Every Generation Gets the Monsters It Deserves

The monsters that haunt a society reveal more than its fears. They reveal what that society believes about the world. Victorian readers embraced Dracula during an age of imperial expansion and social upheaval. Cold War audiences filled theaters for stories about atomic horrors and nuclear annihilation.

Every era eventually creates myths that reflect its deepest anxieties.

Generation Z is no different. According to recent reporting in The Wall Street Journal, the explosive popularity of the Backrooms and other forms of Gen Z horror has attracted growing attention from Hollywood and cultural commentators. Many observers focus on the aesthetic elements; the endless yellow hallways and empty office buildings.

Granted, that imagery is memorable.

But the symbolism underlying the visuals is far more interesting.

At first glance, the Backrooms seem absurdly mundane. Previous generations feared haunted castles, ancient tombs, cursed forests, and abandoned asylums. Gen Z fears fluorescent lighting and office carpeting.

Their anxiety sounds ridiculous until one asks a simple question: “What exactly is a liminal space?”

The answer is, a place designed to take people somewhere else. An airport terminal, a hotel hallway, and a shopping mall corridor: None of these locations are destinations. They are the places between places that exist only to transition their temporary occupants elsewhere.

Now, imagine that the transition never ends.

Read the full post on Substack.

Debt Reckoning is now fully funded on Kickstarter. Stretch Goal 1 is funding now, so if you’d like to support the project and help make the book even better, you can check out the campaign here.