On Loss and Lost Media

Written: 2025-06-03

Gone but never forgotten

Re-making this website has me feeling some types of way. Especially while diving into the history of web buttons and making my own. I've been nostalgic, I guess, for my first steps through the world wide web, and the things I made along the way.

This reminiscing came with a distressing realisation: most of what I'd created during that period, my childhood on the internet, particularly the visual elements (i.e. drawings, photography, graphic design), is gone. Completely gone.

And it's not for the lack of trying - I flipped through all the folders and files in my hard drive, external archives, and the loose USBs where I knew I kept some stuff. Through those, I found names of websites and forums I'd visited in the mid/late 2000s and early 2010s - but most have gone offline, moved to new URLs which aren't valid, or through accounts I am certain I have nuked (DeviantArt, looking at you). And... nothing.

Honestly? I... don't really know how to feel about it. That "art" was far from the best thing I've ever made: at best, it's cringe and not particularly pretty; at worst... it's... yeah... not great. Down right bad, to be honest. Makes you question your sense of taste... or sanity.

But then again, this was a major part of my childhood. About 10 whole years on the internet during my formative time: interacting with people I didn't know from Adam and Eve, learning new skills and processes, participating in communities, and most importantly, creating so many things. So much so that I vividly remember organising my files with multiple CDs and USB keys, because there wasn't just one storage with enough space to hold it all (it was a different time, where 36MBs was so much storage).

So part of me is devastated. Only being able to rely on my memory of forum banners and avatars, self-portraits on my first tablet (that I'd bought by myself with my babysitting money), terribly and overly edited snapshots, unfinished but still published drabbles, coloured-in linearts, and so many tests of online tutorials on how to use filters to make kick-ass graphic pictures.

Worst thing, I guess, is being so sure of having created specific things (e.g. a mini Forum banners with Cars characters - yes the Pixar animated movie - made for my little brother because he loved the movie) but being unable to find it. Even if it's so... so so so cringe. It's especially hurting for the things I know were actually good. The ones I remember I got praise for (from the veterans of the Forums I used to visit, which I looked up to so much). One specifically, which had a lady on a swing, blowing bubbles. I remember spending hours on the filters to make it so dreamy.

And it's all gone.

I can pinpoint a couple of times, where I think I might have done something wrong during archiving/organising, and destroyed those files by mistake. Which is frustrating.

Funnily, I'd made a zine last year, about imaginary future lost media. Not one second was I thinking about my own, actual, present, lost media. Ironic, isn't it?

So, here I raise a glass. To the things I made all these years ago. That are gone for good. But won't ever be forgotten.

BRB going to make a new backup of my current work, so I can be sure I won't lose that.