I’d have it off those family indoor water parks, devoid of people, and so much larger and hazier than I could comprehend, and the isolation compounding every other effect… as of late I’ve pondered the idea of dreams, and how they relate to creativity, and our path ahead.
i work at an indoor swimming pool that teaches swim lessons to kids. during the day, it's a vibrant place, cheery music playing on the dry side while parents sit and watch their kids swim through the glass viewing area, and a very loud but cheerful environment on the other side of the glass/in the pool while the instructors work and the kids swim. i've worked late to clean up after birthday parties on weekends for years now, and the manager often turns the lights out while we wait for our rides home to save electricity. it is SUCH a different environment when the lights are off and the place is empty. when you said "all these places need to close sometime" about the playplaces early on in the vid, it struck a chord in me. because.. yeah. you can create a liminal space in your own workplace if you turn the lights off and make it empty. and it's eerie. the photos/videos of the 'poolrooms' specifically always get to me, considering i work in that kind of environment. wild to think that places we walk around in and work in every day could invoke such bizarre feelings just by turning off the lights and emptying it of people.
overall, very good video about this stuff! absolutely love it. found your channel, love the excellent writing & smart editing style, and will be staying to watch more.
some liminal spaces are kinda unsettling others straight up make my eyes water if i look at them for a few seconds and make me feel immense dread
if anyone remembers some of those old ~2012 era modpacks for minecraft, some of them had at least 5 mods that added tons of empty structures, especially over and near water. there was one structure mod that added tons of things like hot air balloons and pirate ships and huge vacuous cathedral like buildings with no mobs set to spawn on them or anything, they were always empty with maybe some chests in them. It was a landscape filled with basically empty buildings that gave me a feeling that i have not found anywhere else.
When I played minecraft as a kid I would frequently wonder who (in a lore way) would have built the pregenerated areas, the sand temple, and sand well specifically. I remember digging out an entire sand well to see if I was missing something. Good times.
i love liminal spaces. i would really love to go to one somehow
Dude, unironically, you are one of the best video essay channels on the platform. It absolutely blows my mind how well made these are and how many interesting things you have to say on each individual topic without repeating yourself! Keep it up!
i rarely comment on youtube videos, but everything about this struck such a violent cord within me i feel compelled to. this and your modern ruins video have done irreparable damage to my physche, but also have so eerily described exactly the way i feel abt things, things i didnt even know could have words put to them. i have had an animalistic yearning for the liminal pools unlike anything else, so at the very least it makes me glad im not alone. all of the description abt the past and childhood resonated so deeply, its something i personally struggle with and have had many negative spirals over, that things will never be as they were, and how deeply i crave being in that time, but cant.
this got very personal very fast, apologies, but thank you for this. genuinely, deeply, from the bottom of my soul, thank you. youve changed me, at least a little 💘
It's fascinating how different people experience these things differently. I never had any tragedy or suffering in a place like the Poolrooms, but, even as you were talking the fascination and wanting to walk there halls, I was filled will a deepening dread. Just watching the footage was unsettling in a way I can't fully understand, let alone verbalize. It's like the architectural version of the uncanny valley.
you hit it right on the head. architectural version of the uncanny valley. and when i experience the uncanny valley alarm bells and sirens start going off in my head and i have an extremely overwhelming urge to run away. it's so powerful.
One of my first dreams as a child was of walking through a place that reminds me of the set of Dark Shadows. Only there were no people, no animals, no plants, nothing but some nondescript living room furniture. This was sometime between 1963 and 1966. We didn't have computer graphics then.
Come out to the Fox River valley,with its wooded hills, its fens, marshes, lakes, ponds, creeks, and "the places in-between". I would be your guide, if you feel okay with it, after meeting me. I'm a combat veteran, high on the autistic spectrum. I grew up in struggle, learning to survive. When I was 26, I left the dysfunctional family in the rust-belt town, went hitching and hiking,and never really stopped. Nowadays I center about an hour west of Chicago. Did you know Chicago is still on and surrounded by wetlands?
It's hard to explain the feeling liminal spaces create, I think it's similar to nostalgia in the way that it can feel somewhere between happiness and sadness, almost like bittersweet. Really enjoyed the video!
It's very, very rare for me to find a video essay I like. Even rarer that they teach me something. I never understood liminal stuff or people's draw to it. But now, now I kind of do. Thanks.
Happy to help!
I don't find liminal space horrifying or scary unless I'm trapped or something, I just find the idea of exploring an MC Escher painting fascinating.
his voice is so comforting , its like a big brother talking to you when you're younger and playing games together
Sometimes I long to be able to walk around in liminal spaces as well. And not just in a video game, or at least, not with current technology. I want to feel my body move and have the tactile sensations of sun shining and wind blowing, as well as have the time to just wander around. And wanting that makes me feel sad that my childhood is over 😥
I applaud Kane Pixel’s work but I think his series has single handedly done the greatest damage to the backrooms and liminal spaces. He turned the series from genuine unnerving psychological horror into just another generic sci-fi flick.
Enjoy the creepy empty loneliness? Well too bad there’s this noodle monster around every corner now, you also got all your scientist buddies with you so you won’t feel alone.
Stuck forever in endless hallways? Don’t worry now there’s an exit portal thing, just gotta find it or wait for scientists to rescue you.
Feeling unnerved by these spaces that feel so close to reality or familiar to something you might’ve experienced one late night as a child? Well now there’s all these goofy impossible room designs that have no way of invoking real life experiences and just look too fake to be liminal.
That Image of the basement always fucks with me. I know, for a fact, that I've never been there or in any house like it, but I still *feel* like I was there. It represents the perfect amalgamation of all the random places I was brought to as a child; the friend of my grandmother's daughter's house where a birthday party was happening, my mom's coworker's baby shower, my aunt's new house that hosted some sort of family gathering.
Like, I can look at individual components of the room and trace back where I recognize them from, yet looking at the image as a whole, I can still imagine the old lady smell, the scratchy carpet, and the creek of the hand rails as you grip them. Really trippy.
i really dont share the sentiment that the unsettling part of liminal spaces is on their nostalgia factor, but instead, in their uncanyness. Liminal spaces are familiar places made to look alien by robbing them of their context and purpose.
I love liminal spaces like the backrooms and the poolrooms. I find them relaxing and comforting. I think it stems from the empty, relatively clean, and simplistic surroundings. I'm very much a 'tidy desk, tidy mind' kind of person and this extends to the whole of my home. I like clean lines, few objects, and order. Liminal spaces are the ultimate for this. The lack of other people is a bonus.
This comment probably won't get noticed but, i feel like you managed to see what most people dont see when looking at a liminal space picture, or atleast i feel like they dont. Most people are focused on the horror aspect like in the backrooms, but you got it right i always loved it for the feeling it brings and why i want to be there when i see a liminal space. Anyways great job
I noticed it. Thank you! Liminal spaces deserve multiple perspectives
I was about to pass over you while scrolling my recommended but I'm so glad I gave you a try dude. Something about liminal spaces and the Poolrooms especially has always brought me a cold, yet comfortable sensation. Like a longing to wander the infinite tiled halls with redundant geometry and artificial light. Even though I know such a thing is impossible, I still like to play as many games with limimal space themes to try and capture that hostile nostalgia in a bottle. The moment you mentioned Piranesi I was hooked, I gave it a bit of a read and while it's sorta confusing, it's awe inspiring in it's world building. Liked and subscribed man, keep it up!!
P.S you should cover impossibly large spaces at some point, the idea of scale has always fascinated me, that feeling of insignificance in comparison to vast empty spaces.
Solar Sands' "Monumentality" really got me into this kind of theme of liminality and the idea of vastness and scale. Anyways figured I should give a little bit just to show my support and give ya a bit of help in whatever you got goin' on. Taking a bong rip for ya bro, keep up the good work ❤
Thank you so much! Your support means the world to me! Large empty spaces is a great, thanks for the suggestion!
@spookymcg Of course man!! Can't wait to see more videos from you!
Bro really just explained perfectly why i too love liminal stuff in a way i could never, gonna send this vid to everyone that will ask about my interests now 😭
I appreciate that!
Ever since I was little I’ve always felt like I was tapping into a place outside of here. When I see certain images, hear certain sounds, smell certain smells, etc. it takes me to “that place”. I’m almost convinced certain things from my childhood and a few things in recent years I was at that place. I think that place is our own internal worlds. The same place we go when we dream. When you have an experience that feels like you’re there, it’s your external frequencies matching your internal frequencies. I also believe the collective unconscious has something to do with it as well. Maybe even past lives. Shit goes deep man. This reality is very strange.
You might like the myhouse mod for Doom 2
Its one of the best Doom mods and also a good house of leaves reference but also filled with liminal spaces
I think we've all visited the pool rooms at least once in our dreams.
Only now that I'm watching this video did I recall dreaming of the expansive empty pool and, while I played there as one would expect, I still felt unease just knowing that there was no one else around.
For the many of us who find these images comforting instead of scary, I think the lack of people doesn't make the picture unsettling but instead just makes it very slightly uncanny and allows you to immerse yourself in the picture and imagine you're there. The imagery usually invokes some sense of nostalgic fondness and that's where the comfort of being 'alone' there comes from.
I'm also just gonna throw out there that, to the many of us who come from less than wealthy backgrounds, the dim lighting and empty vacant atmosphere actually just adds to the nostalgia...
I love liminal spaces and this is a great video. I never even thought of the home = comfort aspect of these images, and it's really eye opening to consider that, given what kind of feelings these spaces evoke
You are very quickly becoming my favorite youtuber. Your essays like crack for my AuDHD hyperfixations
Liminal spaces have so much allure to me. Since seeing how things are nowadays, I'm so grateful I was born in '89. It was such a great time to be a kid. The world seemed to have so many creative outlets & forms of expression. Ways that kids, teens and adults could enjoy themselves. Places to go, things to do, unique style and design. I really miss the Vibe of that Era where it treated us all like it respected our intelligence, time & experience. While also providing aspects with in our society that help keep our inner kid in us alive. It felt like everything acknowledged how important YOU were as a citizen, customer, fan, person because without us they would be nothing. The creativity that came from that era really put effort into it's ingenuity, not this bland minimalism we see today. I really hope we find a way to reconnect with it because the world really needs it right now. Look how soulless so much has become nowadays? Look at the horrible aesthetics, poor quality & creative design in modern cities, or even in shows, movies, & video games. Things have become so bland, bleek, and minimalistic to the point that it doesn't even make since. Most Old house's/building's/uúnique shop's are gone. Interesting oddities like drive in movies, indoor fun zones, arcade's, magazines that came with a demo disc to try out game's, blockbuster/Hollywood video, McDonald's had N64's & crazy fun zones & art designs all over, you could preview music before buying it, they had great kid's toy's, Roller Rink's, Garbage pale kid's card's. You get the point. Bring back Retro-Futurism or Y2K Vibes. ANYTHING compared to this current Dystopian toxic positivity. Our society feels more lost then it ever has. Society is solely focused on out of control capitalistic agendas. That anything that isn't constantly increasing profits is a failure and has no value to society? Our Quality of Life should be better than this. Basic living shouldn't be this unaffordable. People should be able to have fun, dork around, have things that engage them. The list goes on. Bring me back to the 90's.
I was just talking to my friend about this as we were driving through the country at night - we drove past a turnoff that lead to a small clearing illuminated by a single street lamp in the otherwise pitch darkness. Most people would find it creepy but to me locations like that are absolutely beautiful for reasons I can't explain
My favourite liminal spaces are empty hotel hallways. As a kid me and my parents travelled a lot by car, so we stayed in roadside hotels a lot... To this day, I still love the silence in those hallways, just soft carpet and maybe gentle music.
The concept of repeating mental visitations to a "personal fantasy area" is one that I don't see talked often enough about, and it's cool to see here! I often visit an outdoor waterfall/springs area surrounded in grass and trees, and that feeling of never being able to actually go there, but simultaneously knowing that it's somewhere you can go pretty consistently in the right moments mentally is... a wild feeling lol. Definitely something that could be connected to a wide variety of personal liminal space favorites for people!
It’s incredible to find people who feel this way too.
I've watched like every video essay on liminal spaces n this is the first one to actually perfectly encapsulate the way they make me feel
Genuinely, I am also on the side of enjoying the strange calm and maybe even melancholia/nostalgia of liminal spaces. You and Supereyepathwolf are the only ones so far focusing on the original exploration of these. The dream pools to me give me a sense of yearning. I loved big public pools as a kid and this place would have been literal heaven. The echo, the smaller pools, the floaties. Except loud screams in areas like that would always make it hard for me and hurt my senses. So the dream of having one all to yourself seems tempting, but again, it is almost sad. There is a sense of loss, a place that should be filled with life but isn't.
Idk, just my brain jumble. This video brought those ideas back 😅
Indoor hotel pools give the same concept of pool liminal space. They're eerie
Thank for this video. You actually brought me to tears. I sat in my chair after this video and thought about all the fun times I had as a child.
love this video. perfectly encapsulates how harmful or beautiful liminal spaces can be! i feel such a sense of peace and fondness, but also longing for the past and dread, realizing i can truly never go back and feel that way again. it’s a heartwarming and heart wrenching thing.
Reminds me of: *Liminal Spaces (Exploring an Altered Reality)* video
12:28 Back in Beta 1.7.3 it was much darker in those beta nights and it were very eerie and uncanny times at same time!
I worked at a movie theater for 10 years and would often both open and close the theater. Doing the checks at the end of the night was absurdly sureal especially on major box office nights when a few hours before there would be literal 1000s of people. I never had the words to describe weird dichtomy of unease and comfort i could feel at the end of the night round 3am as the last theater completely emptied and it was me and one other person locking up and leaving the building. I now have a longing for that feeling, but have no desire to clean up after people on a busy night lol.
“I think most people started playing Minecraft when they were a kid”
…Minecraft came out when me and most people I knew were in college. This always feels so weird to hear.
Enjoying this video-I love the aesthetic of this kind of stuff.
I would unironically love to swim in an indoor pool styled after these bizarre, CGI liminal pools. Honestly, they look cozy as all hell, as ever since I was a kid, I found surrealist environments to be oddly comforting.
I remember learning about liminal spaces in one of my university classes. it was very interesting. we looked at physical spaces, but also parts of life and what those represent. these are usually transitional spaces or times, such as staircases or hallways (connecting different parts of the home but aren't usually destinations themselves) and adolescence (going from childhood to adulthood). while the creepy horror aspect the internet has run with is fun, it's nice to hear about other aspects of liminal spaces that get overlooked.
Thank you YT gods, for showing this video on my feed. I put it on in the background while working but i became totally absorbed. You somehow effortlessly put into words how nostalgia really hits home through liminal space. The minecraft section, in particular, made me feel that mix of happiness experienced as a kid, followed by a heavy sadness that i am old and cynical now lol. Fascinating video, really amazing work.
Liminal spaces are a comfort. They're a lonely, saddening comfort. A chance to go back and re-experience childhood, the ability to reconnect to a feeling, an emotion, that has eroded with age. Liminal spaces are the bitter reminder of a happier time.
I've long had a fascination with American road movies, where the concept of liminality is a common theme... A highway being a kind of liminal space in itself.
The imagery of these movies is often dominated by shabby motels, lonely gas stations, billboards and decaying, long abandoned tourist attractions... For some reason I always get this uncanny feeling of nostalgia from these images, but it's physically impossible for me to have ever been near any of them, having never even left the British Isles in my life.
The only thing I can think of is that these places are bringing back memories of days in old seaside towns I visited as a kid. Seeing old fairgrounds and roller coasters slowly rusting away. The way the evening sunlight gives everything a surreal glow.
It's a strange, uncanny feeling, but I'm absolutely captivated by it, and have been for all my adult life. Though its only in the past few months I've had a name for it.
Love how this small community still keeps on keeping on. It’s one of those things that when you catch it, you nvr let go
I live in a swamp. Basements are a myth. As an aside, I've never seen a liminal space that really did it for me. They're often neat spaces, but I've never felt nostalgic looking at them.
I live in a swamp. I put up signs. I’m a terrifying ogre! What do I have to do to get a little PRIVACY?!
It's so nice to be able to find a video that perfectly encapsulates how I feel about one of my strongest interests. I feel like liminal spaces have become even more appealing to me as I've just turned 18 and have left my childhood phase that I've become so strongly attached to. Liminal spaces really help me just escape the stresses and responsibilities of adulthood even if just for a short period, as they evoke within me a childlike urge to explore the unfamiliar space around me, despite not physically being in the liminal space myself. The way you compared this feeling to Minecraft was spot on since I felt the same way when exploring new biomes and uncharted territory. I also feel the Source engine (as seen in Half-Life 2 and Garry's Mod) evokes this unfamiliar yet nostalgic feeling as well, and there have been many popular videos discussing how Source presents liminality effectively too.
Beautifully presented video Connor, it really resonated with me. I hope you continue to produce high quality work like this in the future.
I worked at a theme park many years ago. I remember the eerie feeling when I finished the last shift and walked with my coworkers through the park at night, when all the rides were closed and the lights were being switched off. If i then turned my head all saw was a lonely place which looked completely sad and longing for the presence of people. Now I know about liminal spaces and kenopsia and can finally name what I felt so many years ago.
If i was a multimillionair i would pay to have all my favorite liminal spaces built on a massive open space property and anyone who loves liminal spaces as mich as i do are welcome to come explore !
That sounds amazing. Count me in
I love your essays, they are incredibly unique and always bring something new to the themes you talk about
I saw this video on my home page one week after it came out. I added it to my watch later because I knew it was something I wanted to be in the right head space for. I was right. The concept of the liminal space is something that has suddenly become so appealing to me in the past 2 or so years, but I feel like that desire or fear of the liminal was always there, just not understood. I'm starting to do more research on the topic for myself- why it is I feel this call; and this video was a beautiful introduction into actual deep-dives, rather than focusing on the analog horror and its "ooooooh spooooky"ness.
You do a great job of utilizing secondary media, and I feel like the minecraft section was incredibly apt- in fact- it made me realize that the "datedness" of these real inspirations of liminal spaces when tied to nostalgia in and of themselves are liminal, because in the grand scheme of things, where we are this decade is just a swift transition to the next decade or so when everything will feel entirely different. Life is a constant stage of transition, and I think that's why I love liminal spaces like the poolrooms so much, because they crystallize these ideas into an explorable space that isn't going anywhere- that is forced to be literally "present". Like you say, nostalgia is a mixed bag, and I'm thankful for this video essay.
It's sad, I know I have watched this video several times, but my memory only somewhat kicks in when watching this.
There is this impending feeling of dread and nostalgia every time I watch, which I feel and know, but it is unsettlingly familiar, as I cannot remember.
In some capacity, this makes me reflect on my wasted time. I want to do more with the time I have, but I am limited by the memories and expectation of the previous, liminal, expectations. the giant basements of wealthy family members, the relaxing basement of my ever-busy parents.
Backrooms/liminal examination videos always hit hard.
10:07 The basement was always a refuge, even if home wasn't always comforting.
Hell, its already in my playlist I reserve for special-feeling videos, I just can't remember
I thought the platform was saturated with Liminal Space-esque content, but you provided a bunch of new interesting ideas and angles in this piece. Most of the time, people reduce the art to the same vague and abstract talking points (sometimes copied straight from an aesthetics wiki), but you added value to the discussion with your own perspective and tied it together nicely imo. Much luv
Liminal spaces have always given me immense comfort and the way you describe your own emotions related to them hits very close. id love to hear you talk more about the topic, be it focused on a game or real life
For me the perfect representation of liminal spaces in gaming is Super Mario 64. Running through an empty castle that should be filled with people was so eerie yet so peaceful at the same time.
I am almost always anxious in Minecraft. Being alone has never been that scary. It's like being in the middle of the ocean and no one is able to reach you if something goes wrong to you
I...will admit, I mostly clicked because Herobrine was in the thumbnail for some reason and I could NOT be more baffled to see his face attached to a video about liminal spaces
Edit: Okay, I understand why Minecraft is in this video now.
5 seconds in and i already know im gonna love every minute of this video 😭
I think i just miss being a child, they way things were so simpler, that the most simplest thing id be in awe. That these little things were memories weve forgotten and hidden, its like seeing the past weve forgot, and we miss it...
The Piranesi audiobook is amazing and definitely gives me the same vibes, I want so many more books like it or a game like Dreamcore to allow you to explore the House endlessly.
You should try The Complex. Is walking sim set in the backrooms, Dreamcore reminds me of that game a lot
We all have that deep yearning for adventure in our hearts and minds and liminal spaces are like a new frontier.
Thanks for making this, I have been trying to find any content with liminal spaces in it and I find it sad that the whole liminal trend has kinda died out.
I dream of the pool rooms, and other liminal spaces like empty office buildings with no windows and vacant cubicles that go on forever. I’ve dreamt of these spaces for years and it wasn’t until recently that I discovered the pool room game or other liminal games or images like this. There are never monsters or even other people in my dreams. It’s just me, trying to escape the building. Walking through a door marked “exit” only to end up in a similar, windowless empty room. Because of this what I feel when I encounter these photos is far from nostalgia, and I don’t feel a desire to actually be there. All I feel is terror, and the urge to run.
I feel like you took every thought I've ever had on nostalgia and liminal spaces and put it into a video. 😮
Kane Pixels, “The oldest view” also hits that same itch I have for exploring my nostalgia. Malls are starting to fade out more and more with the mall shown already being one that was destroyed. Something about showing an area that was real, that once had people being left in the dust is just so unsettling.
Totally understand the feeling- Oldest view was super interesting! I def had to watch the Caleb Finn video to understand what I was looking at tho…
Great encapsulation of my thoughts surrounding the this feeling. "Longing" is a great way to put it. Def checking out the those books you mentioned!
This was really good. I, too, yearn for the backrooms and pool rooms
im a literature undergrad seeking to continue onto postgrad, something I find interesting about liminal spaces (and something I intend to write on later in my career) is that these spaces represent something akin to a "rogue liminality." That a lot of these spaces are typically 'liminal' spaces in that they are transitory spaces but what strikes me about these place is how they have been removed from their ability to transition. The hallway, the poolrooms, the childhood home, the apartments: they go on forever threatening to trap us. It's like they're rebelling against their specific purpose to act as transitory spaces by allowing no one to leave them. This doesn't have to discomforting of course, an endless has its beauty. Anyway this is just my perspective and intended to be in no way A Wholistic Reifying Explanation. Cool Vid!
How do you not have like, a million subs by now. This is immensely professional work. Genuinely impressed. The detail, the flow, the appeal to emotion in such a way that it provokes and activates the exact response you're describing. It all works splendidly together! The hopeful and honest telling of your own experiences separates this from being just a detached work, and really elevates it! I especially respect your earnest admittance to your feelings regarding these places and the 'Call of the Void' phenomenon. I sincerely look forward to seeing your thoughts on what else you find that interests you!
what a lovely comment. thank you so much, this means more than you know