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Liminal Spaces have been confused with a handful of aesthetics that share similar traits to the concept. Here are a few examples of said aesthetics and the most common definitions
WHAT THE FUCK IS LIMINAL SPACE & ADJACENT AESTHETICS CARRD
layout made by @heretic
information compiled by @egg
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DARK PARADISE ! 📓 💭 📷
Dark Paradise is an aesthetic revolving around dark gloomy images that give off inner peace and serenity with the viewer. It often involves photography of cloudy afternoons and grey monotone color schemes. It's very broad as it can include imagery of empty beaches, late night city skylines, allnighters, forests, etc. The main goal is achieving a sense of tranquility. Think of scenes from (god forbid) Twilight, Twin Peaks, or really anything that's quiet and moody.
🌑 🎧 🎥 REASONS FOR CONFUSION ?
Dark Paradise includes images of empty public spaces, but not quite in the way that Liminal Space does. Areas late at night can cause both unease and calm for different people, thus they can be labelled as Dark Paradise AND Liminal Space. HOWEVER, at the end of the day, Dark Paradise is a mellow aesthetic, centered around inner peace and dark color palettes, while Liminal Space is about the feeling of nostalgic unease.
AFTER HOURS ! 🚕 🍽️ 🥓
After Hours is an aesthetic centered around the feelings one gets from seeing a usually populated place late at night. It's more focused on emotions than environments, as just about anything can be under the After Hours aesthetic, if it contains imagery of late night prowls to public areas. It's best felt in person, allowing the viewer to gain a sense of harmony and peace. It is finding comfort in the darkness, where you are allowed to be free. Sneaking out of the house with friends as a teenager, 24/7 diners with nobody except you and the cook, the tranquil silence of suburban streets, wandering around the city at 3 in the morning. It evokes rebellion, independence, and mystery.
⌚ ☕ ⏱ REASONS FOR CONFUSION ?
After Hours and Liminal Spaces feature empty public places, urban exploration, dark lighting, and are focused on eliciting a specific feeling in the viewer. These two can easily be confused as what one may find peaceful the other finds terrifying. They are two sides of the same coin, After Hours the comforting and Liminal Space the unsettling. It is much like Dark Paradise, but with the lights turned off.
DREAMCORE ! 👁 🌈 ☁
Dreamcore is an aesthetic that uses surreal imagery and bright saturated colors to emulate the feeling of having a hazy dream. It includes motifs relating to fever dreams, daydreams, and nightmares. It's portrayed throughout media such as image edits, music, and even movies! It uses elements like teeth, eyes, disassociation, rainbows, nostalgia, mushrooms, and yes, even Liminal Space. It can be absurd, silly, and even scary.
🏠 🦷 🍄 REASONS FOR CONFUSION ?
Dreamcore uses some elements of Liminal Space, but combines it with absurd imagery to create that iconic dreamlike vibe. If it's been edited, it's Dreamcore. If it's a raw photograph of a transitional public area, it's Liminal. Simple as that.
WEIRDCORE ! 💿 🥩 🕊
Weirdcore is an aesthetic that uses poorly edited, low quality images in an effort to convey feelings of anemoia (nostalgia for a time you never experienced), unease, disorientation and dread. It uses similar themes from Y2K, Traumacore & Dreamcore, often overlaps with them. Think of something like blingee edits! The base images are traditionally of amateur quality and are intentionally lacking context to make the viewer confused. It's like aesthetically pleasing cursed images. It uses a lot of eyes and angel motifs.
💊 📺 🎈 REASONS FOR CONFUSION ?
Much like Dreamcore, Weirdcore uses Liminal Space to heighten that feeling of dread. Much like Dreamcore, the easiest way to identify if something is Liminal Space or Weirdcore, is if the image is edited or not. Liminal Space doesn't rely on added elements to convey the nostalgic unease, purely environment.
LIMINAL SPACE ! 🗄️ 🎒 🧾
Liminal Space describes a transitional area or a large populated area that is for whatever reason empty & isolated. This creates a feeling of liminality (liminus, meaning "threshold"); a combination of eeriness, apprehension, and nostalgia. Your brain recognizes this place or places similar to this, but due to the absence of people or other stimuli, it gives a more uncanny appearance. You don't sit and absorb the environment around you, these places are only temporary stops before you move on. Now however, forced to face the empty room, you can't help but feel out of place. This isn't what it was made for. This isn't where you're supposed to be.
🥡 🎈 📅 FURTHERMORE . . .
It isn't focused on flat out scaring the viewer, rather leave an uncomfortable weight in their heart. Other people's bedrooms, waiting rooms, lobbies, parking lots, restaurants, all examples of Liminal Spaces, once you take the life out of them. Liminality can be increased using lighting tricks and angling, but generally speaking, Liminal Space photos are barely edited. It's the empty husk of a building, that leaves that sensation of liminality.
THE BACKROOMS ! 🪑 📒 🚪
The Backrooms is a community driven horror story focused primarily on worldbuilding, something similar to the SCP Foundation. It uses some Liminal Spaces and other strange photos to create a separate dimension that operates outside of our reality. Everyone knows of the whole "no-clip out of reality" shebang, aaa scary yellow wallpaper, fuckin. mmm The Soup
📄 💡 📝 REASONS FOR CONFUSION ?
While, yes, the Backrooms originated from Liminal Spaces, the usage of otherworldly monsters destroys the liminality of these images. Now its just a regular haunted house outside of reality. Liminal Spaces are real world areas that give off unease with just its environment, The Backrooms is a fictional story that focuses primarily on horror using monsters and non-euclidean spaces. Although Liminal Spaces do give off an otherworldly feel, at the end of a day it's just a normal building that follows normal physics.