The memory of old games, TV shows, movies, etc., will worm its way into our brains. And what do we do when we get a brainworm about something we can’t really remember? We go searching for it—only to be met with further frustration when we can’t find any information on that particular thing.
Lost media can come in many forms, but usually occurs when all copies of the medium are no longer accessible, have been lost to time, or cannot be located. This inaccessibility may be due to damage from fire, erasure, or the operating/software system needed to run the medium is obsolete.
It happens more often than you think. An early-days iPhone app that received no corresponding upgrades to be used on newer systems, or taken off the App Store, will only be accessible on the few pieces of hardware that didn’t delete it. And how many of us still have a workable iPhone 4 lying around?
The search for lost media has become a hobby among many collectors and enthusiasts, and occasionally leads to success, even in the strangest of ways.
The Passion of Joan of Arc is one of the most famous examples. This 1928 silent French historical film was a highly regarded film at the time, and is said to be based on Joan of Arc’s actual trial and execution. Due to silent film strips being highly flammable, it was widely believed that a fire wiped out all existing copies—that is, until 1981, when a mint-condition copy of the film was found in Norway’s Dikemark Mental Hospital.
Unknown. Publisher: New York: Eloquent Press, N. Morgillo on Wikimedia
Another famed example is the discovery of the 1982 Atari 2600 game, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The game was largely criticized and considered one of the largest commercial failures in video game history, and it played a huge role in the video game crash of 1983.
As a result of overproduction of the game, rumors spread that the unsold cartridges were buried in a landfill in New Mexico. These rumors were confirmed in 2014, after investigators uncovered the mass burial, which included almost 730,000 carriages of various games. While it was not technically considered lost due to its infamous status, the reveal of this mass burial sparked larger conversations about the state of other forgotten games.
The sheer scope of lost media has led to hundreds of thousands of civilian sleuths working to find these forgotten treasures. The hobby even has its own Wikipedia-style website, with forums, articles, and notice boards constantly being updated. It’s quite an organized site, with categories for different media, statuses, and new pages that have been created.
In a way, we are simply doing what our great-great-grandparents were doing 100 or so years ago. Instead of working our way into a long-undiscovered Egyptian tomb, we’re decrypting old website files. The innately human thirst for discovery, preservation, and the thrill of the chase is unquenchable, even if the method itself has largely changed.
Whether you’re in it for the nostalgia, for the thrill, or simply want to say you were the first to find something that has once long been forgotten, we can only imagine that lost media will continue to inspire and drive people as we fully submerge into the digital age.
