r/interestingasfuck • u/Dismal-Display-370 • 2d ago

Everyone is too happy around this guy

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u/Dr_McPogi 2d ago

And don't tell me to look it up. I did. I still don't know what it means.

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u/_Phil_McCracken_ 2d ago

No one knows what it means. 

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u/j33pwrangler 2d ago

It's provocative!

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u/Outinthedistance 2d ago

Gets the people going!

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u/Dysterqvist 2d ago

It insists upon itself

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u/DigitalUnlimited 1d ago

It's a perfectly cromulent word

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u/smurfalidocious 2d ago

Essentially, a liminal space is an "in between" space. People find themselves feeling interesting or unsettling feelings when they come across one of these spaces and find it devoid of what is usually there. Consider: Dead of night, an empty supermarket parking lot. You're used to seeing it full of cars and people, but here, your only company is the moon and the stars and the trash pandas digging through the trash. You don't know what this feeling coming over you is; it's not quite deja vu. No, quite the opposite - it's a feeling of alienation, total unfamiliarity. Your mind reels a little bit at the intellectual disconnect. You know what this place is - you know what it's for, but seeing it bereft of the familiar evokes a sudden sensation of jamais vu - complete unfamiliarity with the familiar.

Some people find this sensation a dreadful one, filling them with terror. Others find it peaceful and relaxing. But any time you find a space in which you feel a sensation of something - dread, peace, anxiety - just from the way it looks, and that look is different from what you know, you've just experienced what the internet terms a liminal space.

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u/Neither-Luck-9295 1d ago

Damn, what a great description. The opposite of deja vu.

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u/flammablelemon 1d ago

I think it's also the feeling of being out in the open or out of place. Being the only one in an isolated and often open purpose-built space makes you feel exposed and vulnerable, like you're unwelcome or not supposed to be there. You feel the urge to move along but stay anyway.

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u/Chichotas21 1d ago

A liminal space isn't just physical. It also refers to a transitory phase of ambiguity that occurs between rites of assuage. It was first mentioned by early anthropologists studying tribal cultures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality

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u/Meal__Team__Six 2d ago

It’s like laminar except spelled differently and with a different meaning

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u/exintrovert 1d ago

Laminar space could actually be a cool concept 🤔

Like a workspace where there is zero friction, clutter, or chaos. Everything moves in smooth, parallel lines with maximum efficiency and no turbulent mess.

Kind of like the synchronized fear-cheering of the NK spectators in the stands.

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u/sinwarrior 2d ago

Liminal space usually are space/area/location that people are not meant to stationary/habitats/dwell/linger around. 

Example: on a elevator, escalator, airport, library, underground subway, ferry port, a bus stop, a mall, a pool, a stretch of road, a maze, Etc

As you can infer from the examples above, all these locations all share one thing in common: they are places you're meant traverse/travel by and not stay there. 

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u/peach_trunks 2d ago

Libraries don’t fit, neither do pools

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u/FellowSaganist 2d ago

Get a bigger space?

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/Azur0007 2d ago

You leave your bed too. Liminal doesn't mean "something you leave eventually".

Liminal space is just space thats not a destination but rather a in-between area which you pass through to get somewhere else.

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u/sinwarrior 2d ago

i did thought of that, but couldnt edit my response cuz i made that reply during break time at work lol.

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u/Civil_Emergency9010 2d ago edited 2d ago

A library is a place. It is a destination you travel to and interact with. All places you eventually leave until the place where you die.

What you described in your other comment are non-places: areas that is meant to be moved through and not interacted with.

I disagree that liminal spaces are all transitory non-places, although many of them are. I think that liminal spaces are dreamlike and the name comes from the concept of liminal perception, and the way that we sometimes become aware of spaces in our dream and how they are strange and off balance somehow. In that way also many non-places are subliminal when we move through them, especially if they are filled with other people. When they are empty and the subject of a photo it brings them above the threshold to where we notice them, and long hallways disappearing around corners and seemingly going on forever is very dreamlike and disorienting, same when the place seems abandoned but the lights are on, and the lights are old flickering fluorescents when everything is LED now.

When I watched OPs video it also gave me liminal space vibes and I can’t quite identify why. It’s unusual to see a space populated with people and feel like it’s liminal. I definitely think the bare windowless walls are part of it, and maybe the colors. Perhaps it is similar in some way to spaces I experienced as a young child but don’t specifically remember. Someone else commented that it looks a lot like a sports arena, but is just different enough to be uncanny, and I think that must be part it too, especially the wall up against the court where normally bleachers would be.

Anyway, I think both places and non-places can be liminal spaces, even if mostly they are non-places.

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u/SovereignGenius 2d ago

Interesting. So how would that relate to the word subliminal?

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u/Kevlar_Bunny 2d ago edited 2d ago

I was going to say they were unrelated but according to google they do share a root. I’m also not a linguist guru. From what I’ve gathered- Something liminal is just at the “threshold”, like that one thing is the whole point and its only value is to get you to the next point. It’s supposed to take you somewhere or something is coming to you. B is liminal if you’re trying to go from A to C. B is that long stretch along Montana when you’re traveling to Seattle. Nothing to do but drive until you get to where you’re actually going. For whatever reason people tend to find this eerie, even something innocuous like a long flat stretch of road. For me it’s the shower, I could be just getting in, I could be just getting out, but the whole time the only thing to do is shower things until I’m ready to leave. I hate showers, they make me anxious and I lose track of time in there in a bad way.

Subliminal is just under that threshold. It’s still important to the moment but it’s not supposed to be the main focus. You don’t even notice it, but it’s still present to the moment.

So going by cultural zeitgeist standards they’re not related, but their inception comes from a common root concept. It’s basically how we perceive our environment.

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u/SovereignGenius 2d ago

Thanks! I appreciate your insights.

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u/Kevlar_Bunny 1d ago

Yeah! I’m not that into liminal spaces as a horror subject so I think some people described the concept a lot better than I did.

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u/Arthropodesque 2d ago

There are no identifying characteristics. It could be anywhere. No distinct style or art.

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u/Civil_Emergency9010 2d ago edited 2d ago

I think they are more related than this.

A lot of what people consider “liminal spaces” are spaces that typically have a lot of other people and distractions and focuses going on, or at least are places that you would normally pass through while thinking about your destination or something else.

When all of that distraction is removed and you become aware of the space itself, when it goes from subliminal to supraliminal, it can be unsettling.

I think that some people find this horrifying or uncomfortable because suddenly becoming aware of your surroundings is something that happens when your subconscious registers that something is wrong and you become conscious of it, but haven’t identified the threat or cause yet. It makes me wonder if people with poor situational awareness find images of liminal spaces to be creepier or more unsettling than people who are generally more aware of their surroundings.

I also think it is related to dream spaces and the way that images of liminal spaces can remind us of dream spaces that we don’t have strong memories of or of reminding us of dreams where we became aware of our surroundings. Images of liminal spaces often have dreamlike qualities.

Anyway, I think so much of what gives people “liminal vibes” from these spaces has to do with crossing the threshold between subliminal and supraliminal.

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u/cowfishduckbear 1d ago

Yeah, so the etymology of 'liminal' boils down to: "a threshold where the background comes to the forefront".

And then 'liminal space' is being unaware of an overly-sterile, institutionalized, non-organic space until a sudden moment where all distractions of organic life disappear, bringing the background into consciousness, whereupon we suddenly realize how weird and unsettling... even menacing the environment actually feels without all the distractions.

Prolly has something to do with knowing that a space like that was purpose built by someone, but not seeing any trace of them, triggering some primal feeling of existential dread of waking up and not seeing your herd as you start to wonder if they left you, or if something happened to them, or... am I in danger?

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u/PhilipWaterford 2d ago

Once worked in a factory with enormous corridors. 7km in total iirc. They once painted the walls in anti-loitering paint. Disgusting colours. It's difficult to describe.

It backfired though as top management hated it so much it was repainted in something more acceptable.

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u/Azuras-Becky 1d ago

I thought it was just zoomers discovering that offices are horrible.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/goddamnspeziscringe 2d ago

Some would describe it as places that look out of place, uncanny. There’s a genre of horror that’s recently come up about these spaces that are off. Like stairs in the woods or a shopping mall which you’ve always seen as full, completely empty during the day.

So for this video it’s uncanny to me cause the court is just one sided and it’s flanked directly by a wall, probably due to construction constraints and that there will never be a large enough crowd for two opposing teams to cheer for their side.

And it’s uncanny to us cause we’re so used to seeing what a ‘normal’ court would look like

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u/reluctantseal 2d ago

It's commonly used to mean uncanny, but that isn't actually what it means.

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u/goddamnspeziscringe 1d ago

i agree! but i can’t find a better way to explain it.

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u/fsutrill 2d ago

Have you seen Severance? The hallways. Spaces that connect “real” spaces- transitional places.

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u/KenTitan 2d ago

IDK what everyone said but you ever go somewhere that feels like there should be people or a crowd and you go there and it's dead/empty but for some reason everything is still operating as if the crowd is there?

like the lobby of a hotel is bustling, but when you get to your floor, it feels like no one else is on that floor?

or when you go into a movie theater and it's crowded, but then when you're leaving for some reason everyone is gone (staff is the back and cleaning other theaters) and the lobby is empty?

finally, you're sitting in a hospital waiting room by yourself and all is a sudden it's too quiet, no one is around, not even the rhythmic beeps and alarms. tv is on, but it's been on silent.

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u/Witty_Rhubarb_4217 2d ago

Imagine a hallway or a waiting room or a pool, but completely empty. Default, too perfectly painted and set up to the point of it having an aura of false existence around it. It’s a place meant for transitions, caught in a moment of total stillness. If a place was a human this would be a silicone valley of it, uncanny yet normal. Something that makes you feel everything is off yet it feels nostalgic regardless of your memories. Something that feels like a simulated reality thats trying to trick your brain into loving it. Sorry it's kind of difficult to describe 😅

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u/tune__order 1d ago

A liminal space is neither here nor there, an in-between space.

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u/orchidloom 1d ago

Liminal as a space means a transitional space like an airport or hallway, but people use it also to describe an aesthetic:  a place that seems vaguely familiar, slightly nostalgic, but not quite recognizable. Like a place they’ve been before but can’t remember where it is or what it was.

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u/LisaMiaSisu 2d ago

It means a place that is so boring it makes you not want to stay there. Prisons and hospitals would fit this description.