At the time, the image was simply documentation of an empty commercial interior, but years later it would become one of the internet’s most iconic photographs. In 2019, the image was reposted online alongside a short piece of horror text describing a surreal alternate reality called “The Backrooms,” an endless labyrinth of empty yellow rooms that people could accidentally slip into from reality itself. The unsettling atmosphere of the photo, with its fluorescent lighting, stained carpet, irregular walls, and complete absence of people, perfectly captured the feeling of a “liminal space,” a place designed for human activity that suddenly feels abandoned and uncanny. The concept of liminality was first developed by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in Les Rites de Passage. He argued that major life transitions follow three stages: separation, the liminal phase, and reassimilation. For example, after graduating high school but before fully entering college or adult life, a person exists in an uncertain “in between” state where they no longer belong to their old identity but have not yet entered a new one. The concept was later expanded by anthropologist Victor Turner in the 1960s, who described liminality as a state of ambiguity where people exist outside normal social structures during periods of transition. Over time, the idea evolved beyond anthropology and is now often used to describe eerie “liminal spaces” like empty malls, abandoned offices, and vacant hallways that feel strangely familiar yet unsettling.