Media is constantly being lost to time. Whether it be books, films, TV shows, or video games, many pieces of media only live on in clouded memories. It should not be this way. Media should be preserved.
The loss of media is bad from a historical standpoint as 75% of silent films have been lost. So many directors from the silent era’s passion projects are just gone, with little hope of ever being recovered. Those lost films could have allowed for a better view of that time period, and have the potential to become classics renowned by those interested in the Industry. They will never get that chance.
The loss of media is bad from a historical standpoint as 75% of silent films have been lost.”
— Editor-in-Chief Micah Freeman
Many projects just do not get to see the light of day. For example, DC’s “Batgirl” was completely finished before being scrapped for tax reasons. The team behind the film even had to have a “funeral screening,” showing their completed work one last time before being shelved for what might be forever.
A popular idea is that with the rise of streaming services, lost media is more accessible than ever. While that might seem true, that sadly is not the case. The opposite is true with more lost media as a result of streaming services.
Many streaming service originals such as, “The Mysterious Benedict Society,” Alaska Daily,” and “Diary of a Future President,” have all been removed from their respective streaming services with no way to experience them legally.
This phenomenon does not stop at just film and television. It also affects video games. For example, the video game “P.T.,” a demo for one of the biggest projects by famed game designer Hideo Kojima, was removed from all storefronts after the project “Silent Hills” was abruptly canceled. The demo was beloved but is now unavailable to most, with the removal causing people to sell their PlayStation 4s for absurd amounts of money if they downloaded the demo while it was still in store.
Most media are labors of love by their creators. Those projects are created to be enjoyed by the public, but it is taken away from everyone. The blood, sweat, and tears that go into projects just result in nothing because fate had it that those projects would be doomed to fade away. It is discouraging to creatives to just have their work disappear and only be another statistic on a Wikipedia article on lost media.
Most media are labors of love by their creators.”
— Editor-in-Chief Micah Freeman
All of these cases show how much media is just nonexistent now. To prevent this, we must preserve it.
Many communities exist that are dedicated to finding these pieces of lost media. Many of these have been successful in discovering some media. It is important to help out these communities, so people’s passion projects are not lost to the sands of time or the archives of memory.
It is also extremely important to purchase physical media. Things like DVDs, books, and Blu-Ray are essential in making sure that media is not lost.
We must protect all media and make sure that it does not go missing.
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