Secret Third Thing

In 2022, YouTuber Kane Parsons uploaded a video to the internet titled “The Backrooms (Found Footage).” This was not the first time that the internet had been exposed to the “liminality” as a form of horror, but it was the first time that it went viral. With people trapped in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, interest in this internet niche space skyrocketed. Now, four years later, then-twenty-year-old Kane Parsons took his idea of the backrooms and released it as a feature film with prestige production company A24. It has proven to be one of the most financially successful films of the year and maybe the year’s most thematically interesting film.Liminality, however, is much bigger than horror or Backrooms and its surrounding lore. We now have stuff like poolrooms, dreamcore, wierdcore, nostalgiacore, the return in popularity of aesthetics like Frutiger Aero, the mall as a place of horror, people on Instagram doing expeditions to “the most liminal places,” nostalgic 90s PC gaming horror. The list goes on and on.But why is this stuff considered scary, and why has it become an internet phenomenon at all? What are its precursors, and what does the popularity of this stuff say about art and the world we live in? Here to help us answer these questions is Gio Pennacchietti. Gio is an artist and an author, and has gained popularity online as one of the sharpest minds thinking about art in the modern world.Further reading:Gio's SubstackGio's artGio's X accountHouse of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski"the aesthetics of the End," by MythoAmerica

Further reading:Maegan's X account."Lara Trump and Katie Miller Cite Junk Poll About Gen-Z Tradwives," by Meagan O’Rourke (Reason)NYU Professor Ruby Thelot

Further reading:"Your Phone Isn’t a Drug. It’s a Portal to the Otherworld," by Katherine Dee (New York Times)"The Kirkification of Our Troubled Times," by Brady Brickner-Wood (New Yorker)

Further reading:What Happened at Vatican II by John W. O'MalleyWork in Progress: Confessions of a busboy, dishwasher, caddy, usher, factory worker, bank teller, corporate tool, and priest – A Funny, Wise, and Inspiring Spiritual Memoir, by James Martin

Further reading: Kelly's X profile Kelly's Substack Secret Ballot

Further reading: "Magnifica Humanitas" by Leo XIV "AI Doesn’t Know What It’s Doing" by Thomas Fowler (First Things) "The Future of Reading" by Wessie Du Toit (First Things) "A Boomer, But An Augustinian" by Jacob Phillips (First Things) "The Pope Should Be Going to War Against A.I. Why Isn’t He?" by Matthew Walther (New York Times) If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Further reading: All of Dave Greene's essays: "Letters from Fiddler's Greene." Dave's YouTube channel.

Further reading: "Timothée Chalamet & Matthew McConaughey" by Variety & CNN Town Hall. "The Case Against Aesthetic Castration" by Adam Lehrer (Compact). "Marty Supreme mirrors Timothée Chalamet’s desire" by Germán Saucedo (The Spectator) "It’s Over for Anthony Bourdain’s Fanboys" by Suzy Weiss (The Free Press)

Further reading: "Frontier Cities" by Nick Allen (IM-1776). "New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church" by Julia Yost (New York Times). Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right by Laura K. Field. "The Party Politics of Sovereign House" by Emma Green (New Yorker) "Reconstructing the Mystical Feminine from the Ashes of the Feminine Mystique" (The Portal)

Further reading:"The Fanfic Temptation" by Veronica Clarke."The Goon Squad" by Daniel Kolitz.The Absolute Degeneracy of Modern Writing by The Second Story.