Into the World of Analog Horror

Into the World of Analog Horror

If you're an internet user in the confusing year of 2022, you may be familiar with the image above. The view of a dimly lit set of rooms and corridors accompanied by yellow wallpaper and carpet always present no matter where you look. "The Backrooms" is what this picture is known as. Being an internet urban legend, the picture has been recreated numerous times by many different people. One recreation in particular, however, managed to raise the popularity of "The Backrooms" far beyond every other iteration of it. Kane Pixels, a VFX artist, brings the world to life as an analog horror series. This is a series in which the first episode alone has reached 61 million views at the time of writing. And the crazy thing is, it is just one of many in the wave of analog horror series that will captivate YouTube audiences. It is a horror genre that has started discussions, theories, and even other videos talking about it. But before we delve deeper into it, let's first define what an "analog horror" is.

As mentioned in the previous posts, analog horror is a subgenre of internet horror that plays with the aesthetic of outdated technology such as VHS tapes, CRT television broadcasts, and emergency alert systems from the late 20th centuries. In trying to mimic said aesthetic, the videos often use grainy visuals and distorted audio. This results in making the viewers feel as if they stumbled upon something they are not supposed to see, a relic from the past that should be left alone. This format thrives on ambiguity, prompting the audience to theorize and discuss each videos that are uploaded. Dissecting each frame of the video to find a secret message or important information.

There are typically, but not limited two ways to tell the story through this format. The first one is through simulating found footage. Be it a footage from a group of people going on a road trip that ends with a tragedy, a footage of a CCTV, or a formal recording of an expedition area made by a corporate entity. The second most popular way is to simulate public service announcements, informing the masses about a calamity or a group of creature's invasion. Amazing stories has been made through these methods, amassing a large following of dedicated fanbase who discusses and theorizes about the subject.

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The Oldest View and the Revival of a Forgotten Relic

We’ve discussed Kane Pixels previous work in my previous blog entry, and we already established how good of an analog horror creator he is, especially when it comes to the theme of liminal space. Despite that, I still feel the need to discuss his latest series uploaded onto YouTube, titled The Oldest View . The topic of discussion surrounding this series extends beyond the video itself, involving real historical people within it, The premise of The Oldest View begins with Wyatt, a college YouTuber, who stumbles upon an old stairwell while hiking in the woods. This seemingly innocent find leads him to an abandoned shopping mall buried nearly a mile underground. But the mall isn’t empty, something, or rather someone , is lurking. A terrifying, rolling monster made of papier-mâché begins stalking Wyatt, offering a chilling glimpse into a world where reality twists into something unrecognizable. The majority of the story follows Wyatt running away from a creepy statue the vie...

Paranoia.com, and The Value of Mystery

Despite the fact that most of the series I talk about in this blogspot in the form of analog horror, we’ve established that Internet horror comes in many shapes and sizes. The internet is surely a strange and unexpected place, home to many unexplained phenomena, may it be intentionally made, or born out of some happenchance. One of the more intriguing digital mysteries of the late '90s and early 2000s is the mystery surrounding paranoia.com . This particular internet domain, owned by Disney, has confused and baffled people of the internet as well as curious minds for years, and thanks to a deep dive by YouTuber Nexpo, we finally have an answer to a riddle that’s been lurking in the corners of the web. Follow me in this journey of exploration through forgotten pieces of television history, corporate acquisitions with an abandoned game show. In order for us to understand the full scope of the mystery, let us take a trip back to the late 1990s. Paranoia.com initially appeare...

Mandela Catalogue and the Fear of the Unknown

In the previous blog, we have discussed the genre of analog horror. In this one, we will be exploring one of the most successful analog horror series in recent years titled Mandela Catalogue . It is an analog horror YouTube series that is created and uploaded to a channel named Alex Kister. The story is set in an alternate version of the United States where strange events occur across the town of Mandela County. We are soon introduced to creatures named “Alternates,” which are described as shapeshifting entities capable of mimicking human beings. They also possess the power to expose human beings to ‘undesirable’ information, which causes anyone who hears it to end their own lives. The story is delivered through a series of emergency broadcasts, found footage, CCTV footage, and audio recordings in a scattered manner, prompting the audience to piece together the narrative themselves. Mandela Catalogue m...

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