The red forrest is interesting, ther in the 12 monkey series, thats brilliant mystery time travel scifi drama that also fun exit one, especialy season 2-4 that is it gets so much , its also so good integrating the learning to move on, being trapped in the past valuing time we have, and the antagonists actually have a reason that is justified or reasonably as have the heroes tht are ight but still , but its good in 1 too, , i didnt thought there were a real red forrest. And th twists are that good dont spoil yourself, thre are really good misleading and twists that are organic in the story. There is a youtube docimentry of japan abroad about how japanese people dealt with the tsunami, and its, fitting. One person even preserve a building, others dis do new opportunities. Like the ffisher aking a service to call people in th morning to make pr for fishermen and women i guess after.
Cleaning up a relative's place after they died has a very similar effect. Everything from the left behind food in their fridge to how much toilet paper is left on the roll-- just mundane things gaining completely new value and meaning. Great video as always!
!!! I haven't seen enough people talk about this. I'm going through my grandma's stuff and it's just. Tax returns from 1972. Things she clearly thought she'd use. Things that got set down in 1950 and never picked back up.
My aunt lived with my grandmother, her mother, her entire life. It used to be her, her brothers, my grandmother, and my great grandmother. Eventually my father and uncle moved out to make families of their own. She never did. It's not good or bad, maybe she just never found the need (or courage) to leave. A house of 5, plus visitors, slowly became a house of 3 and when my great grandmother died when I was a baby it became a house of 2 and old memories. Dad and uncle and us kids always visited, but the cracks were there. Grandma started hoarding and it got worse when she got Alzheimers. The house was never cleaned, even after grandma had to be put in a home when taking care of her was too much for my aunt to handle. Grandma recently died. I can't say I feel bad. I never really got to know her, and by the time she did she couldn't remember us either. Everything she left behind is still in that house though, never cleaned, never touched by my aunt who still lives there. Her old jewelry and magazines from Marshall Field's and church gloves simply covered up by piles of new things, things she would've never been able to imagine when she first moved in around my age some 60 years ago. This place that was a fossil even when I was young, that I'd visit and be babysat in after school and later come to so I could babysit my grandmother... The whispers of abandoned places always echoed there even before I was old enough to recognize its voice. Eventually it will be my siblings', counsins', and I's job to clean it. And it's gonna be one hell job to do.
I kinda feel this with my grandpa right now. We always lived together, but when he got older, he had terrible knee pain, so we decided on surgery. He got his knee replaced but he didn't like the surgery at all, so when his other knee started hurting, we decided he shouldn't repeat the experience. For this reason, his mobility was limited and he mostly stayed in the living room. Particularly in the bed. We lost him last sunday, and going into the living room is very strange now. I laid in his bed today, and it's reminding me of how I'd sleep with him when I was in kindergarten, but now it's different. Now it's just me. Well, my mom and my grandma are still there, but it's strange with just three ladies in a house like ours, you know? We always had some man around, wether that'd be my brother, my grandpa, my uncle or my dad. Now it's just us.
In Germany we have the word "Ruinenlust", the enjoyment of visiting ruins and abondend places and I feel it hard. To see and realice that everything that we deem eternal will sooner or later turn into dust and rubble, is as awe inspiring as it is terrifying. (Wow, thanks for the like ^^)
What I admire the most about abandoned/ruined places is that it allows readers to ask the question, "wow, I wonder what this looked like when it was up and running" Horizon zero dawn was great at this in my opinion.
Bioshock and Fallout had that same feel. I really like to explore those types of worlds to try to figure out what it was like before it all became abandoned/ruined
I kinda got that feeling from Slime Rancher, specifically from the ruins at the end of the glass desert. And from Outer Wilds, exploring a solar system that is full of buildings made by another died out civilization.
I get a similar feeling from Monster Hunters numerous ruins, from Castle Schrade's foreboding atmosphere, to the Twisted Summits role as a battleground for powerful creatures.
When I played Horizon, I was wandering around and came to a ruined wind farm. As I was looking around I thought “This is my world here.” Those are things I see regularly, and as I kept exploring I had a mixed feeling of Nature at last overthrowing man’s creations and man’s creations still existing despite all nature has done.
Hi, Mr. Dom! It fills me with joy that you're sufficiently friends with Miss Roses that you and her talk about each others' collabs/contributions to other UA-camrs.
Empty/Abandoned places hold something almost special. For me, they can make me feel both safe and on edge. There's a mixture of feelings that comes from being in these places which just makes them all the more interesting. Great video!
I have a story in mind but I couldn't figure out where to have it set but your comment on feeling both safe and on edge (the feel I was going for for my story) helped me settle on a setting. Thank you, kind internet stranger. 😊
It shifts how we see and what we fear. In your daily life you fear things such as embarrassing yourself in front of colleagues or losing someone you love. But in the unknown the known cannot find you, and you are freed of those chains into the chance of what has not been charted by human hands.
I agree, they are both kind of peaceful (because you are alone in the building), which brings a certain safety, but also alarming (because you may think you are alone, but you can't be sure it is or will stay that way).
This video brings back memories of when I sifted through the ashes of my childhood home after a wildfire left nothing but a blackened chimney, a misshapen shower, a charred exercise bike, and a large, house-shaped silhouette of cinders.
Your channel has a special kind of magic. I'll forget it exists for ages, and then one of your videos pops up and I spend an evening binging everything you made after the last time I watched.
I have had the exact same story I was here as a small child watching HTTYD content then as i have began to love writing and stringing worlds together i have found this great channel again
When I was moving to a new city to start a new life 10 years ago, I remember late one night, before closing the door to my old apartment, looking into the dark rooms one last time, and sensing a creature crawling on the walls in there, unresolved, unfullfilled, left behind, frozen in time. I missed my bus, started walking the streets at midnight, not a human or sound was there. A piece of grafitti said "like a hollow ghost, floating through the emptiness of the streets" No idea who wrote it, no hits on Google, but knew it was refering to me. I crossed a bridge, got into the taxi, and I was gone.
A near literal representation of the universe saying "Don't you think there's something left to do...?" My experience is to never ignore that shit unless you know where to go next. So good job making it 10 years!
I love abandoned places in games, and I think Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did this super well with it's Hyrule Castle town, as there are enemies haunting the land and guarding what is left. However, I also love turning an abandoned place into a populated place. This doesn't happen often, but side quests for Terry Town in BotW turned a small plateau into a nice little community, and it felt like you were restoring a small part of what was lost in the last 100 years of the game's story. It was really cathartic for me to see both sides in that game, which is why Terry Town is my favorite side quest ever.
There are several examples of storytelling through setting in that game from the scattered destroyed villages and how weapons and items are placed to where large numbers of fallen Guardians are (Akala Citadel, religiously significant places, ect). The game makes great use of this kind of desolation while still leaving room for hope and even joy in the moment. At the same time, the traveling NPCs share stories and goals that make it clear that the cities may be gone, but the people are not dead or nor the legacy truly forgotten yet.
The main quest of elder scrolls online has you populate a city in a demonic realm. Filling the empty houses with lifes until theres saved elfes singing on the street and a market full of brave smiths feels just so good. You take back land from the lord of violence himself and make it home.
Fallout does this quite well too; you go exploring and find all these small moments of the past, from journal entries on computers to small graves with toys on them. Its one of the things that make the game great, at least in my opinion.
I was thinking of BotW all through this too. I remember finding a house (or at least half of one) all alone out in a field in the middle of a thunder storm. It somehow looked so much more desolate than any other ruined house I had seen, so I went to examine it… and the only item inside was an arrow stuck in the wall. It was one of the most poignant moments I’ve ever experienced in a game, and like much of BotW, the fact that it was totally unscripted and unexpected made it all the more affecting.
Agreed! BoTW is amazing in using its environment to tell a story; whenever you explore the world you'll come across these abandoned, broken houses and villages and it’s a chilling reminder that the land used to be full of life. Fort Hateno especially, you can tell that something big happened there and when you finally watch the memory it all clicks.
"I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.'" -Percy Shelley.
In the woods behind my childhood house there was an old car by a mossy pond. Nothing ever seemed to move or change, not even the water. A few miles away there was a whole abandoned town from the early 1900s. I never was able to go inside but I could watch as we drove by and my imagination would just churn. I still think about those stories I imagined even after I learned the truth about them.
We have a 1950's car at the bottom of a cliff by the side of our gold-mining river, the bonnet flung across the other side, stuck at an angle in the ground. The car is covered with bullet-holes, and remains a mystery.
@@aldousboal4920 The area had a resource, people moved in to extract it, the town got built, the resource was exhausted, everyone left. I don't KNOW that's the case here, but I'm certain given how common this is.
I fourth that you should read House of Leaves, but with the caveat that I STRONGLY recommend reading it simultaneously with someone else, so that you have another person to discuss the text with, because it is very much a text that demands discussion. And to take your time with it. A close friend of mine and I read it as a two person book club over the course of two months recently, and I honestly wish that we had taken it a bit more slowly.
In talking about art, few UA-cam essays become art themselves. This essay should be a model for any creators trying to make art in talking about art. Beautiful work.
Eh, I think there are lessons to be learned from it, but it also serves as an example of "too much of a good thing." There are probably a dozen different statements that are trying really hard to be fade-outs/mic-drops and it gets a little tiresome, for example. The ideas in the essay are really good, as is the creation of a real life walking stimulator to serve as background
It's really strange when you encounter your own memories becoming an abandoned place. I'm from christchurch, and during the quakes, my parents as we lived in Australia cried out as my grandparents phone signal cut due to the tremors. An auntie saw the CCTV building go down, and my childhood optometrist died while trying to recover something from his local church. The home my maternal grandparents started their nz life in was abandoned because they were red-zoned. Over 40 years of living there after immigrating, raising their children, seeing their grandchildren visit, and it was beyond chance of recovery in such a quick moment. Vandals and looters quickly trashed the place along with other homes nearby. Nothing stolen but a sacred space to us was tarnished. When I was able to visit after the quakes, I couldn't recognize the land where my old school was. The century old church was gone. The roads had changed, and now it was just green grass with native trees. Much as I miss everything, I can't help but feel a little bit comforted that nature took over instead
Shit, I decided to rewatch this and now realise I had missed this comment, he was my family's optometrist too. I never meet him as I didn't have any eyesight issues but most of my family had. The redzone is a peaceful, beautiful but also haunting area, deserves a lot more attention.
A beautiful dissertation on an idea that is so close to everyone's heart! It feels very personal and relatable. For you in New Zealand it's earthquakes. For us in Australia bushfires are our event of desolation. For the world, that desolation may be Covid. These are reminders of the earth's ability to override our power; but also its ability to build us and make us feel more... Alive.
I personally think that when science-fiction marries horror, the child can be something great. And sci-fi is not just about robots and space; it's about ideas. It's about depth, profundity of thought, emotion and experience. A sense of wonder, the feeling of awe that we all long for, and desperately try to find, even if we don't think about it consciously. Desolation, emptyness of space, vacancy where it is not expected faces us with a particular sense of humility which is a characteristic of sci-fi and horror; it makes us realize one true fact about our circumstance: We are alone, and there's something magical about that. And that feeling, though tapped into much more easily when one is surrounded by desolation and emptyness, can also be felt when one is surrounded by people. One has to only look deeper, and pay more attention to the quality of one's immediate experience in the face of everything. These locations also have a certain religious, nay, spiritual aura to them, and that is precisely due to their unquestionable power in inducing an urge of self-reflection in us. They make us think and feel more deeply about everything, especially ourselves, and what this all means to us. Emptyness, vacancy, desolation can indeed be terrorizing and horrific, or beautiful and calming, but they are always, regardless of all else, magical. This video was absolutely brilliant and amazing. Certain parts were breath-taking; you have made something special. The writing, the narration, the editing, the music, everything was on point. This is quality youtube. Thank you :)
The powerlessness of experiencing a story that already happened that you have no control over and are not responsible for is what i love about so many of these games specifically nieR:automata finding out how much you were wrong is just incredible
I moved into a college dorm this year. My roommate didn’t come in for another week. Coming into that empty unoccupied dorm was... off. Now it is lived in, decorated, etc. But it is still not my room My room is a state away, and it has been cleaned out and turned into a guest bedroom. When I return for thanksgiving break, I know not how my room will be desolated. This video, describing empty, abandoned places and desolation is very resonant for me right now. I appreciate this greatly. Thank you, Hello Future Me.
I felt the same way when I went to college, but my dorm rooms increasingly became “my” space, so much so that when I moved home temporarily after college, it felt like my personal home had been taken away from me. Family home will always be First Home, but I’ve enjoyed the homes I’ve made for myself after that very much. I even miss my own personal place when I am visiting family for a long time. There’s something about nesting into a place for a while and filling it with memories that makes it feel… right.
Hollow knight did this so well to me. Especially in the city of tears. A beautiful metropolis in its heyday, bathed in never ending rain due to the lake above it, now an abandon city with only a murmur of what it was due to the animated dead still repeating their actions before their death in a never ending dream and the rain mimicking tears. As if the city cries for what it was before the infection...
Last of us 2 really gave me a sense of yearning for these abandoned places and wishing I could live among the ruin. There is something so hauntingly beautiful about nature reclaiming it’s place over bricks, metal, buildings. It touches me and yet disturbs and vexes me all at once. I am completely in love with what is abandoned.
Also after watching the full video; you put a serious pit in my stomach towards the end about picking up and moving on. It’s something I struggle to do with my own past and I think you have given me a revelation I really needed to hear today. Thank you for that and of course I look forward to all your videos. This video in particular though, was an absolute masterpiece. Also got to learn something about New Zealand history that I didn’t know before. Thank you for sharing that personal and culturally significant story; it definitely honored the lives lost in every tragedy presented here.
As another Christchurch local, I really enjoyed and appreciated this video. The very moment the shot of you with the cathedral in the background showed up, I was feeling it hard. The way parts of the city still remain rubble, damaged and abandoned buildings, while other parts of the city are new and revitalised often provokes some interesting trains of thought.
I love the idea of finding an abandoned city with apartment buildings all overgrown and falling apart and then exploring those buildings. Love the video!
Kind of surprised you talked about this without talking about Myst, perhaps the first game set solely on exploring an abandoned land and figuring out what happened there. Desolation does have a powerful impact, even when you're in a place it doesn't really make sense for it to feel that way. I'm having to be in my parents' house during this time, a big house where for holidays, there's a good chance for my sister and brother to bring home their spouses and children then also have some family friends over. The days I'm in the place all alone though, it feels desolated. It's not meant to be a house for only one person, it's meant to house a family with kids wandering about, one of whom could inherit the house and raise their own family there if they wished. It feels like a place that ought to be a generational house, passing down through the family from generation to generation until the end of time. It's the only home I've really known, only slightly older than I am since my parents had it built then moved into it before I was even conceived, and yet, it feels like there's a weight to it, hoping to once again be the home of a growing family with mirth and joy within, fearful of being made smaller or being altered into a single bachelor pad or simply being abandoned without a chance to build the history it should have. It's, not the tragic desolation that you've gone through. It is a way I've experienced desolation though.
"One of the most intoxicating books I've ever read..." I never expected House of Leaves to catch me here, but it's been a book I've gone back to so many times, and it always puts me on edge in a way no other piece of media ever has. It grips me, as each element of the book feels almost actively hostile to the reader in a different way. One that makes the next change of pace feel almost inviting until your hand is bitten again. Johnny's unreliable narration. His taunting over his lies. The claustrophobic arrangements of the pages themselves. The overlapping narratives keeping you from ever really feeling comfort after that spare 1/4 inch is found. The hidden puzzles that lead only to more cryptic hints. The false citations to real articles. The strange vibrance. The way your eyes have to strain to read the red text referring to what you're not supposed to be reading anyways. The paradox of the final twists. The way you're forced to spin and tilt the book in ways that make you feel foolish reading it when you can be seen. Encouraging you to take it alone. To seclude yourself with the text. To delve deeper into the labyrinth... Intoxicating is a word. But it's next to impossible for me not to recommend it. My mind vividly relives my first reading of it any time a mention catches me off guard. Thank you, Tim!
Beautiful music. I always feel intrigued by abandoned places. It makes me wonder what future historians and archeologists will say about us. "It was the fashion in those days it seems to be seen with fake nails, an entire industry having sprung up around this one aesthetic."
tim, i just watched this over on nebula and i have to say. i’ve been watching for years, the old how to train your dragon videos drew me in. and your commitment to your vision and content has always weighed on me and to see you come this far and create a film this well crafted and powerful really truly is uplifting. you’ve managed to express yourself and that one particular feeling that i think everyone knows but just can’t quite place in a masterful piece of art and i’m just glad i was here for it. thank you tim, and please never quit.
“…Every plant and rock and creature, has a life, has a spirit, has a name.” I love old and abandoned places as well. The stories they hide ignites the wonderer in me. Loved Everyone’s Gone to the Rapture. It, along with the musical score, touch me deeply.
Back when I was in college, we had a neighbor school that was mostly abandoned due to losing their accreditation over a decade prior. So a bunch of their buildings and even their football field were left to wear and tear over the years before I even became a student. Other students often wondered the old dorms and football field to see what it was like. I even helped a few of my friends shoot a horror flick there cause of the atmosphere of it. Abandoned places always have a weird mix of history and mystery to them that makes them intriguing to explore. It’s Morris Brown College in case anyone reading this is curious. Update for those who care: Morris Brown got their accreditation back recently. So the campus is no longer abandoned. They’re up and running again.
I was the baby of my family. When I was born my siblings were teens and my parents were turning old. The house I grew up in and the countryside field in the middle of nowhere littered with their collections. Abandoned before I was ever brought back form the hospital. There to see but never experience. The house itself falling apart as no one cared anymore. Trash pushed to the side and never removed so they didn't have to deal with it. Utilities breaking without being fixed unless they had too, tied off and never used again. The in-ground pool to the side that I was told to clean if I ever wanted to keep it everyday of every summer, not touched once since I left for college despite their promises, now home to ferns and frogs. I cleaned, I removed, I fixed, and I mended till I was sick. I no longer care, my own soul desolate. I was raised in a house abandoned of love.
That thumbnail reminds me of the title screen of The Last of Us That game phenomenally captured the serene beauty of abondanded locations with old toys, diaries, and books telling lore of those that once lived there Nature recaptures buildings, structures are rotting yet left in a state that shows the shock of the game
Edith Finch, Gone Home, and Annihilation... It's crazy how many of my favourite stories from recent years you touched on in this video. I always love when I realize a new reason why I like the things I do.
"We live in the ruins of giants" is something my Old English Professor told us, so we could understand "The wanderer", and my favorite word I learned as "wintercearig", or as she translates it, "Desolate as winter"
Wow. This will haunt my thoughts for a while. A lot to think about. I recall reading about that same earthquake from the other side of the world in the news, knowing that I had family there. I watched my mother try her brother’s phone number again and again before he finally picked up and confirmed that he and all his family had survived. Now, I’m thinking about that wait. It was 10 hours in real time, but felt much longer. It was waiting to know if my cousins and uncle were dead before I even had a chance to meet them. Haunting. That’s the best description for this video. That truly personal touch, revealing why a specific experience resonates, has such a beautiful melancholy to it. Thank you for this food for thought, Tim and Alexander and everyone who made this possible.
“All anyone will be able to find of us will be the desolation we left behind. Because _it_ lasts.” “When all you are crumbles away, how are you meant to rebuild yourself? […] What are you meant to leave behind and what are you meant to move on _to_ ?” “Civilation feels like it’s going to last forever, but here it is-wiped away in an instant.” This video really resonated with me: I have always been fascinated with abandoned places, with the aftermath of destruction (same reason I find post-apocalyptic media very intriguing). I had chills throughout the entire video, because some segments were worded in an incredibly powerful way. They hit me in the heart, the sentences entered my soul, and I think they will stay there for a while. I attend a literature course at my high school which is taught by an amazing teacher, and he asked us to have a notebook where we write quotes or show paintings or whatever piece of art we find that resonates with us, and that makes us think. I want you to know, Tim, if you ever read this, that your video has found its place in that notebook. Your content is always top tier, I feel so lucky to have found your channel years ago. Thank you
I was genuinely thinking about how this felt like a really good Jacob Geller video, and then suddenly he showed up. I love this so much, great video Tim! ❤️
I had this video among others opened up in tabs last night, but it was getting late so I came back to watch things today. Got to this one, thought, "oh yeah, the new Jacob Gellar video," because I only looked at the image, and was startled when it started playing. "Wait, Jacob Gellar doesn't have that accent."
My manager showed this to me today and within the first few seconds I told him "This is exactly like something I'd watch" thinking about Jacob Geller xD
at 23:00 a sinular experiance happened to me and that hit home for me. In 2018 a earthquak hit my city, the strongest in years lasting less than a minuite but feeling like it lasted forever. The city rebuilt and barly anyone was hurt but the scars are still left behind, enywere and everywere you look. walls cracked and streets broken. just left behind. paved over repainted the scars still there but hidden.
Another marvelous piece! I often catch myself thinking how beautiful a place or a building would be if abandoned for a couple decades. It soothes me. I find beauty in nature and man-made getting tangled together, sometimes handsomely, sometimes predatory.
Nature is adaptable beyond almost anything we've made. Eventually, the man-made constructions start to appear like an integral part of the local environment. Xenoblade 3 has a particularly good instance of this in my opinion, complete with a small colony of people deep in the woods with no understanding of the skyscrapers around them as anything more than a part of the forest and landscape.
I visited Christchurch in late 2019. I was only 7 when the earthquake happened, but I still remember seeing it on the news. Visiting the city 8 years on, you can still feel the scars it's left, in the people just as much as in the landscape. What's beautiful about Christchurch is the acknowledgment, whether intentional, like at Al Noor Mosque, or unintentional, like the cathedral, that scars don't go away. Christchurch's scars are sad, but they're also a reminder of the outpouring of love, courage and connection that came after the tragedies of 2011 and 2019. This video captures that feeling perfectly, and Tim, I'm glad that I've been able to witness your rise as a profound, touching, inspiring video essayist. Ka pai!
One of my locations in any game is in Dear Esther. That island has the most haunting yet peaceful atmosphere. It may sound strange but I've never wanted to walk through a game world's location MORE then Dear Esther's.
I will often just go into the graveyard behind my house (it the city graveyard not a family one, there's a gap in the fence that i can get through) and just stay out their, lay down on the bench in the sun, sometimes listening to a podcast, sometimes just in silence. Also my family moved to this town less then a decade ago, so I'm not related to anyone in the graveyard. I can't point to any emotion i get from it, knowing that the remains, just 6 feet under, were all people, with their own lives, their own story, each having felt love, sadness, rage, joy, and each causing others to feel these ways
The point you raise about places we frequented as children is a very good one. I took a class called "peer tutoring" in grade 11, which had me and another student going next door to the elementary school to be teaching assistants for our grade 3 teacher back in the day. I hadn't been in that school in about 5 years and a 1.5 foot growth spurt. The first several weeks of that were incredibly claustrophobic because my brain was expecting a building to be substantially larger - the ceilings to be 2 feet out of reach instead of the length of an upraised arm, the halls maybe 20-30% wider, etc. Because when you grow, from your perspective, it's not that you grow it's that everything else shrinks. It's just rare that you get the chance to explore a space where your brain expects proportions based on how big you were at 11 years old, but you're now an adult.
I was one of the first 175 to watch after 30 minutes I update and its still... 175. To me it feels like more people SHOULD be here, that weird feeling where more people should be in an area than actually are. Thank you for the video, I enjoyed it immensely.
I live near an area of Connecticut that was once referred to as the Brass Valley. An area of several towns where the brass mills touched everyone's lives. Some towns only existed because of those mills. The mills and factories are all gone now. Some places reclaimed and repurposed but others dark and silent monuments to a time long gone. The very last made it into the 21st century before it went cold forever, but even then most of the buildings were no longer used. Abandoned and desolate even though just a few meters away there was still light and life. Whenever I had reason to go past this place it always seemed to me like a giant who had taken a mortal blow and lay down to slowly die. I still think about the feelings that place evoked when I first saw it.
My grandad lives on a farm in Scotland and I live in a city in England. I love visiting him in the holidays and wandering around near his house. There is the freedom to roam act there so you can just pick a direction and walk. There are loads of abandoned cottages in fields near where he lives. I like growing bonsai so I frequently go to the cottages to look for saplings. You walk over collapsed livestock fences and garden fences, see rogue garden plants in clumps and come across old barns with birds nesting in holes in the walls. Then there are the cottages. Most have caved in roofs and floors with full on trees growing from the strong stone walls roots winding through gaps and anchoring them. You can climb in through the window holes as the glass is long gone. The floors inside are just layers of roofing tiles and large pieces of stone from the top of the walls. Trees are often growing inside as grazing animals struggle to get to any saplings in time so you get enclosed miniature forests that you just see the canopy of from the outside. If you look at the walls you see the holes in the stone where wooden beams used to slot in order to support the upper floor. You also see the old fire places. I once had an owl swoop out of the upper floor fireplace and right over my head it was startling and magical. A few years ago (pre COVID) I stumbled upon an abandoned cottage that I hadn't looked at before and it must have been more recently deserted as it still had most of its roof. The front door was off its hinges and the floor had rotted so I stayed at the door and nosey-ed about a bit. From the doorway I could see plastered walls with bits of vertically striped wallpaper still clinging on in places, a slightly dodgy looking staircase, gross curtains protected by dirty glass windows, internal doorways without doors and a sagging ceiling. I really wanted to investigate further but it looked a bit dangerous and I had my grandad's dog with me. Other amazingly atmospheric abandoned places to visit are the bunkers in France. They are dotted all over the place. You will be wandering along a beautiful sandy beach, then you go round a sand dune and suddenly there is a depressing looking concrete bunker just sinking into the sand at funny angles. They often have cracked, graffiti covered walls. Some have large bits of metal (that look like giant staples) set in the walls at regular intervals that some people used to climb onto the top. They looked a bit rusty and I am a big fat porker so I didn't climb them.
As someone, who often wanders alone, often wanders lost places and empty city streets alone, I absolutly get this feeling. I have felt it many times, it's like an old friend to me.
One of the reasons why I love the old Slenderverse series like Marbel Hornets, Tribetwelve and specially Everymanhybrid was because of the constant exploration of abandoned places as part of the stories. They gave off a sense of a natural balance of contradictions. The places where retaken by nature as if the human hand cannot win against the universe while at the same time they still stood there establishing that they were strong and efficient enough to remain and make their mark on the world. Not only that but the constant exploration of this places kinda fitted with the stories. The series were about regular teenagers documenting their continued encounters with strange entities that were borderline Lovecraftian: the Slenderman, Firebrand and whatever the frack HABIT was. Beings that always existed in the universe and worse in the protagonists lives that suddenly decided to show up and mess with them, most of the time in abandoned areas. It make sense that they were encountered in places like this. Not just because of the lack of witness (and necessary privacy to film the stories) but because they were reflections of each other, they were old, forgotten, dangerous and hard to find but still left a mark on people's lives, for better or worse. Even the protagonists of the stories fitted into this. They were always alone and isolated, there was almost nobody around and they had little interaction with other people. It gave them the impression of being outcasts, forced to face this things all on their own and one didn't know if this similarities were the reason why they were the chosen victims of this beings or the entities themselves twisted the world around them so they would always be isolated making them easy prey.
If you're ever in the UK, I'd suggest visiting the remains of Derwent in Derbyshire. It is very literally a drowned village, it gives a very different sense of loss because so much of it is obscured by mud (do be careful though, one person had to get rescued because he got stuck)
Very surprised to see Christchurch on here! I was there the day of the quake as well, my husband lost several friends in the CTV building. Kia kaha from Wellington.
Goodness, Tim. Your videos are always special, but seeing you out in the world, with very real and tangible examples of what it is you are teaching to us, this is something special. You should be very proud.
Games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild are my favorite way to explore abandoned places. You, as the main character, freely move between the ruins of a civilization long gone and the smattering of communities that have popped up since. Each time you explore a ruin, you learn a little bit more about that time long ago and it changes you, the main character, giving you knowledge that sets you apart from anyone else you encounter.
This video perfectly describes that feeling I had when first playing Metroid Prime and arriving in Tallon IV. It is a feeling I will never be able to describe with another word than intoxicating, alluring, creeping in slowly. When I am alone I feel safer and in peace. Is hard to get that feeling again in videogames these days or going anywhere in real life without going somewhere safe. What an amazing video!
I know TLOU/2 footage was used, but I do wish that some of their stories was used too. There are a lot of great little stories hidden in the collectibles left by the old world and survivors alike, as well as in the environments in the game. It’s so good.
This reminds me of a quote from Dr Who in the episode Blink: Sally: I love old things, they make me feel sad Kathy: What's good about being sad Sally: It's happy for deep people
A fun fact…. We had a sort of role playing at school for Chernobyl (like the actual nuclear reactor Melt down) I wasn’t part of that session I was in another but once I saw this title I was like “you really are from the future”
I remember back in 2015, my favorite kinds of videos on UA-cam were abandoned house explorations. There's just something so beautifully haunting about a place where people used to live but no longer do.
I started thinking about not a specific place, but a kind of place. Many of the rural areas in the Midwest where I live are losing population. Towns that once held 15,000 now struggle to keep 3,000. Places that were the centers of commerce for areas are now little more than crossroads or, if they're lucky, truck stops. The changing economics or social pressures have lead many to leave for the cities or at least the places that managed to stay relevant. I've always felt it when I drive to see family. It's always present but more noticeable if I avoid the interstate freeways and take the small two-lane highways. You can drive for miles and see no other cars or even people. Homes, sometimes farmhouses sometimes just a single house, alone in a forest or field, isolated and separated from the world. Especially in the early morning or at dusk, when the shadows are so much bigger. It feels empty. Even with cities relatively close by, it feels like you've dropped out of the world.
There was something powerful and overwhelming in this video.I found myself crying by the end and I did not really know why. I can say that I was reminded of the town of Lac Mégantic (Québec). In 2013, there was a train wreck that caused a huge explosion downtown. I went to the town a few years ago, and to this day there is only a big empty space in the middle of the town. I was also reminded of the old abandoned factory in the town I grew up in. Teenagers would go there to drink, far away from adult eyes. It stood by the gorge, tall, with a noble, mysterious air, as you entered the town. Thank you for making this video. I did not know I needed it.
This meditation on Abandoned places, desolation, and the mercilessness of passing time leads me to want to ask - You good, Tim? This sort of thing has gotten hold of me deep in darkness in the past, leading to some depression spiraling, so I hope you are good. :)
I think this is my favourite thing you've made. The discussion of the earthquake and how it impacted you and Christchurch as a whole hit me. I remember hearing the news. Thank you for telling us about it - I've always wanted to visit, to see both what remains untouched even after, and to see what's been created anew. Listening to this now, I think when I finally do get to visit, I shall go alone.
Genuinely love this. As someone who lives in an old town, seeing the abandoned and old builidings around me are so fascinating. Also, idk if Abandoned Places is an actual game or just you picking the best title for this video
I just want to say thank you for this one! I had a similar experience last year actually. Last fall I had to go into my office to pick up my work computer as my company officially transitioned us to working from home after an improvised spring at the beginning of the pandemic. I hadn't been there since everything went down - in fact I still remember leaving my office hastily, grabbing only what I needed because we were promised it would only be a few weeks working from home. When I walked back into my office six months later, it was eerie how everything was exactly as I had left it before the pandemic struck. My notes about some sale or customer hastily scrawled on a piece of paper near my keyboard. A pop tart box full of wrappers I intended to throw out but never did. It was like the room was frozen in time. Something big had happened there, and then been perfectly preserved. Truthfully it felt super apocalyptic and powerful, and the haunting feeling has stuck with me since.
I'm a bit speechless, some of the thoughts on Christchurch kind of puts into words some of the things I have been thinking, I went down there for the first time in two years last week for my Dad's birthday, and despite some rebuilding, there was a heavy sense of loss still? Like in two years since I last visited not much has healed (nor much has healed in the 5 years since I lived there, or the 10 years since the feb quake) It's like its stuck in time? it's a very eerie feeling. Then returning back home to Wellington, it's like a city that is waiting to turn to ruins, resigned to the same fate, everywhere there are 'this building isnt up to earthquake code' signs that have been sitting in windows for years, and there are a number of buildings seemingly abandoned and falling into disrepair because no one wants to pay for earthquake strengthening, yet no one wants to tear them down because the architecture are historical examples and character of Wellington. Words are a bit of a jumble, but very emotional subject right now.
I've recently been looking into "Akiya homes" in Japan, unoccupied houses for sale with a varying array of prices. Looking through photos of some of these units, it's haunting, almost unsettling. A lot of the houses need renovation or restoration, to be cleaned up and brought up to a decent condition, and sometimes there's items or objects left behind. Just enough that it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand.
The area i live is filled with scattered abandoned locations all from different decades and styles of buildings overlapping each other. They've always felt so distant and old. Monuments to better times.
I visited an old childhood home almost a decade after I had left it. The home had been old and falling apart when we'd lived there but I was young enough at the time to not really notice. When I revisited, it was all but abandoned. The main bedroom was the only room somewhat regularly inhabited but all the other rooms were relatively empty. It was very weird to stand in it and look at my old room, see it abandoned and falling apart but my memories of the space causing faint echoes of the life we'd had there. Not sure how to put into words the very complex emotions I felt in that space. But I'm glad for it.
@@skullsquad900 Joyless has a video talking about multiplayer kaps being creepy. There's also another one made by someone else that focuses specifically on Source games.
This is a truly remarkable piece, Tim. Seeing our own backyard featuring in this incredible thought piece just rams it home so much harder. The stories I feel the most power from are the ones where the point is our impermanence; here you've explained exactly why. I'm actually seriously considering moving to Christchurch at the moment; I see so much potential for the city to evolve into something truly awesome, making the best of a truly terrible situation. But my visits always have me caught up in the melee of traffic, shopping malls, those friggen' amazing hills along the peninsula, the beaches, the markets (how good is the Bush Inn night market?!)...you've made me realise that my visits have all been too rushed, too full of action and run by an itinerary. For the next, I really ought to just...stop, breathe, observe, and listen. The excitement of progress can never truly pave over what was there before. And this, perhaps, is why so many of us feel such power from the heritage sites dotted around Aotearoa, even if the only evidence of prior settlement is a convenient clearing. I'll be exploring these with new eyes, too. Thank you for making this. Seriously.
My unfinished MA thesis was about the places and the stories they inspire. I'm from near a resort and in the five years there was a lot of development in cultural tourism. That resort is almost entirely staffed and inhabited by the people from my village and they started offering tours all over the area talking about local myths and legends. I remember my grandma taking me to the Witches' gorge and the cave at the top of a cliff where now a huge staircase is made for the tourists (that cave is now said to have housed a Saint and water in it is healing). My conclusion was that most of it was made up wholesale (the stories about the places) but they were nevertheless genuine. Nowadays if your did not take a selfie in front of the boulder that looks like a hag's head you may as well not have come to that resort. Keith Basso was like 25% of my bibliography.
This is probably my favourite video ever. I always found fascination with abandoned places and nature not caring what was once there, yet I couldn't understand why, this video made me realized that reason.
I've personally always loved the urban explorer genre for the whimsy you experience exploring ruins both new and old. In my favorite Manga Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind there is mention and brief segments of exploring an entire civilization engulfed by the fungal forest. It's such a cool setting and always gets my mind whirring for world building
This was really a wonderful and beautiful video! I can only imagine how much extra time and labor went into this for you and your editor and others involved. Just wanted to say: it’s appreciated and worth it. This was really a great piece!
I literally cried with how beautiful and resonating this is, especially at a time in the pandemic when things continue to be hard despite everything. Please continue what you do.
I still remember when WolfQuest first released the map for Lost River... It felt so eerie to me and it still does and to then soon after learn that it was based on a real place sent a chill down my spine
Thank you, Tim. Your video let me reconnect with the dark romanticism of my youth. The fascination with abandoned placed, ruins specifically, stems from their transion from one dichotomy, as you put it, to another and in doing so harmonizing them. Many of the things you describe also bring back memories of strolling through graveyards.
This is a REAAALLY interesting thought piece. I have rarely had an experience like that, as I typically never travel to places alone. Maybe that should change at some point.
Well done, Tim. Thank you. Such a small scale in comparison, but a few years ago I had the opportunity to explore my high school during a time when no one else was around. I was alone within my past and kept noticing things subtly different or out of place. It had been over a decade since I'd been there as a student and it had moved on yet so much of it was exactly the same. I've never been to any well-known locations like this, but feeling rather than just knowing the past seems like something worth pursuing.
There's an abandoned homestead near my childhood home. It failed in the great depression. A rotting house, some scraps of rusting metal that were once a car, an old brass bed frame, an orchard that's at the end of its fertility. Apples and pears and plums that mostly just feed the deer and the bears. But a hundred years ago, a family lived there. Working and hoping, building and growing. And it's all gone except a few mouldering old things. A small personal disaster of a life's work forcibly abandoned.
I've been watching Shabaa and Jamie's playthrough of "Tell me why" in which the two protagonists go back to the house they used to live in 10 years ago but had to leave cause of a murder and it also has that abandoned feeling which just sucks you in and it feels cozy and comfortable but also so incredibly scary and that mixture is so strange. Thanks to you I managed to convince my boyfriend and our bookclub that we should read Annihilation as our next book and they all love it :3 So thanks for the experience Tim ^.^/*
sometimes in the abandoned places you can feel the eyes on you of those who have gone before and hear their whispers in your ears, their forms just out of eyeshot and their voices masked by the silence.
I loved this. I need more of this. I hadn't realized why I liked Annihilation so much, either. Thank you. I'll need to start playing those games. I'm a bit freaked out because when you mentioned how there are marks in those places that help you understand what happened I remembered "There will Come Soft rains" immediately, and then you bring it up too! And the quote about desolation is my favorite from Annihilation. Beautiful, powerful video.
Beautiful Episode, I absolutely loved this! I recently took a two-week design certification course and one of the things we talked about is sacred spaces. Physical locations in a community seem to have their own power and sense of awe, whether it be for religion or other reasons. It feels to me like you've really nailed how these abandoned places can have a sort of sanctity to them that almost transcends words in the feelings it evokes and how experiencing them by yourself can be such a powerful experience. Thanks for another great video!
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When did the desolation colonise you?
~ Tim
From the beginning.
Please read the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy. Annihilation is just the first book.
@@jasontankable I had no idea there was a coninuation!!! Definitely gonna look into it, thank you!
The red forrest is interesting, ther in the 12 monkey series, thats brilliant mystery time travel scifi drama that also fun exit one, especialy season 2-4 that is it gets so much , its also so good integrating the learning to move on, being trapped in the past valuing time we have, and the antagonists actually have a reason that is justified or reasonably as have the heroes tht are ight but still , but its good in 1 too, , i didnt thought there were a real red forrest.
And th twists are that good dont spoil yourself, thre are really good misleading and twists that are organic in the story.
There is a youtube docimentry of japan abroad about how japanese people dealt with the tsunami, and its, fitting. One person even preserve a building, others dis do new opportunities. Like the ffisher aking a service to call people in th morning to make pr for fishermen and women i guess after.
When I realized my dreams of being able to stand on my own feet would always be out of reach.
Cleaning up a relative's place after they died has a very similar effect. Everything from the left behind food in their fridge to how much toilet paper is left on the roll-- just mundane things gaining completely new value and meaning. Great video as always!
How morbid and sweet
!!! I haven't seen enough people talk about this. I'm going through my grandma's stuff and it's just. Tax returns from 1972. Things she clearly thought she'd use. Things that got set down in 1950 and never picked back up.
My aunt lived with my grandmother, her mother, her entire life. It used to be her, her brothers, my grandmother, and my great grandmother. Eventually my father and uncle moved out to make families of their own. She never did. It's not good or bad, maybe she just never found the need (or courage) to leave.
A house of 5, plus visitors, slowly became a house of 3 and when my great grandmother died when I was a baby it became a house of 2 and old memories. Dad and uncle and us kids always visited, but the cracks were there. Grandma started hoarding and it got worse when she got Alzheimers. The house was never cleaned, even after grandma had to be put in a home when taking care of her was too much for my aunt to handle.
Grandma recently died. I can't say I feel bad. I never really got to know her, and by the time she did she couldn't remember us either. Everything she left behind is still in that house though, never cleaned, never touched by my aunt who still lives there. Her old jewelry and magazines from Marshall Field's and church gloves simply covered up by piles of new things, things she would've never been able to imagine when she first moved in around my age some 60 years ago.
This place that was a fossil even when I was young, that I'd visit and be babysat in after school and later come to so I could babysit my grandmother... The whispers of abandoned places always echoed there even before I was old enough to recognize its voice. Eventually it will be my siblings', counsins', and I's job to clean it. And it's gonna be one hell job to do.
@@RoseEyed my grandma was a hoarder too..! Honestly you will need to rent a dump truck or some such eventually
I kinda feel this with my grandpa right now. We always lived together, but when he got older, he had terrible knee pain, so we decided on surgery. He got his knee replaced but he didn't like the surgery at all, so when his other knee started hurting, we decided he shouldn't repeat the experience. For this reason, his mobility was limited and he mostly stayed in the living room. Particularly in the bed. We lost him last sunday, and going into the living room is very strange now. I laid in his bed today, and it's reminding me of how I'd sleep with him when I was in kindergarten, but now it's different. Now it's just me. Well, my mom and my grandma are still there, but it's strange with just three ladies in a house like ours, you know? We always had some man around, wether that'd be my brother, my grandpa, my uncle or my dad. Now it's just us.
In Germany we have the word "Ruinenlust", the enjoyment of visiting ruins and abondend places and I feel it hard. To see and realice that everything that we deem eternal will sooner or later turn into dust and rubble, is as awe inspiring as it is terrifying.
(Wow, thanks for the like ^^)
Oh hab das Wort noch nie zuvor gehört. Werde es definitiv brauchen!
@@theswissmiss69
Freut mich zu hören :D
Wow I love that!
Ruinenlust and kenopsia, my two new favourite words I have recently learnt about :)
@Nines
And the way German works, we can allways make more :D
What I admire the most about abandoned/ruined places is that it allows readers to ask the question, "wow, I wonder what this looked like when it was up and running" Horizon zero dawn was great at this in my opinion.
Bioshock and Fallout had that same feel. I really like to explore those types of worlds to try to figure out what it was like before it all became abandoned/ruined
Yeah, zero dawn really is a beautiful game lol
I kinda got that feeling from Slime Rancher, specifically from the ruins at the end of the glass desert. And from Outer Wilds, exploring a solar system that is full of buildings made by another died out civilization.
I get a similar feeling from Monster Hunters numerous ruins, from Castle Schrade's foreboding atmosphere, to the Twisted Summits role as a battleground for powerful creatures.
When I played Horizon, I was wandering around and came to a ruined wind farm. As I was looking around I thought “This is my world here.” Those are things I see regularly, and as I kept exploring I had a mixed feeling of Nature at last overthrowing man’s creations and man’s creations still existing despite all nature has done.
Roses mentioned she did a recording for this but I completely forgot and did a big double-take when she started talking.
Hi, Mr. Dom! It fills me with joy that you're sufficiently friends with Miss Roses that you and her talk about each others' collabs/contributions to other UA-camrs.
I love that I keep finding you on random videos by content creators I love.
This is an extraordinary piece of media, you should be very proud of what you’ve created.
Yes! It is great! I agree you should be proud!
And the music you chose only amplifies the feelings those locations give you when you hear of / see them both in games and otherwise
I'm taken aback; it's awesome 🤔.
Empty/Abandoned places hold something almost special. For me, they can make me feel both safe and on edge. There's a mixture of feelings that comes from being in these places which just makes them all the more interesting. Great video!
I have a story in mind but I couldn't figure out where to have it set but your comment on feeling both safe and on edge (the feel I was going for for my story) helped me settle on a setting. Thank you, kind internet stranger. 😊
It shifts how we see and what we fear. In your daily life you fear things such as embarrassing yourself in front of colleagues or losing someone you love. But in the unknown the known cannot find you, and you are freed of those chains into the chance of what has not been charted by human hands.
I love to watch videos on channels such as Shiey. Seeing all these places in the state they are in, is just awesome.
I agree, they are both kind of peaceful (because you are alone in the building), which brings a certain safety, but also alarming (because you may think you are alone, but you can't be sure it is or will stay that way).
This video brings back memories of when I sifted through the ashes of my childhood home after a wildfire left nothing but a blackened chimney, a misshapen shower, a charred exercise bike, and a large, house-shaped silhouette of cinders.
I know this is years later but I'm sorry that happened to you and your family. :(
Hello my friend
I’m sorry for your loss, I know it’s “just a house” but I am sorry it happened to yours
Your channel has a special kind of magic. I'll forget it exists for ages, and then one of your videos pops up and I spend an evening binging everything you made after the last time I watched.
this made me very happy to read :)
I have had the exact same story I was here as a small child watching HTTYD content then as i have began to love writing and stringing worlds together i have found this great channel again
@@HelloFutureMe Hi :)
When I was moving to a new city to start a new life 10 years ago, I remember late one night, before closing the door to my old apartment, looking into the dark rooms one last time, and sensing a creature crawling on the walls in there, unresolved, unfullfilled, left behind, frozen in time. I missed my bus, started walking the streets at midnight, not a human or sound was there. A piece of grafitti said "like a hollow ghost, floating through the emptiness of the streets" No idea who wrote it, no hits on Google, but knew it was refering to me. I crossed a bridge, got into the taxi, and I was gone.
A near literal representation of the universe saying "Don't you think there's something left to do...?"
My experience is to never ignore that shit unless you know where to go next. So good job making it 10 years!
This was like a short ghost/horrorstory
hope you're doing well these days
I love abandoned places in games, and I think Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did this super well with it's Hyrule Castle town, as there are enemies haunting the land and guarding what is left. However, I also love turning an abandoned place into a populated place. This doesn't happen often, but side quests for Terry Town in BotW turned a small plateau into a nice little community, and it felt like you were restoring a small part of what was lost in the last 100 years of the game's story. It was really cathartic for me to see both sides in that game, which is why Terry Town is my favorite side quest ever.
There are several examples of storytelling through setting in that game from the scattered destroyed villages and how weapons and items are placed to where large numbers of fallen Guardians are (Akala Citadel, religiously significant places, ect).
The game makes great use of this kind of desolation while still leaving room for hope and even joy in the moment. At the same time, the traveling NPCs share stories and goals that make it clear that the cities may be gone, but the people are not dead or nor the legacy truly forgotten yet.
The main quest of elder scrolls online has you populate a city in a demonic realm. Filling the empty houses with lifes until theres saved elfes singing on the street and a market full of brave smiths feels just so good. You take back land from the lord of violence himself and make it home.
Fallout does this quite well too; you go exploring and find all these small moments of the past, from journal entries on computers to small graves with toys on them. Its one of the things that make the game great, at least in my opinion.
I was thinking of BotW all through this too. I remember finding a house (or at least half of one) all alone out in a field in the middle of a thunder storm. It somehow looked so much more desolate than any other ruined house I had seen, so I went to examine it… and the only item inside was an arrow stuck in the wall. It was one of the most poignant moments I’ve ever experienced in a game, and like much of BotW, the fact that it was totally unscripted and unexpected made it all the more affecting.
Agreed! BoTW is amazing in using its environment to tell a story; whenever you explore the world you'll come across these abandoned, broken houses and villages and it’s a chilling reminder that the land used to be full of life. Fort Hateno especially, you can tell that something big happened there and when you finally watch the memory it all clicks.
"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'"
-Percy Shelley.
I’ve always loved this poem
This poem is incredible and fits this video perfectly
One of the greatest tragedies is Percy Shelley's untimely death, a truly incredible writer who we lost far too soon
In the woods behind my childhood house there was an old car by a mossy pond. Nothing ever seemed to move or change, not even the water.
A few miles away there was a whole abandoned town from the early 1900s. I never was able to go inside but I could watch as we drove by and my imagination would just churn.
I still think about those stories I imagined even after I learned the truth about them.
What was the truth about that town if I may ask
We have a 1950's car at the bottom of a cliff by the side of our gold-mining river, the bonnet flung across the other side, stuck at an angle in the ground. The car is covered with bullet-holes, and remains a mystery.
@@aldousboal4920
The area had a resource, people moved in to extract it, the town got built, the resource was exhausted, everyone left.
I don't KNOW that's the case here, but I'm certain given how common this is.
@@aldousboal4920 eminant domain stuff, where property was "borrowed" and never given back
The script for this was stunning. Also... you're the second person to mention House Of Leaves to me this week.
Because you should read it ;)
~ Tim
Seconded, I've not read anything else quite like it and everyone should have a chance at that experience
thirded, it is an incredible book.
I fourth that you should read House of Leaves, but with the caveat that I STRONGLY recommend reading it simultaneously with someone else, so that you have another person to discuss the text with, because it is very much a text that demands discussion. And to take your time with it. A close friend of mine and I read it as a two person book club over the course of two months recently, and I honestly wish that we had taken it a bit more slowly.
In talking about art, few UA-cam essays become art themselves. This essay should be a model for any creators trying to make art in talking about art. Beautiful work.
You should check out Jacob Geller if you haven't already
Eh, I think there are lessons to be learned from it, but it also serves as an example of "too much of a good thing." There are probably a dozen different statements that are trying really hard to be fade-outs/mic-drops and it gets a little tiresome, for example.
The ideas in the essay are really good, as is the creation of a real life walking stimulator to serve as background
It's really strange when you encounter your own memories becoming an abandoned place. I'm from christchurch, and during the quakes, my parents as we lived in Australia cried out as my grandparents phone signal cut due to the tremors. An auntie saw the CCTV building go down, and my childhood optometrist died while trying to recover something from his local church. The home my maternal grandparents started their nz life in was abandoned because they were red-zoned. Over 40 years of living there after immigrating, raising their children, seeing their grandchildren visit, and it was beyond chance of recovery in such a quick moment. Vandals and looters quickly trashed the place along with other homes nearby. Nothing stolen but a sacred space to us was tarnished. When I was able to visit after the quakes, I couldn't recognize the land where my old school was. The century old church was gone. The roads had changed, and now it was just green grass with native trees. Much as I miss everything, I can't help but feel a little bit comforted that nature took over instead
Shit, I decided to rewatch this and now realise I had missed this comment, he was my family's optometrist too. I never meet him as I didn't have any eyesight issues but most of my family had. The redzone is a peaceful, beautiful but also haunting area, deserves a lot more attention.
A beautiful dissertation on an idea that is so close to everyone's heart!
It feels very personal and relatable.
For you in New Zealand it's earthquakes.
For us in Australia bushfires are our event of desolation.
For the world, that desolation may be Covid.
These are reminders of the earth's ability to override our power; but also its ability to build us and make us feel more...
Alive.
I personally think that when science-fiction marries horror, the child can be something great. And sci-fi is not just about robots and space; it's about ideas. It's about depth, profundity of thought, emotion and experience. A sense of wonder, the feeling of awe that we all long for, and desperately try to find, even if we don't think about it consciously.
Desolation, emptyness of space, vacancy where it is not expected faces us with a particular sense of humility which is a characteristic of sci-fi and horror; it makes us realize one true fact about our circumstance:
We are alone, and there's something magical about that.
And that feeling, though tapped into much more easily when one is surrounded by desolation and emptyness, can also be felt when one is surrounded by people. One has to only look deeper, and pay more attention to the quality of one's immediate experience in the face of everything.
These locations also have a certain religious, nay, spiritual aura to them, and that is precisely due to their unquestionable power in inducing an urge of self-reflection in us. They make us think and feel more deeply about everything, especially ourselves, and what this all means to us.
Emptyness, vacancy, desolation can indeed be terrorizing and horrific, or beautiful and calming, but they are always, regardless of all else, magical.
This video was absolutely brilliant and amazing. Certain parts were breath-taking; you have made something special. The writing, the narration, the editing, the music, everything was on point.
This is quality youtube. Thank you :)
Perfectly sums up how I feel about this ❤️❤️
@@jasperfurniss1073 :)
The powerlessness of experiencing a story that already happened that you have no control over and are not responsible for is what i love about so many of these games specifically nieR:automata finding out how much you were wrong is just incredible
I think dark souls uses this really well, although it's a mix of an abandoned and a dying world.
exploring a world during the final momments of its slow desolation
I moved into a college dorm this year. My roommate didn’t come in for another week. Coming into that empty unoccupied dorm was... off. Now it is lived in, decorated, etc. But it is still not my room
My room is a state away, and it has been cleaned out and turned into a guest bedroom. When I return for thanksgiving break, I know not how my room will be desolated.
This video, describing empty, abandoned places and desolation is very resonant for me right now. I appreciate this greatly. Thank you, Hello Future Me.
I felt the same way when I went to college, but my dorm rooms increasingly became “my” space, so much so that when I moved home temporarily after college, it felt like my personal home had been taken away from me. Family home will always be First Home, but I’ve enjoyed the homes I’ve made for myself after that very much. I even miss my own personal place when I am visiting family for a long time. There’s something about nesting into a place for a while and filling it with memories that makes it feel… right.
Hollow knight did this so well to me. Especially in the city of tears.
A beautiful metropolis in its heyday, bathed in never ending rain due to the lake above it, now an abandon city with only a murmur of what it was due to the animated dead still repeating their actions before their death in a never ending dream and the rain mimicking tears. As if the city cries for what it was before the infection...
Yessss! And also Rain World. I don't know if you know this game, but it's beautiful
@spacenoodle8207 I do! and I was engulfed in the story. It took me way over 200 cycles to finish the game but I loved it
Last of us 2 really gave me a sense of yearning for these abandoned places and wishing I could live among the ruin. There is something so hauntingly beautiful about nature reclaiming it’s place over bricks, metal, buildings. It touches me and yet disturbs and vexes me all at once. I am completely in love with what is abandoned.
Also after watching the full video; you put a serious pit in my stomach towards the end about picking up and moving on. It’s something I struggle to do with my own past and I think you have given me a revelation I really needed to hear today. Thank you for that and of course I look forward to all your videos. This video in particular though, was an absolute masterpiece. Also got to learn something about New Zealand history that I didn’t know before. Thank you for sharing that personal and culturally significant story; it definitely honored the lives lost in every tragedy presented here.
This video is, literally, a work of art. You just earned yourself a patron, neighbour.
Tim, this is perhaps one of your best videos yet. Credit to you, seriously
As another Christchurch local, I really enjoyed and appreciated this video. The very moment the shot of you with the cathedral in the background showed up, I was feeling it hard. The way parts of the city still remain rubble, damaged and abandoned buildings, while other parts of the city are new and revitalised often provokes some interesting trains of thought.
Also, Christchurch at night is Creepy.
I love the idea of finding an abandoned city with apartment buildings all overgrown and falling apart and then exploring those buildings. Love the video!
Kind of surprised you talked about this without talking about Myst, perhaps the first game set solely on exploring an abandoned land and figuring out what happened there.
Desolation does have a powerful impact, even when you're in a place it doesn't really make sense for it to feel that way. I'm having to be in my parents' house during this time, a big house where for holidays, there's a good chance for my sister and brother to bring home their spouses and children then also have some family friends over. The days I'm in the place all alone though, it feels desolated. It's not meant to be a house for only one person, it's meant to house a family with kids wandering about, one of whom could inherit the house and raise their own family there if they wished. It feels like a place that ought to be a generational house, passing down through the family from generation to generation until the end of time. It's the only home I've really known, only slightly older than I am since my parents had it built then moved into it before I was even conceived, and yet, it feels like there's a weight to it, hoping to once again be the home of a growing family with mirth and joy within, fearful of being made smaller or being altered into a single bachelor pad or simply being abandoned without a chance to build the history it should have.
It's, not the tragic desolation that you've gone through. It is a way I've experienced desolation though.
"There Will Come Soft Rains" is actually recreated as location in "Fallout 3" game. There is still Mr Handy robot making them meal every day.
Really? Where?
@@TheSchultinator The McClellan Family Townhome in Georgetown
This is why I don’t watch TV anymore. I even teared up for a moment. This is incredible writing and presentation.
"One of the most intoxicating books I've ever read..."
I never expected House of Leaves to catch me here, but it's been a book I've gone back to so many times, and it always puts me on edge in a way no other piece of media ever has.
It grips me, as each element of the book feels almost actively hostile to the reader in a different way. One that makes the next change of pace feel almost inviting until your hand is bitten again.
Johnny's unreliable narration. His taunting over his lies. The claustrophobic arrangements of the pages themselves. The overlapping narratives keeping you from ever really feeling comfort after that spare 1/4 inch is found. The hidden puzzles that lead only to more cryptic hints. The false citations to real articles. The strange vibrance. The way your eyes have to strain to read the red text referring to what you're not supposed to be reading anyways. The paradox of the final twists. The way you're forced to spin and tilt the book in ways that make you feel foolish reading it when you can be seen. Encouraging you to take it alone. To seclude yourself with the text. To delve deeper into the labyrinth...
Intoxicating is a word. But it's next to impossible for me not to recommend it. My mind vividly relives my first reading of it any time a mention catches me off guard.
Thank you, Tim!
In abandoned places, we are all detectives; we are all archeologists.
Beautiful music. I always feel intrigued by abandoned places. It makes me wonder what future historians and archeologists will say about us. "It was the fashion in those days it seems to be seen with fake nails, an entire industry having sprung up around this one aesthetic."
It sounds absurd when you put it that way, but now I just feel compelled to bring back powdered wigs.
The song is Phillip Ayers - Only human if you want to listen directly ua-cam.com/video/H3SbtkX8Wr4/v-deo.html
tim, i just watched this over on nebula and i have to say. i’ve been watching for years, the old how to train your dragon videos drew me in. and your commitment to your vision and content has always weighed on me and to see you come this far and create a film this well crafted and powerful really truly is uplifting. you’ve managed to express yourself and that one particular feeling that i think everyone knows but just can’t quite place in a masterful piece of art and i’m just glad i was here for it. thank you tim, and please never quit.
“…Every plant and rock and creature, has a life, has a spirit, has a name.”
I love old and abandoned places as well. The stories they hide ignites the wonderer in me.
Loved Everyone’s Gone to the Rapture. It, along with the musical score, touch me deeply.
Back when I was in college, we had a neighbor school that was mostly abandoned due to losing their accreditation over a decade prior. So a bunch of their buildings and even their football field were left to wear and tear over the years before I even became a student. Other students often wondered the old dorms and football field to see what it was like. I even helped a few of my friends shoot a horror flick there cause of the atmosphere of it. Abandoned places always have a weird mix of history and mystery to them that makes them intriguing to explore. It’s Morris Brown College in case anyone reading this is curious.
Update for those who care: Morris Brown got their accreditation back recently. So the campus is no longer abandoned. They’re up and running again.
I was the baby of my family. When I was born my siblings were teens and my parents were turning old. The house I grew up in and the countryside field in the middle of nowhere littered with their collections. Abandoned before I was ever brought back form the hospital. There to see but never experience.
The house itself falling apart as no one cared anymore. Trash pushed to the side and never removed so they didn't have to deal with it. Utilities breaking without being fixed unless they had too, tied off and never used again. The in-ground pool to the side that I was told to clean if I ever wanted to keep it everyday of every summer, not touched once since I left for college despite their promises, now home to ferns and frogs.
I cleaned, I removed, I fixed, and I mended till I was sick. I no longer care, my own soul desolate. I was raised in a house abandoned of love.
That thumbnail reminds me of the title screen of The Last of Us
That game phenomenally captured the serene beauty of abondanded locations with old toys, diaries, and books telling lore of those that once lived there
Nature recaptures buildings, structures are rotting yet left in a state that shows the shock of the game
It's so nice to see people finally talking about Edith Finch! It's honestly such a beautiful game and I cried playing it, thanks for talking about it
Edith Finch, Gone Home, and Annihilation... It's crazy how many of my favourite stories from recent years you touched on in this video.
I always love when I realize a new reason why I like the things I do.
"We live in the ruins of giants" is something my Old English Professor told us, so we could understand "The wanderer", and my favorite word I learned as "wintercearig", or as she translates it, "Desolate as winter"
This might be my favorite video of yours yet. Abandoned places might be just one of my favorite video essay themes ever.
Wow. This will haunt my thoughts for a while. A lot to think about. I recall reading about that same earthquake from the other side of the world in the news, knowing that I had family there. I watched my mother try her brother’s phone number again and again before he finally picked up and confirmed that he and all his family had survived. Now, I’m thinking about that wait. It was 10 hours in real time, but felt much longer. It was waiting to know if my cousins and uncle were dead before I even had a chance to meet them.
Haunting. That’s the best description for this video. That truly personal touch, revealing why a specific experience resonates, has such a beautiful melancholy to it. Thank you for this food for thought, Tim and Alexander and everyone who made this possible.
“All anyone will be able to find of us will be the desolation we left behind. Because _it_ lasts.”
“When all you are crumbles away, how are you meant to rebuild yourself? […] What are you meant to leave behind and what are you meant to move on _to_ ?”
“Civilation feels like it’s going to last forever, but here it is-wiped away in an instant.”
This video really resonated with me: I have always been fascinated with abandoned places, with the aftermath of destruction (same reason I find post-apocalyptic media very intriguing). I had chills throughout the entire video, because some segments were worded in an incredibly powerful way. They hit me in the heart, the sentences entered my soul, and I think they will stay there for a while. I attend a literature course at my high school which is taught by an amazing teacher, and he asked us to have a notebook where we write quotes or show paintings or whatever piece of art we find that resonates with us, and that makes us think. I want you to know, Tim, if you ever read this, that your video has found its place in that notebook. Your content is always top tier, I feel so lucky to have found your channel years ago. Thank you
I was genuinely thinking about how this felt like a really good Jacob Geller video, and then suddenly he showed up.
I love this so much, great video Tim! ❤️
I had this video among others opened up in tabs last night, but it was getting late so I came back to watch things today. Got to this one, thought, "oh yeah, the new Jacob Gellar video," because I only looked at the image, and was startled when it started playing. "Wait, Jacob Gellar doesn't have that accent."
@@amrys_argent That's fantastic
My manager showed this to me today and within the first few seconds I told him "This is exactly like something I'd watch" thinking about Jacob Geller xD
at 23:00 a sinular experiance happened to me and that hit home for me. In 2018 a earthquak hit my city, the strongest in years lasting less than a minuite but feeling like it lasted forever. The city rebuilt and barly anyone was hurt but the scars are still left behind, enywere and everywere you look. walls cracked and streets broken. just left behind. paved over repainted the scars still there but hidden.
Another marvelous piece!
I often catch myself thinking how beautiful a place or a building would be if abandoned for a couple decades. It soothes me. I find beauty in nature and man-made getting tangled together, sometimes handsomely, sometimes predatory.
Yeah, there's just a glory to the green reclaiming it's due, to the slow decay, the inevitable renewal
Nature is adaptable beyond almost anything we've made. Eventually, the man-made constructions start to appear like an integral part of the local environment. Xenoblade 3 has a particularly good instance of this in my opinion, complete with a small colony of people deep in the woods with no understanding of the skyscrapers around them as anything more than a part of the forest and landscape.
I visited Christchurch in late 2019. I was only 7 when the earthquake happened, but I still remember seeing it on the news. Visiting the city 8 years on, you can still feel the scars it's left, in the people just as much as in the landscape. What's beautiful about Christchurch is the acknowledgment, whether intentional, like at Al Noor Mosque, or unintentional, like the cathedral, that scars don't go away. Christchurch's scars are sad, but they're also a reminder of the outpouring of love, courage and connection that came after the tragedies of 2011 and 2019. This video captures that feeling perfectly, and Tim, I'm glad that I've been able to witness your rise as a profound, touching, inspiring video essayist. Ka pai!
One of my locations in any game is in Dear Esther. That island has the most haunting yet peaceful atmosphere. It may sound strange but I've never wanted to walk through a game world's location MORE then Dear Esther's.
I will often just go into the graveyard behind my house (it the city graveyard not a family one, there's a gap in the fence that i can get through) and just stay out their, lay down on the bench in the sun, sometimes listening to a podcast, sometimes just in silence. Also my family moved to this town less then a decade ago, so I'm not related to anyone in the graveyard. I can't point to any emotion i get from it, knowing that the remains, just 6 feet under, were all people, with their own lives, their own story, each having felt love, sadness, rage, joy, and each causing others to feel these ways
An absolutely beautiful video. Perhaps this is even your Magnum opus. This will be a video I will think about and come back to for a long time.
The point you raise about places we frequented as children is a very good one. I took a class called "peer tutoring" in grade 11, which had me and another student going next door to the elementary school to be teaching assistants for our grade 3 teacher back in the day. I hadn't been in that school in about 5 years and a 1.5 foot growth spurt. The first several weeks of that were incredibly claustrophobic because my brain was expecting a building to be substantially larger - the ceilings to be 2 feet out of reach instead of the length of an upraised arm, the halls maybe 20-30% wider, etc. Because when you grow, from your perspective, it's not that you grow it's that everything else shrinks. It's just rare that you get the chance to explore a space where your brain expects proportions based on how big you were at 11 years old, but you're now an adult.
I was one of the first 175 to watch
after 30 minutes I update and its still... 175.
To me it feels like more people SHOULD be here, that weird feeling where more people should be in an area than actually are.
Thank you for the video, I enjoyed it immensely.
I like how there are trees everywhere where they’re not supposed to be. It gives off this pure feeling looking at it
I live near an area of Connecticut that was once referred to as the Brass Valley. An area of several towns where the brass mills touched everyone's lives. Some towns only existed because of those mills. The mills and factories are all gone now. Some places reclaimed and repurposed but others dark and silent monuments to a time long gone. The very last made it into the 21st century before it went cold forever, but even then most of the buildings were no longer used. Abandoned and desolate even though just a few meters away there was still light and life. Whenever I had reason to go past this place it always seemed to me like a giant who had taken a mortal blow and lay down to slowly die. I still think about the feelings that place evoked when I first saw it.
My grandad lives on a farm in Scotland and I live in a city in England. I love visiting him in the holidays and wandering around near his house. There is the freedom to roam act there so you can just pick a direction and walk.
There are loads of abandoned cottages in fields near where he lives. I like growing bonsai so I frequently go to the cottages to look for saplings.
You walk over collapsed livestock fences and garden fences, see rogue garden plants in clumps and come across old barns with birds nesting in holes in the walls. Then there are the cottages. Most have caved in roofs and floors with full on trees growing from the strong stone walls roots winding through gaps and anchoring them. You can climb in through the window holes as the glass is long gone. The floors inside are just layers of roofing tiles and large pieces of stone from the top of the walls. Trees are often growing inside as grazing animals struggle to get to any saplings in time so you get enclosed miniature forests that you just see the canopy of from the outside. If you look at the walls you see the holes in the stone where wooden beams used to slot in order to support the upper floor. You also see the old fire places. I once had an owl swoop out of the upper floor fireplace and right over my head it was startling and magical.
A few years ago (pre COVID) I stumbled upon an abandoned cottage that I hadn't looked at before and it must have been more recently deserted as it still had most of its roof. The front door was off its hinges and the floor had rotted so I stayed at the door and nosey-ed about a bit. From the doorway I could see plastered walls with bits of vertically striped wallpaper still clinging on in places, a slightly dodgy looking staircase, gross curtains protected by dirty glass windows, internal doorways without doors and a sagging ceiling. I really wanted to investigate further but it looked a bit dangerous and I had my grandad's dog with me.
Other amazingly atmospheric abandoned places to visit are the bunkers in France. They are dotted all over the place. You will be wandering along a beautiful sandy beach, then you go round a sand dune and suddenly there is a depressing looking concrete bunker just sinking into the sand at funny angles. They often have cracked, graffiti covered walls. Some have large bits of metal (that look like giant staples) set in the walls at regular intervals that some people used to climb onto the top. They looked a bit rusty and I am a big fat porker so I didn't climb them.
God, I remember reading 'There will come soft rains' so distinctly. Such a quietly horrifying short story
As someone, who often wanders alone, often wanders lost places and empty city streets alone, I absolutly get this feeling. I have felt it many times, it's like an old friend to me.
One of the reasons why I love the old Slenderverse series like Marbel Hornets, Tribetwelve and specially Everymanhybrid was because of the constant exploration of abandoned places as part of the stories. They gave off a sense of a natural balance of contradictions. The places where retaken by nature as if the human hand cannot win against the universe while at the same time they still stood there establishing that they were strong and efficient enough to remain and make their mark on the world.
Not only that but the constant exploration of this places kinda fitted with the stories. The series were about regular teenagers documenting their continued encounters with strange entities that were borderline Lovecraftian: the Slenderman, Firebrand and whatever the frack HABIT was. Beings that always existed in the universe and worse in the protagonists lives that suddenly decided to show up and mess with them, most of the time in abandoned areas. It make sense that they were encountered in places like this. Not just because of the lack of witness (and necessary privacy to film the stories) but because they were reflections of each other, they were old, forgotten, dangerous and hard to find but still left a mark on people's lives, for better or worse.
Even the protagonists of the stories fitted into this. They were always alone and isolated, there was almost nobody around and they had little interaction with other people. It gave them the impression of being outcasts, forced to face this things all on their own and one didn't know if this similarities were the reason why they were the chosen victims of this beings or the entities themselves twisted the world around them so they would always be isolated making them easy prey.
I thought of Marbwl Hornets as well, but you put it into words so much better than I could
If you're ever in the UK, I'd suggest visiting the remains of Derwent in Derbyshire. It is very literally a drowned village, it gives a very different sense of loss because so much of it is obscured by mud (do be careful though, one person had to get rescued because he got stuck)
Very surprised to see Christchurch on here! I was there the day of the quake as well, my husband lost several friends in the CTV building. Kia kaha from Wellington.
Goodness, Tim. Your videos are always special, but seeing you out in the world, with very real and tangible examples of what it is you are teaching to us, this is something special. You should be very proud.
Games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild are my favorite way to explore abandoned places. You, as the main character, freely move between the ruins of a civilization long gone and the smattering of communities that have popped up since. Each time you explore a ruin, you learn a little bit more about that time long ago and it changes you, the main character, giving you knowledge that sets you apart from anyone else you encounter.
This video perfectly describes that feeling I had when first playing Metroid Prime and arriving in Tallon IV. It is a feeling I will never be able to describe with another word than intoxicating, alluring, creeping in slowly. When I am alone I feel safer and in peace. Is hard to get that feeling again in videogames these days or going anywhere in real life without going somewhere safe.
What an amazing video!
I know TLOU/2 footage was used, but I do wish that some of their stories was used too. There are a lot of great little stories hidden in the collectibles left by the old world and survivors alike, as well as in the environments in the game. It’s so good.
This reminds me of a quote from Dr Who in the episode Blink:
Sally: I love old things, they make me feel sad
Kathy: What's good about being sad
Sally: It's happy for deep people
A fun fact…. We had a sort of role playing at school for Chernobyl (like the actual nuclear reactor Melt down) I wasn’t part of that session I was in another but once I saw this title I was like “you really are from the future”
I remember back in 2015, my favorite kinds of videos on UA-cam were abandoned house explorations. There's just something so beautifully haunting about a place where people used to live but no longer do.
I started thinking about not a specific place, but a kind of place. Many of the rural areas in the Midwest where I live are losing population. Towns that once held 15,000 now struggle to keep 3,000. Places that were the centers of commerce for areas are now little more than crossroads or, if they're lucky, truck stops. The changing economics or social pressures have lead many to leave for the cities or at least the places that managed to stay relevant. I've always felt it when I drive to see family. It's always present but more noticeable if I avoid the interstate freeways and take the small two-lane highways. You can drive for miles and see no other cars or even people. Homes, sometimes farmhouses sometimes just a single house, alone in a forest or field, isolated and separated from the world. Especially in the early morning or at dusk, when the shadows are so much bigger. It feels empty. Even with cities relatively close by, it feels like you've dropped out of the world.
There was something powerful and overwhelming in this video.I found myself crying by the end and I did not really know why. I can say that I was reminded of the town of Lac Mégantic (Québec). In 2013, there was a train wreck that caused a huge explosion downtown. I went to the town a few years ago, and to this day there is only a big empty space in the middle of the town. I was also reminded of the old abandoned factory in the town I grew up in. Teenagers would go there to drink, far away from adult eyes. It stood by the gorge, tall, with a noble, mysterious air, as you entered the town. Thank you for making this video. I did not know I needed it.
This meditation on Abandoned places, desolation, and the mercilessness of passing time leads me to want to ask - You good, Tim? This sort of thing has gotten hold of me deep in darkness in the past, leading to some depression spiraling, so I hope you are good. :)
I think this is my favourite thing you've made. The discussion of the earthquake and how it impacted you and Christchurch as a whole hit me. I remember hearing the news. Thank you for telling us about it - I've always wanted to visit, to see both what remains untouched even after, and to see what's been created anew. Listening to this now, I think when I finally do get to visit, I shall go alone.
Genuinely love this. As someone who lives in an old town, seeing the abandoned and old builidings around me are so fascinating. Also, idk if Abandoned Places is an actual game or just you picking the best title for this video
"Abandoned Place" is Christchurch (in particular the area near the damaged Christchurch Cathedral)
I just want to say thank you for this one! I had a similar experience last year actually. Last fall I had to go into my office to pick up my work computer as my company officially transitioned us to working from home after an improvised spring at the beginning of the pandemic. I hadn't been there since everything went down - in fact I still remember leaving my office hastily, grabbing only what I needed because we were promised it would only be a few weeks working from home. When I walked back into my office six months later, it was eerie how everything was exactly as I had left it before the pandemic struck. My notes about some sale or customer hastily scrawled on a piece of paper near my keyboard. A pop tart box full of wrappers I intended to throw out but never did. It was like the room was frozen in time. Something big had happened there, and then been perfectly preserved. Truthfully it felt super apocalyptic and powerful, and the haunting feeling has stuck with me since.
I'm a bit speechless, some of the thoughts on Christchurch kind of puts into words some of the things I have been thinking, I went down there for the first time in two years last week for my Dad's birthday, and despite some rebuilding, there was a heavy sense of loss still? Like in two years since I last visited not much has healed (nor much has healed in the 5 years since I lived there, or the 10 years since the feb quake) It's like its stuck in time? it's a very eerie feeling.
Then returning back home to Wellington, it's like a city that is waiting to turn to ruins, resigned to the same fate, everywhere there are 'this building isnt up to earthquake code' signs that have been sitting in windows for years, and there are a number of buildings seemingly abandoned and falling into disrepair because no one wants to pay for earthquake strengthening, yet no one wants to tear them down because the architecture are historical examples and character of Wellington.
Words are a bit of a jumble, but very emotional subject right now.
As soon as this video started I immediately thought of Nier and Gone Home as my favorite abandoned places in games, glad they got talked about.
I've recently been looking into "Akiya homes" in Japan, unoccupied houses for sale with a varying array of prices. Looking through photos of some of these units, it's haunting, almost unsettling. A lot of the houses need renovation or restoration, to be cleaned up and brought up to a decent condition, and sometimes there's items or objects left behind. Just enough that it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand.
The area i live is filled with scattered abandoned locations all from different decades and styles of buildings overlapping each other. They've always felt so distant and old. Monuments to better times.
Just from the title, I knew this was going to be great. There's an uncanny beauty to abandoned spaces that you just don't find elsewhere.
I visited an old childhood home almost a decade after I had left it. The home had been old and falling apart when we'd lived there but I was young enough at the time to not really notice. When I revisited, it was all but abandoned. The main bedroom was the only room somewhat regularly inhabited but all the other rooms were relatively empty. It was very weird to stand in it and look at my old room, see it abandoned and falling apart but my memories of the space causing faint echoes of the life we'd had there. Not sure how to put into words the very complex emotions I felt in that space. But I'm glad for it.
The old call of duty’s from cod4 to black ops 1 really was scary when you was by your self in private match, would love to see a video about this
Legit, seriously, how hasn't anybody done something on it?
@@skullsquad900 Someone made a video, not necessarily about CoD itself, on that overall premise, I'll link it when I find it.
@@skullsquad900 Joyless has a video talking about multiplayer kaps being creepy. There's also another one made by someone else that focuses specifically on Source games.
It‘s like with these places, isn’t it?
A place designed for people to meet, exist, interact. Empty, devoid of what gave it meaning.
@@the_corvid97 i was going to mention the one about lonely source maps
This is a truly remarkable piece, Tim. Seeing our own backyard featuring in this incredible thought piece just rams it home so much harder. The stories I feel the most power from are the ones where the point is our impermanence; here you've explained exactly why.
I'm actually seriously considering moving to Christchurch at the moment; I see so much potential for the city to evolve into something truly awesome, making the best of a truly terrible situation. But my visits always have me caught up in the melee of traffic, shopping malls, those friggen' amazing hills along the peninsula, the beaches, the markets (how good is the Bush Inn night market?!)...you've made me realise that my visits have all been too rushed, too full of action and run by an itinerary. For the next, I really ought to just...stop, breathe, observe, and listen. The excitement of progress can never truly pave over what was there before.
And this, perhaps, is why so many of us feel such power from the heritage sites dotted around Aotearoa, even if the only evidence of prior settlement is a convenient clearing. I'll be exploring these with new eyes, too.
Thank you for making this. Seriously.
My unfinished MA thesis was about the places and the stories they inspire. I'm from near a resort and in the five years there was a lot of development in cultural tourism. That resort is almost entirely staffed and inhabited by the people from my village and they started offering tours all over the area talking about local myths and legends. I remember my grandma taking me to the Witches' gorge and the cave at the top of a cliff where now a huge staircase is made for the tourists (that cave is now said to have housed a Saint and water in it is healing). My conclusion was that most of it was made up wholesale (the stories about the places) but they were nevertheless genuine. Nowadays if your did not take a selfie in front of the boulder that looks like a hag's head you may as well not have come to that resort. Keith Basso was like 25% of my bibliography.
This is probably my favourite video ever. I always found fascination with abandoned places and nature not caring what was once there, yet I couldn't understand why, this video made me realized that reason.
I've personally always loved the urban explorer genre for the whimsy you experience exploring ruins both new and old.
In my favorite Manga Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind there is mention and brief segments of exploring an entire civilization engulfed by the fungal forest. It's such a cool setting and always gets my mind whirring for world building
Omg I love nausicaa
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
This was really a wonderful and beautiful video! I can only imagine how much extra time and labor went into this for you and your editor and others involved.
Just wanted to say: it’s appreciated and worth it. This was really a great piece!
I literally cried with how beautiful and resonating this is, especially at a time in the pandemic when things continue to be hard despite everything. Please continue what you do.
I still remember when WolfQuest first released the map for Lost River... It felt so eerie to me and it still does and to then soon after learn that it was based on a real place sent a chill down my spine
Thank you, Tim. Your video let me reconnect with the dark romanticism of my youth. The fascination with abandoned placed, ruins specifically, stems from their transion from one dichotomy, as you put it, to another and in doing so harmonizing them.
Many of the things you describe also bring back memories of strolling through graveyards.
This is a REAAALLY interesting thought piece.
I have rarely had an experience like that, as I typically never travel to places alone. Maybe that should change at some point.
Well done, Tim. Thank you.
Such a small scale in comparison, but a few years ago I had the opportunity to explore my high school during a time when no one else was around. I was alone within my past and kept noticing things subtly different or out of place. It had been over a decade since I'd been there as a student and it had moved on yet so much of it was exactly the same.
I've never been to any well-known locations like this, but feeling rather than just knowing the past seems like something worth pursuing.
I now understand why I like post-apocalyptic stories so much now. It's the remains of life left behind that intrigues me! :)
There's an abandoned homestead near my childhood home. It failed in the great depression. A rotting house, some scraps of rusting metal that were once a car, an old brass bed frame, an orchard that's at the end of its fertility. Apples and pears and plums that mostly just feed the deer and the bears.
But a hundred years ago, a family lived there. Working and hoping, building and growing. And it's all gone except a few mouldering old things. A small personal disaster of a life's work forcibly abandoned.
I've been watching Shabaa and Jamie's playthrough of "Tell me why" in which the two protagonists go back to the house they used to live in 10 years ago but had to leave cause of a murder and it also has that abandoned feeling which just sucks you in and it feels cozy and comfortable but also so incredibly scary and that mixture is so strange.
Thanks to you I managed to convince my boyfriend and our bookclub that we should read Annihilation as our next book and they all love it :3 So thanks for the experience Tim ^.^/*
sometimes in the abandoned places you can feel the eyes on you of those who have gone before and hear their whispers in your ears, their forms just out of eyeshot and their voices masked by the silence.
The intro song / music is "Philip Ayers - Only Human", for anyone wondering (like me).
You are a hero, thank you a lot
I loved this. I need more of this. I hadn't realized why I liked Annihilation so much, either. Thank you. I'll need to start playing those games.
I'm a bit freaked out because when you mentioned how there are marks in those places that help you understand what happened I remembered "There will Come Soft rains" immediately, and then you bring it up too! And the quote about desolation is my favorite from Annihilation. Beautiful, powerful video.
This made me cry. Thank you
Beautiful Episode, I absolutely loved this!
I recently took a two-week design certification course and one of the things we talked about is sacred spaces. Physical locations in a community seem to have their own power and sense of awe, whether it be for religion or other reasons. It feels to me like you've really nailed how these abandoned places can have a sort of sanctity to them that almost transcends words in the feelings it evokes and how experiencing them by yourself can be such a powerful experience.
Thanks for another great video!