Faked footage of a robot in an abandoned Japanese building is part of 'backrooms' subculture

Apr 14, 2022 | News On Japan

An edited TikTok video of a robot in an abandoned building has been viewed 22 million times.

Apr 14, 2022 (yahoo.com) - On March 24, footage supposedly from Google Earth went viral on TikTok, showing what appeared to be a robot with wings inside an abandoned building.

The video — which was captioned, "wtf they hiding in Japan" — now has 22 million views, with many people in the comments saying they were trying to find this hidden room for themselves, using the coordinates that appeared in the TikTok.

However, the footage appears to be edited and is linked to an online community called the "backrooms," where people imagine there are a series of hidden rooms in different dimensions. The video is just one of many linked to this online community, which originated on 4chat and Reddit, but is quietly spreading to TikTok.

It's not possible to replicate the footage by inputting the same coordinates in Google Earth

The viral video — posted by a user called @yeetme084 — zooms in on the country of Japan, then on two circular buildings, before showing what appears to be the inside of one of the buildings, which is largely empty aside from a cubed robot with wings.

When typed into Google Earth, the coordinates from the video take users to the site of the two circular buildings, which are located next to an abandoned Japanese water park called Nara Dreamlands.

However, users can only zoom in up to a certain point, and cannot access the inside of the building using Google Earth. This led to some commenters under the video speculating that the hidden room in the building was likely produced using image or video editing software. The original creator of TikTok did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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