We humans are inherently sentimental creatures. From time to time, I find myself revisiting classic movies and TV shows, reliving those nostalgic moments.
Just last month, while dining at a friend’s place, the living room TV was showing “My Own Swordsman” (武林外传). Among my circle, even those boasting the latest 4090 graphics cards were engrossed in playing over two decades-old titles like “Counter-Strike 1.6” and “Red Alert 2,” still calling out “Rush B!” on repeat.
It’s largely thanks to the internet that these retro revivals are so prevalent. The digital age has made storing and sharing media remarkably simple. With a few clicks, you can unearth ancient digital treasures and embark on a second or even third playthrough.
But have you ever stopped to consider this peculiar paradox?
Why can we run “Red Alert 2” on the latest Windows 11, yet those animated shows you diligently watched every Tuesday afternoon seems to have vanished into thin air, leaving not even a single screenshot behind?
You might dismiss it as a faulty memory, but often, the culprit isn’t you.
The reality is, a significant amount of film, music, and gaming content is silently disappearing from the internet as we speak.
A compilation of reportedly lost media by netizens.
The content you’re searching for might simply be… disconnected.
Just the other day, I stumbled upon a discussion thread lamenting the inability to find any accessible versions of the theatrical film “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood” online.
The immense popularity of the JoJo franchise is undeniable. The 2007 film in question was a major release, commemorating the creator Hirohiko Araki’s 25th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the JoJo series itself. It remains the only cinematic installment in the franchise.
With trailers, tie-ins with PS2 games, and a production helmed by renowned directors and studios, fan expectations were stratospheric.
Given its fanfare and critical anticipation, one would expect “Phantom Blood” to leave an indelible mark on anime history. Yet, the peculiar fact is:
Three months after its theatrical release, “Phantom Blood” seemed to evaporate, vanishing completely.
No DVD release, no pirated copies, not even the original trailers remained accessible for a considerable time.
Perhaps you’re wondering: in this digital era, how can content possibly cease to exist?
Could it be that no one ever saved or uploaded it? Is it mere coincidence?
The truth is, this phenomenon isn’t as rare as you might think.
These disappearing works have earned a specific term in the digital lexicon: “Lost Media.”
Concurrently, there exists a dedicated community of individuals who tirelessly scour the internet’s forgotten corners, meticulously searching, organizing, and attempting to restore this lost media.
On Reddit, for instance, a dedicated subreddit, r/lostmedia, boasts 300,000 users who identify as “detectives,” sharing their discoveries and ongoing searches for elusive content.
Similarly, the Lost Media Wiki serves as a comprehensive repository, categorizing all documented lost media. Entries are often classified as “partially found,” “lost,” or “existence unconfirmed.”
Through the decade-long efforts of these dedicated individuals, much of this “lost” media has been reclassified as “partially recovered” or even “fully recovered.”
For example, a test pilot of “Phantom Blood” shown in 2004 was considered lost for 15 years. It was eventually discovered by a user named Mangomation on an old DVD purchased from eBay and publicly shared in 2019.
Currently, “Phantom Blood” has had two theatrical trailers released, a 16-minute production sample, and the majority of its character concept art and designs recovered. Just last year, an insider shared crucial leads with the recovery team, suggesting the film might see wider release soon.
This raises the question: why does so much media become lost in the first place?
Essentially, lost media often falls into a “Schrödinger’s Cat” state of disappearance, existing in one of two conditions:
1. The media has truly vanished from existence.
2. The media still exists, but is inaccessible to the public.
Before the digital revolution, the primary driver of media loss was often financial constraint.
According to BBC data, a videotape recorder in the 1960s and 70s could cost the equivalent of roughly £300,000 today, with individual tapes fetching around £2,000.
Moreover, in that era, television broadcasting was a transient medium with limited commercial shelf life. Once aired, its value diminished. This led to a common practice among television stations: erasing older recordings to make way for new ones, a cycle of reuse that effectively doomed countless programs.
Perhaps the most infamous example is the BBC, which regrettably erased over 200 episodes of the iconic sci-fi series “Doctor Who.” It wasn’t until 1981 that the BBC implemented a formal archiving policy.
This situation was mirrored globally. In the 1960s and 70s, Japan’s NHK also wiped numerous episodes of its prestigious historical drama series, “Taiga Drama.”
With the advent of the digital age, storage costs plummeted, but new challenges emerged.
Foremost among these is copyright.
The disappearance of “Phantom Blood,” for example, is attributed to various factors, often revolving around copyright issues. Theories suggest the production company’s controversial content in another work led to publisher Shueisha canceling all distribution plans. Alternatively, the original creator Hirohiko Araki’s dissatisfaction with the film might have led to the absence of a DVD release.
Ultimately, without the copyright holder’s permission, distribution is impossible. A similar case is “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” which was removed from PlayStation and Xbox stores due to expired licensing, remaining unavailable for seven years until its re-release in 2021.
Another significant factor is technological obsolescence.
In 2020, Adobe Flash ceased support. Overnight, countless web games, animations, and music videos created with Flash, those digital remnants of our youth found on sites like 4399 and 7k7k, transformed into unplayable garbled code.
Only popular games, with the aid of emulators, could be preserved and enjoyed.
Regardless of the era or the specific reason, the emergence of lost media ultimately stems from a single, fundamental premise: the failure to pass on the torch.
Media transmission is akin to a relay race; as long as a single spark of the original content is preserved, it has the chance to be passed down indefinitely.
However, the crucial coincidence in lost media is that, at a specific point in history, no one happened to record or copy it. Even if a copy existed, it’s equally coincidental that no one shared it online.
When all opportunities for dissemination are missed, that work is destined to become lost media, even if a physical copy might still exist in some forgotten corner of the world.
In essence, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article is now clear: The disappearance of those childhood animated shows and programs we watched on local television is a microcosm of the reasons discussed.
In an era where broadcasting was definitive, budget constraints prevented television stations from maintaining expensive storage for older programs, making physical erasure a common practice.
Even for the few that survived, the transition to digitization encountered hurdles such as ambiguous copyright ownership, chaotic management, or a perceived lack of transfer value, effectively confining them to the past as “lost media” in the internet age.
The interplay of cost limitations, technological barriers, copyright restrictions, and the discontinuation of preservation efforts creates a trap, ensnaring these works in the past and relegating them to the realm of lost media in our connected world.
On the Baidu Lost Media forum, users post daily, seeking long-lost childhood animations, web games, or even melodies from forgotten songs.
While these aren’t the entirety of our childhood, they are an indispensable part of it.
It’s only when you find them, when you see them again, that a true sense of childhood nostalgia returns.
Some are fortunate, successfully recovering forgotten animations by recalling key plot points or humming fragmented theme song lyrics.
But many more face the disappointment of fruitless searches across the vast expanse of the internet.
This, in turn, makes the efforts of these lost media detectives all the more commendable.
Some are driven by a desire to reconnect with their past, others by pure enthusiasm, and a few by a sense of responsibility towards cultural preservation.
True oblivion isn’t physical demise, but the state where no one remembers you.
In a way, cultural works share this fate.
What truly allows these memories and cultural essences to persist might not be advanced technology or powerful equipment,
but rather, a community of people who refuse to forget.
Original article, Author: Tobias. If you wish to reprint this article, please indicate the source:https://aicnbc.com/3602.html
