The expanded lore added after the original post. Some find it interesting, believed that adding lore and Magic A Is Magic A rules to the Backrooms makes it more scary and that the additions of new places, entities and organizations make the setting more engaging. Others think that making the Backrooms less vague makes them less scary, like what happened to Candle Cove, and feel that introducing large numbers of divergent environments and creatures takes away from the original concept of being a single person stuck in a "glitched" version of a familiar environment, which they believe works so well because it heightens the surreal, unsettlingly dreamlike quality of being lost in a vaguely familiar-looking but unidentifiable location. Either way, there's little middle ground.
Some see the wiki's gradual shift into a creepy encyclopedia with loads of lore turning the Backrooms into a poor man's SCP Foundation, while others argue that it's different from the Wiki due to the lack of comedy of any kind (except for some joke levels) and how the Backrooms has no central authority (though M.E.G and several other canons have established authority figures).
There's been some arguments over the lore itself. Both the Backrooms Wikidot and Liminal Archives take differing interpretations of the level names, entities, objects, and substance of the levels themselves. Both also have differing factions, such as the Wikidot having the Major Explorer Group and Liminal Archives having the United Nations and Colonies of the Backrooms. This is not even to mention the Fandom wiki, which also takes things into a different direction.
Even the existence whatsoever of Entities within the Backrooms is a contentious matter. Some believe that the Backrooms is a properly horrifying place in itself because of how vast and uncanny a location it is and that the Entities actually detract from the situation, while others think that they add some necessary flavor and sense of immediate threat. Others fall in between, perhaps feeling that entities should be rare enough that a sense of tension lingers, but not common enough as to steal the show, or accepting entities as a concept while holding that most of them are uninteresting.
Speaking of entities, the Partygoers as well as the things associated with them (Level Fun, Partypoopers, etc.) have a pretty split reception. To fans, they're either fun, scary, entities that add to the out-of-place creepiness of the Backrooms. To detractors, they're overhyped, have very little outside of being smug assimilator-type monsters, and their Interface Screw where they edit wiki documents to add smiley faces ("=)") falls flat because 9 times out of 10 they will telegraph it in such an obvious way it no longer feels scary.
Another contentious entity are the Smilers, who are scary smiling faces that hide in the darkness. Some people see them as generic "scary smiling faces", like the ones used in SCP-087-B (In-fact one of their most common interpretations is just The Cheshire Smile from the game), while others think their mysterious roles and why they are in the Backrooms makes them scary.
In early 2023, a massive purge took place on the Fandom wiki that removed hundreds of pages in the name of quality. Reactions were mixed, with some thinking it was necessary and some feeling the pages were perfectly fine.
Level ! "Run For Your Life!" became a fan favorite, and it has been featured in multiple shorts as a way of imaging what this level may be like.
Level "Fun =)" also had a spike in popularity, with multiple shorts devoted to characters getting trapped in this cheery, but dangerous party level.
The Poolrooms also rose in popularity as a level to render. The abundance of water pools, and the ambiance from the water help conjure nostalgic memories of places like water parks, hot-tubs, and swimming pools and the relative calm of the zone offers a degree of respite from the more hostile environments.
Even certain entities get in on this. Partygoers for example are rather popular amongst the Wikidot. On the other hand, Hounds, Smilers and The Keymaster are perhaps the only three entities that are considered canon to all three wikis.
Bone Thieves got a boost in popularity and recognition thanks to some rather cute animations by Bananimations that prominently featured them. It helps that they have an an oddly cute design and one of the most unique killing methods of all Entities.
With its shared origins (Creepypastas that expanded into a full-on New Weird community) make it an ideal form of media for SCP Foundation fans and vice versa.
Also towards fans of Shin Megami Tensei due to the appearance of the Backrooms resembling a typical dungeon in said series.
Many fans of the Backrooms lore also like the Kane Pixels rendition of the series thanks to the very passionate homage to the Backrooms and the care put into making the camera movements look realistic, as if the videos are real documentaries. It helps that the series has shone a spotlight on the lore as a whole, giving it more attention, and set a standard of quality for fan videos about exploring the Backrooms. However, it tends to overlap with Fandom Rivalry on the Kane Pixels' side of the Backrooms, who tend to dislike or at the very least remain apathetic towards general Backrooms lore.
Heartwarming Moments: Most things involving Entity 140, Blanche. She's one of the very few truly benevolent entities around despite her true form being an incomprehensible entity and is kind to the reader, wanderer and M.E.G. alike. Her domain in Level 906 is also one of the few truly safe and welcoming floors of the Backrooms.
It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: A variant. A major complaint amongst the community is that with the massive Newbie Boom spreading from various sites like YouTube, the Backrooms Wikidot had suffered a massive onset of articles of varying, oftentimes poor, quality. Not to mention several works either downplaying or outright omitting the type of liminal horror that projected The Backrooms into popularity in the first place, such as adding descriptions and classifications to elements that were kept vague or were only alluded. This is mainly attributed to the site's lack of quality control and moderation present in other similar Wikidot communities such as SCP Foundation.
LGBT Fanbase: Surprisingly enough, it has garnered a relatively large group of LGBT fans. Many characters are either written as gay or bi or even as non-binaries using neo-pronouns (Zier, Hier). This might be a holdover from the SCP Foundation, which also has a predominantly large number of LGBT fans.
Memetic Mutation: The Death Slides concept became a popular one for movies, with multiple videos of explorers (usually ASYNC employees) going down suspicious-looking slides without much hesitation. The results aren't always fatal.
You can noclip out of reality at any moment and end up here, never to return. Additionally, noclipping at the wrong places in the backrooms may take you somewhere dangerous that you're unprepared for.
The behavior and theme of each level varying from source to source adds a sense that even if you read explorer reports about the Backrooms thoroughly, your experience can still be unpredictable. For instance, entering Level 0, expecting to never encounter another entity and then being chased by an unreported entity that you're not prepared for.
The idea of being alone in an empty, infinite maze of rooms will do this to anyone. You will get the feeling of being watched and start to dread the moment your suspicions are confirmed.
The prospect that there's a slim chance that you'll be transported to Level ! "Run For Your Life" just by changing levels. Although chances are small, it's best to prepare just in case. Or you could get it out of the way by entering through the consistent ways. Thankfully, once you do clear Level !, the Backrooms will never send you back to this level again.
Also, if people from reality can no-clip into the Backrooms, it's possible that some of the entities can get no-clipped into reality as well.
So Bad, It's Good: The "Death Slides" series of videos from multiple uploaders doesn’t even try to be realistic, but the sight of hazmats inexplicably jumping down unknown slides can have a charm to it with the comedic tone often used. This led to a reaction live stream with ''Kane Pixels'' among the group, where commentary is given on the "Death Slides" meme, and lighthearted criticizing of the concept made. Kane Pixels saying in a sense that he provoked this meme adds to the hillarity.
Can be considered one of LSD: Dream Emulator, due to the concept of exploring familiar-looking liminal spaces, having the ability to transport between areas by irrational methods, and some levels being inspired by author's dreams. With the graphics and photos not being limited by Playstation 1 graphics, the detail can be even greater.
The Backrooms also shares similar mechanics with Amnesia: The Dark Descent with entities that are usually impossible to safely fight, running away not always being a safe bet, and warping to other levels being a good way to escape from an entity. The availability of Almond Water to help with health and sanity is also similar to Laudanum and the Dummied Out sanity potion.
Though most of the demons are not negotiable, The Backrooms is also comparable to Shin Megami Tensei due to how the appearance of Backrooms resemble the typical urban indoors dungeon layout of the games. Special mention to Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, as that particular game has an entire sector of shopping mall made by uncanny otherworldly beings, like how whoever's responsible for the Backrooms sometimes replicate areas that are usually people's real life comfort in an uncanny way. In addition, the Big Bad of the series, Nostalgi Gaius, is speculated as being God, who is also the Big Bad of the Megaten-verse as YHVH.
To the SCP Foundation, with it featuring mysterious monsters/objects, weird interdimensional areas, an authority figure whose goal revolves around studying the anomalous (SCPs for the Foundation, and the Backrooms for M.E.G), and a general sense of mystique to the whole thing. Its actual effectiveness of being one, as well as its content, is a different matter entirely. See Broken Base above.
Silent Hill also shares many of the same concepts, with great focus being placed upon The Otherworld being like a more dangerous version of real-world locales. The entities are like the monsters, having possible symbolic designs to them, and Level ! "Run For Your Life" has similar equivalents in the Silent Hill series which occasionally show up as escape sequences.
Alternate Character Interpretation: Is the entity Officer Rich encounters truly dangerous, or were they also just as desperate for interaction and rescue. Perhaps Claire Park even transformed into this, judging by the entity being not far from a sleeping bag.
Realism-Induced Horror: The idea of being trapped in a maze where nobody can find you and being stalked by an entity can invoke fears of being lost in the woods and followed by a wild predator. The idea of being cut off from radio or phone communication can actually happen too, naturally.
Vindicated by History: The video was already a decent hit but didn't get nearly the same about of hits until Kane Pixels' The Backrooms went viral. The Kane Pixels series helped bring more attention to Evan Royalty's take on the Backrooms and comments on the video became very frequent. While unfavorable comparisons get made between this movie and Kane's videos and the use of Grand Theft Auto V assets isn't necessarily seen as a positive, this video had different goals, such as a realistic portrayal of police procedures and the trauma even a trained officer might go through being isolated in the Backrooms with an unknown entity. As a twist, Rich escapes alive inadvertently, but requires psychiatric rehab to recover. More viewers got to appreciate the video's history as a precursor to Backrooms Found Footage videos becoming a bigger deal.
and Liminal Archives having the United Nations and Colonies of the Backrooms. This is not even to mention the Fandom wiki, which also takes things into a different direction.