The “Chronically Online” Are Having Their Moment Thanks to ‘Backrooms’

For years, YouTube has been a fertile ground for aspiring filmmakers, a place where they could demonstrate their skills outside traditional norms. While it has often been seen as unorthodox, this methodology is beginning to bear fruit. Recent films like Backrooms, Obsession, and Iron Lung have proven to be some of 2026’s biggest successes, and YouTubers like Kane Parsons, Curry Barker, and Markiplier are to thank. Backrooms has become A24’s highest grossing movie ever, and Obsession is on track to become one of the most profitable films in recent years, earning over $200,000 on a $750,000 budget. However, it is the success of Backrooms that we’ve seen not just the director be the reason why, but the YouTube community itself.

It became so successful that Parsons found himself approached to make a movie, and not just any movie, but one starring lauded actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. At just 20 years old, A24 allowed Parsons to make the movie, a move that is slowly becoming the industry’s newest trend. One thing was clear: the people who had been shunned as “chronically online” and are considered the weirdos of the internet are getting their movie moment.

‘Backrooms’ Originated on YouTube

In 2019, an anonymous 4chan user posted a reply to a thread, unknowingly giving birth to one of the internet’s most unexpected phenomena: The Backrooms. Accompanied by a photo of an empty series of rooms, the post reads:

“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’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. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.”

Soon after, YouTuber Kane Parsons posted a video titled The Backrooms that has since become known for its originality, tension, and sheer terror. Using a found footage style of film-making, it is ten minutes long and shows the user wandering the halls of an endless maze in The Backrooms. Relying on making the user increasingly uncomfortable, rather than monsters and jump scares (though there are a few here), it made the viewer feel as if this is somewhere they could find themselves — given how seemingly normal the location is.

Kane Parsons and ‘Backrooms’ Represent a Larger Trend

For years, being referred to as “chronically online” was often seen as an insult. These were the people who were deeply immersed in internet culture, memes, niche fandoms, and digital lore that made little sense to, well, almost anyone. However, as social media forces the internet to continue its evolution, movies such as Backrooms, with their unique source material, and the creators behind them are beginning to emerge from behind the curtain. Parsons, Obsession‘s Curry Barker and Iron Lung‘s Markiplier, came from the internet, getting their starts as YouTubers who successfully took their talents to the big screen.

Hollywood’s embrace of projects like Backrooms and Obsession suggests that the industry is recognizing that the traditional methods of measuring success are beginning to fade away. The internet is no longer a secondary venue for creativity; it has become a place where people write, voice, and film their ideas and publish them instantly, without studio interference. While this ability has been available for a while, it was long derided by those in the industry. As these films continue their push to generate massive returns for studios (with Obsession earning over 140x its budget), it is only natural that the next generation of filmmakers will emerge from the internet.

The Transition From Internet Storytelling to Successful Hollywood Movies Won’t Always Be Seamless

Image via A24

As with all things new, it will take time for the movie-going audience as a whole to understand this phenomenon. The success of Backrooms and Obsession has been a major boon for the horror genre, which too often churns out the same type of film every year. Original ideas in the genre are hard to come by, but the internet and those creating stories on it provide a wellspring of new ideas. Many of the qualities that make Backrooms successful are the ambiguity, collaboration, and fragmentation of ideas that lead to a successful final product. While that sounds like a traditional writers’ room, it’s anything but. In this case, the audience isn’t watching and waiting for the next chapter of the story; they are creating it. This type of methodology can be extremely difficult to translate to film, where screenplays are created by a small group of people or just one person.

It also risks making this the standard, not the successful exception. Now that Backrooms has helped these online creators become super successful, what is stopping the major studios from trying to emulate it without input from those who invented it? The challenge then becomes how to preserve the integrity of what makes them special, without fabricating it. With the speed at which internet culture and those “chronically online” move, the next idea has likely already been made, with The Backrooms becoming old-fashioned. Generations consume content on the internet in wildly different ways, though it remains to be seen how the movie industry deals with challenges like this and makes them palatable for everyone.

Many of those seen as being “chronically online” approach this new trend with trepidation. While their ideas are finally being seen by mass audiences, the chances of those ideas being distorted become greater. It is their moment of arrival in pop culture, and one they are not shying away from. Parsons and Barker already have plans for future projects, and it’s clear Hollywood is eager to work with people like them.

Release Date

May 27, 2026

Runtime

110 minutes

Director

Kane Parsons