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I don't normally talk about this in public, cause the general public doesn't care. But this isn't the general public, this site is mostly populated by internet nerds, and god bless it.
As my profile says, I work as an assistant archaeologist, tho I'm far more interested in communicating archaeology, and bringing it into the civilian spectrum. That being said, it's never just dust and artifacts we deal in, we deal in culture.
That brings us to the subject of the blog proper: why virtual media is valuable to preserve, and why even you can do it.
Virtual media, be it a song, a video, an image, a video game, is an artifact. It was created by human hands to serve the human, in one way or another. It's also perfectly reflective of said human's culture. Therefore, it can be a subject of study to help understand any sort of people linked to it. Some of these are more blatant then others, as I'm sure any historian could tell you, and as for online video games, I'm sure there's been several thesis written about how players interact in this or that MMO. But these, just like a document of old, are still useful to an archaeologist, and validly so, especially to mark an era. A great example of are digital greeting cards. You know, those pieces of benign software that used to come on floppies, or get spread through email? Yea, those are a perfect example of not just social habits, but cultural as well. Well, at least for as many cultures as got to benefit from that kind of technology.
And you too can be a part of these efforts. Remember that software and virtual communities were never very centralized until the 2010s, so a lot of content is just out of the collective conscious. So, if you made a website, created digital art, made maps for video games, made whole games, made music, or just had rich communities, I ask that you look into ways to archive them. Websites like https://archive.org/ provide you an organized, simple to use platform for this. An old piece of software or art can inspire future generations of said artifacts, and can help researchers better understand lost internet cultures.
And that's mostly it. I will be checking comments for questions and remarks if anyone cares to share theirs. Thank you for reading through my chaotic stream of consciousness, and have a good day.
As my profile says, I work as an assistant archaeologist, tho I'm far more interested in communicating archaeology, and bringing it into the civilian spectrum. That being said, it's never just dust and artifacts we deal in, we deal in culture.
I could get into semantics of over-stepping fields and yada-yada, but fact of the matter is, the archaeologist studies material culture, I really don't agree that it needs to be an ancient or dead culture. There's an argument to be made that ''Oh, but there's still people engaging in said culture, it's for the anthropologist!'' which has validity, but I'd ask this same straw-man to consider how often the anthropologist studies the material realm on it's own. Sure, you can say it's to understand ergonomics and systematic relations, but isn't that also what we do?
And then there's the ''that's just journalism'' argument, to which I ask you to swiftly remove yourself from my home.
And then there's the ''that's just journalism'' argument, to which I ask you to swiftly remove yourself from my home.
That brings us to the subject of the blog proper: why virtual media is valuable to preserve, and why even you can do it.
Virtual media, be it a song, a video, an image, a video game, is an artifact. It was created by human hands to serve the human, in one way or another. It's also perfectly reflective of said human's culture. Therefore, it can be a subject of study to help understand any sort of people linked to it. Some of these are more blatant then others, as I'm sure any historian could tell you, and as for online video games, I'm sure there's been several thesis written about how players interact in this or that MMO. But these, just like a document of old, are still useful to an archaeologist, and validly so, especially to mark an era. A great example of are digital greeting cards. You know, those pieces of benign software that used to come on floppies, or get spread through email? Yea, those are a perfect example of not just social habits, but cultural as well. Well, at least for as many cultures as got to benefit from that kind of technology.
And you too can be a part of these efforts. Remember that software and virtual communities were never very centralized until the 2010s, so a lot of content is just out of the collective conscious. So, if you made a website, created digital art, made maps for video games, made whole games, made music, or just had rich communities, I ask that you look into ways to archive them. Websites like https://archive.org/ provide you an organized, simple to use platform for this. An old piece of software or art can inspire future generations of said artifacts, and can help researchers better understand lost internet cultures.
And that's mostly it. I will be checking comments for questions and remarks if anyone cares to share theirs. Thank you for reading through my chaotic stream of consciousness, and have a good day.
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Buraiden Gai
i dedicate a lot of my time to researching and archiving specific merch and media and bringing info about it to an english speaking audience (as most of it has little to no english info) and truly it is not only important but fascinating
japanese media is HEAVILY in danger, exactly because an english audience doesn't take interest, and seldom can.
mangas, animes, games, tons and tons of media that we have no idea where it is.
taking time to translate and archive it is doing god's work.
by O Alentejano; ; Report
YES I don't translate manga much but I have so many series that aren't translated or have so little eng info on them and I'd love to bring them forward when I can.
Currently im writing about some lost mobile games by Taito from 2003-2004 that has one sorta confused english article on it (that mixes in another game by a completely different company without seeming to realize it) and very few scattered japanese articles, but thankfully the text on the og Taito site was archived, even if images were lost.
it's absolutely fascinating looking into these things and never running out of things to look into, even though i only focus on a very specific author's merch
by Buraiden Gai; ; Report
i'm not picky
as long as it's stuff we're saving for a new generation, god's speed
by O Alentejano; ; Report
hell yeah here's to research and preservation of history, cheers
by Buraiden Gai; ; Report