The Power of Abandoned Places

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Tim Hickson
PO Box 69062
Lincoln, 7608
Canterbury, New Zealand
Script by meeeeeeeee
Video edited by Cuenin (99% of the time) over at / @cueninscove
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Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
Chernobyl clips from WSJ, Getty, and Blockchain travel.
Stay nerdy!
Tim

[@HelloFutureMe]

When did the desolation colonise you? ~ Tim

[@BlackReshiram]

From the beginning.

[@jasontankable]

Please read the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy. Annihilation is just the first book.

[@BlackReshiram]

@@jasontankable I had no idea there was a coninuation!!! Definitely gonna look into it, thank you!

[@marocat4749]

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.

[@singletona082]

When I realized my dreams of being able to stand on my own feet would always be out of reach.

[@pencilsplinters]

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!

[@jorahkai]

How morbid and sweet

[@jauxro]

!!! 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.

[@RoseEyed]

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.

[@jauxro]

@@RoseEyed my grandma was a hoarder too..! Honestly you will need to rent a dump truck or some such eventually

[@mascotwithadinosaur9353]

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.

[@onesith4528]

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.

[@fgf4973]

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

[@kaelanirevyruun1676]

Yeah, zero dawn really is a beautiful game lol

[@riza0.0]

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.

[@the24thcolossusjustchillin39]

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.

[@allieasbill2055]

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.

[@raikaschieck1634]

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 ^^)

[@theswissmiss69]

Oh hab das Wort noch nie zuvor gehört. Werde es definitiv brauchen!

[@raikaschieck1634]

@@theswissmiss69 Freut mich zu hören :D

[@princessthyemis]

Wow I love that!

[@ishmamahmed9306]

Ruinenlust and kenopsia, my two new favourite words I have recently learnt about :)

[@raikaschieck1634]

@Nines And the way German works, we can allways make more :D

[@No1Linkfan]

This is an extraordinary piece of media, you should be very proud of what you’ve created.

[@Bookdragon11]

Yes! It is great! I agree you should be proud!

[@maxwellXii]

And the music you chose only amplifies the feelings those locations give you when you hear of / see them both in games and otherwise

[@z_ed]

I'm taken aback; it's awesome 🤔.

[@Dominic-Noble]

Roses mentioned she did a recording for this but I completely forgot and did a big double-take when she started talking.

[@onijester56]

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 KZbinrs.

[@satanisonthis]

I love that I keep finding you on random videos by content creators I love.

[@anotherkenlon]

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.

[@HelloFutureMe]

this made me very happy to read :)

[@Helm_Met]

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

[@gamingstuffdobegamingstuff9279]

@@HelloFutureMe Hi :)

[@jonathanhancock470]

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.

[@orphancloud1132]

I know this is years later but I'm sorry that happened to you and your family. :(

[@averongodoffire8098]

Hello my friend I’m sorry for your loss, I know it’s “just a house” but I am sorry it happened to yours

[@christianpetersen163]

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.

[@dragonfied321]

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!

[@samuellaakso7012]

This was like a short ghost/horrorstory

[@KmiiVC]

hope you're doing well these days

[@AHealthyDoseofFran]

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!

[@orphancloud1132]

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. 😊

[@minxx8594]

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.

[@Skeptycx]

I love to watch videos on channels such as Shiey. Seeing all these places in the state they are in, is just awesome.

[@Graid]

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).

[@AutkastKain]

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.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

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.

[@princesseville6889]

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.

[@SH-qs7ee]

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.

[@jakebrowning4846]

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.

[@sharanyakannan3799]

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.

[@thermalvision203]

"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.

[@ArcaneSeason3]

I’ve always loved this poem

[@unusualsheep]

This poem is incredible and fits this video perfectly

[@QuidBeliever]

One of the greatest tragedies is Percy Shelley's untimely death, a truly incredible writer who we lost far too soon

[@Calebgoblin]

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.

[@aldousboal4920]

What was the truth about that town if I may ask

[@betula2137]

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.

[@kjj26k]

@@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.

[@Calebgoblin]

@@aldousboal4920 eminant domain stuff, where property was "borrowed" and never given back

[@deanima9943]

In talking about art, few KZbin essays become art themselves. This essay should be a model for any creators trying to make art in talking about art. Beautiful work.

[@Kwauhn.]

You should check out Jacob Geller if you haven't already

[@marshallc6215]

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

[@RumoHasIt]

The script for this was stunning. Also... you're the second person to mention House Of Leaves to me this week.

[@HelloFutureMe]

Because you should read it ;) ~ Tim

[@SuddenlyUpsidedown]

Seconded, I've not read anything else quite like it and everyone should have a chance at that experience

[@isaacparker5868]

thirded, it is an incredible book.

[@kristianwilliams441]

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.

[@setablaze1802]

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

[@jarlbreadmaker]

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.

[@luscarora703]

I think dark souls uses this really well, although it's a mix of an abandoned and a dying world.

[@theirishviking9278]

exploring a world during the final momments of its slow desolation

[@benjaminkirkham940]

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.

[@jlupus8804]

In abandoned places, we are all detectives; we are all archeologists.

[@benediktjostingmeier4519]

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

[@user-jp7tw3sd3x]

"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.

[@TheSchultinator]

Really? Where?

[@mattitude4464]

@@TheSchultinator The McClellan Family Townhome in Georgetown

[@Bluwails]

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...

[@spacenoodle8207]

Yessss! And also Rain World. I don't know if you know this game, but it's beautiful

[@Bluwails]

@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

[@Jane_8319]

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.

[@StudioHannah]

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.

[@daedricdragon5976]

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 :)

[@jasperfurniss1073]

Perfectly sums up how I feel about this ❤️❤️

[@daedricdragon5976]

@@jasperfurniss1073 :)

[@anemoi6803]

Tim, this is perhaps one of your best videos yet. Credit to you, seriously

[@FeyPax]

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.

[@FeyPax]

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.

[@kelzling]

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.

[@MichaelBirks]

Also, Christchurch at night is Creepy.

[@zhadebarnet3773]

This video is, literally, a work of art. You just earned yourself a patron, neighbour.

[@thornels]

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!

[@soara4634]

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."

[@BonaparteBardithion]

It sounds absurd when you put it that way, but now I just feel compelled to bring back powdered wigs.

[@aintnoslice3422]

The song is Phillip Ayers - Only human if you want to listen directly kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmS2k6ehjZ2KqJY

[@marykateharmon]

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.

[@GuyThatWearsG12Suit]

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.

[@jeremygoodwin9068]

"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!

[@emilydefrances5981]

This is why I don’t watch TV anymore. I even teared up for a moment. This is incredible writing and presentation.

[@Nassit-Gnuoy]

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.

[@Heothbremel]

"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"

[@ShadowProject01]

“…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.

[@MsAirnation]

God, I remember reading 'There will come soft rains' so distinctly. Such a quietly horrifying short story

[@tristanwillcox4011]

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.

[@baronofplagues]

This whole video is why I love Roadside Picnic and Tarkovsky’s Stalker. That and the existentialism.

[@matiasbosques3002]

Yes!

[@greyfox4838]

I don't recommend Stalker to everyone, many will watch it and call it a "walking simulator movie" if they could, but it's damn near one of the best films I've ever seen

[@mounibj4586]

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”

[@ronnyfuentes709]

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

[@striggstrix]

This video put really eloquently why I love games like those "walking simulators" so much

[@joelleblanc8670]

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.

[@agm5424]

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.

[@sele6138]

I thought of Marbwl Hornets as well, but you put it into words so much better than I could

[@zacharycoash6380]

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

[@TheNomade5]

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.

[@sarahkendle7564]

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

[@CortexNewsService]

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.

[@MogamiKyoko13]

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.

[@Caterfree10]

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.

[@BecxIsAwsome1]

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

[@Sharyg1000]

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.

[@RowanArk]

I have this really strange feeling like I get when I think too much about space and the universe after watching that video. I kind of forget I'm in a body in my room lying in my bed. I really felt like I was floating off

[@FreelancerStudios100]

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.

[@TravTravYT]

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.

[@pbgamer115]

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

[@skullsquad900]

Legit, seriously, how hasn't anybody done something on it?

[@the_corvid97]

@@skullsquad900 Someone made a video, not necessarily about CoD itself, on that overall premise, I'll link it when I find it.

[@the_corvid97]

@@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.

[@michimatsch5862]

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.

[@beardalaxy]

@@the_corvid97 i was going to mention the one about lonely source maps

[@Stratelier]

So how about that game, _Myst?_ You find journals telling of fascinating places, only to later arrive at said places finding them either abandoned or in ruin, and the game never completely exposits what transpired between then and now -- allowing YOU the player to piece the backstory of the place together by yourself. On a similar note, in Skyrim (of all games) I distinctly remember a moment when exploring the abandoned mansion in "Blood on the Ice" where, in an upstairs room you can examine a set of chairs near a bed to be only told that they are "stacked in an odd manner". However, I noticed they were directly underneath a ceiling joist and immediately inferred that maybe somebody hanged themself in that room.

[@Cubehead27]

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! ❤️

[@amrys_argent]

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."

[@Cubehead27]

@@amrys_argent That's fantastic

[@beardalaxy]

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

[@drummerofawe]

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.

[@gobsofweb]

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.

[@trevorx7872]

This reminds me of a game called Hyper Light Drifter, which captures that feeling of being colonized by desolation perfectly: you feel it, as you walk through your beautiful surroundings and music swells. The placid, serene Lake, with dead bodies floating in the water and a Titan still beneath. The broken stairs of the Mountains, as wind blows, as you look down a cliffside and see another Titan, frozen solid, reaching up, and within the Cult of the Zealous, . As you traverse the Crystal Forest, and see cannons and weapons made to fight a war long over, now engulfed in the growing crystal, and the warriors of that place who cannot forget. And to the south, the Barren Hills, the Midnight Wood. Great laboratories buried deep underground, bodies in vats, not yet dead, or perhaps not yet alive - and they will never die, and they will never live, because there is no one here, anymore. And in the game, upon defeating each of the area bosses, you raise a Monolith from the ground and a haunting piece of music plays, titled Wisdom's Tragedy. And what a tragedy it is. What a tragedy it was.

[@faeya2005]

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.

[@user-svqmbiv]

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.

[@deandh3312]

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.

[@Thenoobestgirl]

I now understand why I like post-apocalyptic stories so much now. It's the remains of life left behind that intrigues me! :)

[@StrongHamr]

There is a scene early in Dr Stone where Senku is telling Chrome about the old world. After hearing it, Chrome starts to cry. He is crying in frustration and anger for the world that was taken from him even though he never knew it. That's why I love atmosphere in stories. Horizon Zero Dawn, Book of Eli, Metro Exodus, the Last of Us, A Song of Ice and Fire, Lost, and so many more tell such special stories through their environment and connection to places.

[@dragonfied321]

Huh, funny you mention Dr. Stone, cause I just read Chapter 200 of the manga a few minutes before I clicked this video... Spoilers, The bad guy is on the FUKIN MOON!

[@groofay]

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.

[@adletdairbaev]

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.

[@squa_81]

Beautiful. One day, one day i will visit the cooling tower and cooling hangar, that was once the societe métallurgique de normandie of caen. I will visit these massive landmarks, tiny in comparison of what that factory once was. The stories that my dad told me of that place are directly responsible of what i am now

[@orphancloud1132]

Especially because of her older brother who I think is named Lewis.

[@squa_81]

@@orphancloud1132 i am confused. In what way is this comment related to mine?

[@pokegirl302]

I remember when I first played Horizon Zero Dawn and when I was exploring the ruins of our world I came across a street sign. It was familiar to me as it is for most Americans and people who travel the US by car. A sign indicating an interstate route that took those ruins from generic to some place real. That the world that I know is beyond memory.

[@hayleymd5315]

this makes me want to get up and go explore a moss-covered abandoned mall

[@exapta5493]

What remains of Edith Finch is a must play game. Rethinking, isn't just a game, is a whole experience.

[@imdrum6881]

This might be my favorite video of yours yet. Abandoned places might be just one of my favorite video essay themes ever.

[@Vercalos]

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. -Percy Bysshe Shelley

[@pyrosianheir]

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. :)

[@jettash0720]

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

[@bensanderson2523]

There is always something so interesting about it, the lore, what happened.

[@turna1216]

I like how there are trees everywhere where they’re not supposed to be. It gives off this pure feeling looking at it

[@liamnehren1054]

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.

[@felixw19]

18:18 throughout the whole video I thought: "This sounds a lot like a Jacob Geller video" Especially because of all the indie game references

[@gvonholdt4798]

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

[@mgmedia-homeforallyourgube9401]

Omg I love nausicaa

[@fafikommander1903]

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.

[@victoriab8186]

I'm sitting alone in the living-room of my shared flat; everyone else is away - at work, on holiday. As darkness falls, I don't turn on the light. Somehow, as I watch these abandoned places, it feels wrong to shut out the encroachment of the night.

[@HIR0SE]

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.

[@isitnotwrittenthat1680]

Yeah, there's just a glory to the green reclaiming it's due, to the slow decay, the inevitable renewal

[@angeldude101]

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.

[@MaeveAsterin42]

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.

[@altahir9515]

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!

[@nmheath03]

"Civilization feels like it's going to last forever, but _here it is_ wiped away in an instant" That line really doesn't feel like it came from a KZbin video I just randomly found in my recommendeds

[@romanzupancic6211]

The intro song / music is "Philip Ayers - Only Human", for anyone wondering (like me).

[@iamwhatitorture6072]

You are a hero, thank you a lot

[@LuxiBelle]

Don't you like going to an ancient ruins and find fresh food, non rusted/decayed equipment and currency that is still traded.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

On the other hand, the fresh food is a good if it's in the form of produce gone wild. Like finding an apparently uninhabited island with non-native trees. The mechanics-based need for universal currency is one of the greatest narrative weakpoints of video games.

[@BlizzardofKnives]

This reminded me of when I went back the area in which I grew up several years ago, after not being there regularly for decades. Everything looked so much smaller it was disconcerting.

[@jonasn7739]

The music in this video fits so well with the sense of loneliness and exploration. I wish it had a proper name in the description.

[@iamwhatitorture6072]

the intro is "Philip Ayers - Only Human"

[@Piti_Pingu]

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 ^.^/*

[@TheRibottoStudios]

We can actually look at the Harry Potter world, and see that there are places like christ church cathedral in it. Harry's home in Godric's Hollow. They refused to rebuild it, they let it sit there. Rotting. Decaying. Much like how the residents themselves are rotten and decayed under the earth....With their son wishing he were there with them from time to time.....Leaving a place abandoned has its purpose I think. I think it's important to have the remembrance, leave it there for it to be seen, to be remembered. If you rebuild over that, it's like....an erasure of what was there. Like I've always had a problem with the One World Trade Center BEING CALLED One World Trade Center. They should've kept the original name-The Freedom Tower. It would've been a perfect example of how you don't HAVE to let go of a memory, but how it's also important to MOVE ON from that memory and live for the people who've been lost. Calling it One World Trade Center just....feels like they tried go to "okay here's another one for ya." And it doesn't sit right with me.

[@tankedwarthog6424]

I think this sentiment is shared by a lot of Americans. I know it is shared by myself and my family.

[@completelyferrouschemist6776]

I am personally tired of 9/11 being treated as though it were a yearly funeral. If we keep falling to our knees for every drop of blood spilled, we will never live standing.

[@willmungas8964]

@@completelyferrouschemist6776 it’s not a funeral so much as a moment to remember. If we fail to show the past respect it will most assuredly come back to bite us. I respect you wanting to move on but i do not ever agree with letting the lives of first responders and innocents be forgotten

[@TheRibottoStudios]

@@willmungas8964 But obsessing over the past isn't healthy either. And that's america's biggest problem now. It's OBSESSIVE over the past, and trying to right wrongs previous generations did. Like why do WE the millennials need to fix shit that the boomers fcked up? Doesn't seem fair, but that's how life is.

[@completelyferrouschemist6776]

@@willmungas8964 It is ingrained so deeply into US history, even though it only happened 20 years prior. I was three at the time. It's all anybody talks about anymore. Rocket Racoon said it best: [mockingly] "Boo-hoo hoo, my wife and child are dead..." **Stunned and offended Groot** "I don't care if it's mean! We've all got dead people! It doesn't mean you can go gettin' everybody else killed along the way!"

[@morganbiddlecom]

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.

[@ChBrahm]

"Nothing beside remains Round the Decay of that Colossal Wreck Boundless and Bare The Lone and Level Sands Stretch Far Away"

[@connormoore5332]

I understand now why I felt such a connection to the subtle stories of games like Valley and NieR:Automata

[@MichelleStreisand]

This was so beautifully executed, researched, and written. I was enthralled from beginning to end. I’m curious to know if you’ve played the game Outer Wilds. I think it’s something special that you may find relates to a lot of the ideas discussed in this video. My recommendation for you is to start playing it knowing as little as possible.

[@Dark14Fairy]

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)

[@completelyferrouschemist6776]

In the VR Game, Hotdogs Horseshoes and Handgrenades (H3, for short), there is a level in Take and Hold called "Northest Dakota," filled with abandoned buildings, cars, and military encampments. When you are not beset by sausages out to take your life, you are alone with the mountains, the snow, and the ruins of what used to be a large military outpost. If the encryption nodes and security outposts were further apart, the sausages less aggressive in their patrols, and the atmosphere of the level taken up a notch, it'd be one of the most atmospheric places in VR.