Why are we obsessed with exploring places that aren't actually there?
in Speculative Fiction (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror) ·
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately falling down these weird rabbit holes online, and I’ve noticed a pattern that I can't quite shake. It’s not just about watching scary movies or playing horror games anymore. There’s this growing trend where people aren't just consuming a story; they’re essentially trying to "live" in it. They are building these massive, intricate, hyper-detailed mythologies around empty spaces, liminal corridors, and impossible architecture, and then treating those digital voids like actual destinations.
It’s fascinating, and honestly, a little bit unsettling. We’ve reached a point in digital culture where the line between "watching a story" and "visiting a concept" has completely blurred. It’s like we’ve developed this collective urge to go sightseeing in the gaps of reality. We find these images of places that feel familiar yet deeply wrong—places you feel like you’ve walked through in a dream or a half-remembered childhood memory—and instead of just feeling a chill and scrolling past, we decide to colonize them. We map them out, we write survival guides for them, and we treat the emptiness like it's a physical territory waiting to be claimed.
I remember back in the day, if you liked a certain horror trope or a creepy urban legend, you just talked about it. You read a creepypasta, you felt the dread, and you moved on with your life. There was a distance between you and the nightmare. But now? The community involvement is so intense that the "void" becomes a shared social space. It’s a form of digital tourism where the destination is nothingness, or worse, an unsettling sense of isolation that we all collectively agree to inhabit.
I think there's something deeply psychological at play here. Why are we so drawn to the "liminal"? Why does the idea of an endless, repetitive, non-euclidean space feel more "real" to a certain generation than actual physical geography? Maybe it’s a reaction to how hyper-saturated and documented our real world has become. Everything in the real world has been photographed, tagged, and reviewed. There is no mystery left in a Starbucks or a local park. But in these manufactured, impossible digital landscapes, there is a sense of infinite, unexplored potential. There is a sense of being truly alone, yet being part of a crowd that is all looking at the same nothingness.
It feels like a new way of experiencing awe. It’s not the awe of a mountain range or a cathedral, but a hollow, existential kind of awe. It’s the feeling of realizing that the world is much larger, weirder, and more nonsensical than the logic we use to navigate our daily lives. We are essentially building our own ghosts to haunt, just so we have something to navigate in a world that feels increasingly predictable.
I wonder if this is a precursor to something else. As virtual reality and more immersive tech continue to evolve, are we going to start treating these "unreal" spaces as legitimate escapes? If a digital space can evoke the same visceral, emotional response as a physical location—even if that response is pure, unadulterated unease—does the "reality" of the space even matter anymore? We are becoming architects of our own nightmares, and then booking tickets to visit them.
Does anyone else feel this pull toward these "empty" digital worlds? Is it a way to process loneliness, or are we just bored with a world that has become too mapped out and too safe?
It’s fascinating, and honestly, a little bit unsettling. We’ve reached a point in digital culture where the line between "watching a story" and "visiting a concept" has completely blurred. It’s like we’ve developed this collective urge to go sightseeing in the gaps of reality. We find these images of places that feel familiar yet deeply wrong—places you feel like you’ve walked through in a dream or a half-remembered childhood memory—and instead of just feeling a chill and scrolling past, we decide to colonize them. We map them out, we write survival guides for them, and we treat the emptiness like it's a physical territory waiting to be claimed.
I remember back in the day, if you liked a certain horror trope or a creepy urban legend, you just talked about it. You read a creepypasta, you felt the dread, and you moved on with your life. There was a distance between you and the nightmare. But now? The community involvement is so intense that the "void" becomes a shared social space. It’s a form of digital tourism where the destination is nothingness, or worse, an unsettling sense of isolation that we all collectively agree to inhabit.
I think there's something deeply psychological at play here. Why are we so drawn to the "liminal"? Why does the idea of an endless, repetitive, non-euclidean space feel more "real" to a certain generation than actual physical geography? Maybe it’s a reaction to how hyper-saturated and documented our real world has become. Everything in the real world has been photographed, tagged, and reviewed. There is no mystery left in a Starbucks or a local park. But in these manufactured, impossible digital landscapes, there is a sense of infinite, unexplored potential. There is a sense of being truly alone, yet being part of a crowd that is all looking at the same nothingness.
It feels like a new way of experiencing awe. It’s not the awe of a mountain range or a cathedral, but a hollow, existential kind of awe. It’s the feeling of realizing that the world is much larger, weirder, and more nonsensical than the logic we use to navigate our daily lives. We are essentially building our own ghosts to haunt, just so we have something to navigate in a world that feels increasingly predictable.
I wonder if this is a precursor to something else. As virtual reality and more immersive tech continue to evolve, are we going to start treating these "unreal" spaces as legitimate escapes? If a digital space can evoke the same visceral, emotional response as a physical location—even if that response is pure, unadulterated unease—does the "reality" of the space even matter anymore? We are becoming architects of our own nightmares, and then booking tickets to visit them.
Does anyone else feel this pull toward these "empty" digital worlds? Is it a way to process loneliness, or are we just bored with a world that has become too mapped out and too safe?