Liminal Spaces And Why Gen Z (and myself) Is Obsessed With Them

Even before the huge popularity of the movie "Backrooms" - an idea that originally appeared on the internet as just a picture of an empty furniture store in Oshkosh, WI - there was an immense interest in the idea of "liminal spaces."

What is a liminal space?

There are two categories of liminal spaces from what I've noticed.

One is an actual physical space. It's a bridge that goes from one barren place to another barren place. It's an empty parking lot or hallway. It's essentially a space between two paces where it's neither one nor the other. An empty mall is a liminal space because it hasn't been torn down, so the mall still exists; yet it's not a mall because the stores have long moved out and the mall itself hasn't been used in years. There is a mall on one of my mail routes like this. You can't go in anymore; but several years ago I would take my lunch inside and eat on a cushioned bench where a light shone through an above window.There was music playing throughout the mall still. The only people in there was usually me and some elderly mall walkers who were getting their steps in. When I went to the restroom in the mall, it was obvious that I was the first one in there in quite awhile. It was a little creepy, especially when I was alone, but it was kind of cool as well. I became drawn to the mall and became interested in actual physical liminal spaces.

Here's a picture I took inside the mall on March 26, 2019 (I knew I still had a picture of it on my phone haha).

I'm not the only one interested in liminal spaces. Gen Z is obsessed with them. In fact, the director of Backrooms is part of that generation. He started production on the movie when he was only nineteen years old. He also has a bunch of YouTube videos about the Backrooms, and there's another series he did called The Oldest View (which I find creepier actually), and some of that footage I swear could have been filmed at the mall I used to take my lunch to.

Why is Gen Z drawn to physical liminal spaces? Here are some reasons:

• Pandemic Trauma. The formative years of many young people were disrupted by 2020 lockdowns. My own daughter did not get to experience her own high school graduation. Experiencing normal bustling spaces - like schools, offices, and malls - completely empty created a collective psychological imprint that is visually mirrored in liminal photography. I have said over and over again that at some point, both individually and collectively, most of us are going to have a difficult time processing what actually took place during the Covid year, once our brain catches up with our body dealing with the shock of what took place. Interest in liminal spaces, I think, is just another way to process all the changes we've experienced in our lives.
• Disappearing "Third Places". As physical gathering places for youth have disappeared due to the rise of digital socialization and retail closures, the nostalgia for these abandoned, often retro environments (like 1990s shopping malls) has intensified. (A third place is a gathering place different than one's work and home environments)
• Algorithmic Escapism. In an era where online life feels highly controlled by rigid algorithms, liminal spaces represent an off-putting but liberating detachment. There's a sense of freedom, or randomness that is appealing to younger people, and some old people like me.
• Anemoia. This is such a fascinating word and concept. It refers to a feeling of nostalgia for a time period during which you weren't alive, or a past you never actually lived. This most definitely applies to me, because I've become fascinated with the real Victorian time period of history, and also the fictional steampunk universe that comes from the Victorian era. (More about that in future posts)

However, as I mentioned above, there are two categories of liminal spaces. One is the physical version. The other? The psychological version.

As Kim Egel puts it:

"It is that in-between zone where you're no longer who or where you were, but not yet who or where you're becoming. It's an empty stretch full of uncertainty and the unknown, which makes it deeply uncomfortable - and, not to mention, easy to want to avoid.

Walking through liminal space can feel like moving through a pitch-dark room. You can't see what's ahead, and you're not quite sure where you are - often leaving you hesitant, and searching for something solid to land on."

A psychological liminal space is a threshold space. It's a transition. It's a pause. It's a space that appears usually with big changes. Leaving a career. A failed relationship. Outgrowing your identity. A shift in your worldview. It can be a hard place to be. It can be tough moving out of it. You can be there for a short time, or you can be there for a decade.

My advice if you're in one? Don't worry about where you are. Don't fret about being "stuck." As Mike Yaconelli, one of my heroes when I was a Christian and a minister said,

"Getting stuck can be the best thing that could happen to us, because it forces us to stop. It halts the momentum of our lives. We have no choice but to notice what is around us, and we end up searching..."

Well, he says we end up searching for Jesus.

Which in my book, is perfectly fine if you're a Christian. Please search for the actual Jesus though, mmmmkay? Like, actually take his teachings to heart? Notice his compassion for the poor, for the needy? Don't conclude that what Jesus is about is some dumb libtard woke agenda, ok? /rant

But to those of us outside of faith, it does lead us to searching for something. To examine ourselves. To perhaps wake up from the stupor of doing the same thing over and over and over again, for years. To perhaps begin to being open to a new way of thinking, a new way of behaving, a new way of living.

Liminal spaces can be frightening, both physical and psychological versions. But all the young kids are doing it, so if you're there, embrace the uncertainty. Challenge your presuppositions, those preconceived notions of yourself and the world around you.

Embrace the void. It will be ok.