A statement about the community and my departure.

ziggycashmere
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#1 Uncle Mikey fan

Posts: 166

A statement about the community and my departure. Mar 18, 2025 19:47:18 GMT doraemon2000, MantleM, and 8 more like this

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Post by ziggycashmere on Mar 18, 2025 19:47:18 GMT

Hi everyone.

A few months ago I left the Lost Media Wiki after having been part of it for 6 years. I still occasionally check the forum and the wiki itself but other than that I have entirely ceased participating and left the server permanently. I did this without a statement, hardly even a hint to anyone outside the group that I had befriended over those 6 years. It seems some of the people outside of that group have been wondering what happened to me. Indeed, I did receive a few emails and Discord messages about it. I didn't make a statement because I didn't think my leaving was really something that deserved a statement. I'm just another member, and making a statement makes me look like some sort of self-absorbed asshole. But, here I am. For those you don't know who I am (I don't expect anyone to) I still recommend reading this.

mimeohead.blogspot.com/2025/01/leaving-lost-media-wiki.html

It's a bit of a lengthy post but this summarizes why I left and the specific issues I believe plague this community. Having moderated the place for a year and befriending others that've been here for years, I cannot tell you the stress and annoyance running the place gave us. Thankfully, as I've been told, it seems to have leveled out a bit. But still, I see too many posts online tearing down the community for the wrong reasons. I considered making this a YouTube video and really digging deep, but, I'm tired, and I figured this is good enough. To summarize the points I made in my blog post: stop bitching about people looking for "baby stuff," try searching for what you want yourself, don't search for stuff because people are telling you it's important, and actually lend a hand to the people trying to make this place better. Write an article, take some time to research, actually involve yourself as an archivist instead of a clout chaser. The greatest poison to this community has not been the people looking for nickelodeon bumpers and television logos, it's greed and fame. That's never what we've been about, and I hope more people cut that shit out. I have been told by multiple people that they reason they looked for things like Me and My Friends and anything SpongeBob related wasn't because they were interested in the content, but because they were interested in the thrill of the hunt, because they wanted clout for whatever they found. That's not what this wiki was made for, and I think people are forgetting that.

This community has an incredible potential and there isn't anything else quite like it. To all the mods I worked with: thank you, I think we did everything we could and I'm happy to hear about all the positive changes that have been coming over time. My post isn't to say there aren't good, genuine people in this community. But it's to say there's too many of the opposite, people who are purposefully ignorant or cynical or conceited. Kineko Video themselves, a community that is integral to grassroots film preservation, made a statement on Twitter claiming that baby shows are the problem and tearing down those who want to learn. This isn't the way and just continues to create discourse and vitriol among the people. Teach people who want to learn, correct them when they're wrong, and if they're too stubborn to learn then move on. It's that simple. Maybe I'll come back some time in the future, but it won't be for a while.

Last Edit: Mar 18, 2025 19:50:49 GMT by ziggycashmere

SpaceManiac888
Lost Media Beginner

Posts: 34

A statement about the community and my departure. Mar 18, 2025 22:20:08 GMT awesomereesee, sigmahero045, and 1 more like this

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Post by SpaceManiac888 on Mar 18, 2025 22:20:08 GMT

Very fascinating stuff.

I'm not sure if we have ever interacted previously. I have seen your video on Foodfight! and found it engaging. Judging from your other videos, you seem to follow your passions rather than just capitalise on the latest popular trends, lost media or non-lost media related. Will certainly give them a look in the future.

I think the issues you have discussed in this community are, unfortunately, not too dissimilar to other mainstream groups. Once a topic like lost media gets over with a significant portion of people, the community will sadly be infiltrated by toxicity. Maybe it's just me, but hardly anything can be done about it. I appreciate the likes of SenaUW for being able to constantly deal with bollocks, be it from infantile behaviour or deleting incredibly low-effort articles. It's not something I'd ever consider doing myself, it is a totally thankless job as you say.

I have been in the community for close to a decade now. Maybe it is because I am a sceptical arse, but I have never found the value of lost media's connection to social media. YouTube? Fair enough, as it enables one to preserve lost media and document it in fascinating ways. But Discord, Twitter/X and the disaster known as TikTok? Honestly... not really. As an outside looking in (never used Twitter or TikTok, rarely use Discord) I cannot help but view online mainstream lost media communities as battlegrounds, filled with people too immature to truly work together in finding and documenting lost media, too inconsiderate of others and often sadly lacking in intelligence and common sense. At work, I recently spoke to a former teacher who emphasised how bad standards across schools in the UK (and probably America) have become. And seeing as lost media attracts a ton of children, the toxicity in the mainstream lost media community is only going to get worse.

So what's the solution? Honestly Ziggy, I think you are almost there. You have realised that serving the mainstream side of lost media is neither fun nor good in the long term. But if you are still interested in lost media, how about you continue to search and document, but keep the majority of lost media fans at arm's reach? Or, in my case, several miles away from everyone else? Feel free to release some more lost media videos and blog posts but only chat about them with your inner circle and ignore the mainstream's ramblings. It is not worth listening to them.

It's funny. I have been active on the Lost Media Wiki since July 2015. Yet, documenting lost media remains incredibly worthwhile to me. Sports, robot combat, recordings of real events, women's lib... lost media is among my favourite and diverse hobbies. And I get to enjoy it in splendid isolation. Aside from occasionally chatting with SenaUW, I only have a few points of like-minded contact (e.g. equarep, forlornjackalope etc). That's all I need to get the most out of my hobby.

Never mind the bollocks as the Sex Pistols will say. Crack on and work hard on what you are passionate about.

ziggycashmere
VIP

#1 Uncle Mikey fan

Posts: 166

A statement about the community and my departure. Mar 19, 2025 0:53:43 GMT doraemon2000, MantleM, and 3 more like this

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Post by ziggycashmere on Mar 19, 2025 0:53:43 GMT

Mar 18, 2025 22:20:08 GMT SpaceManiac888 said:

Very fascinating stuff.

...

Never mind the bollocks as the Sex Pistols will say. Crack on and work hard on what you are passionate about.

Doing what I do and keeping the fans at arm's length is all I ever do, haha. That's all I've ever done, really. I've released many many things online and done tons of research and documentation with often (but not always) little fanfare, and that's okay with me. My issue isn't being annoyed by the people on a personal level, my issue is that it could be better and there's a potential here to create future young archivists and enlighten people on the issues with copyright and preservation. There's something liberating about understanding how preservation works, why we should back things up, why we should understand how media affects society and how the law can change that. Especially during today's climate. I'm not making this discussion to make my experience better. My experience is over, I've done my time, I've gotten my experience. I want people to have the chance to learn like I did and not be flooded by the toxicity that's slowly leaking into the community. People don't understand how crucial the LMW is. It's quite literally documenting the current gaps we have in preserving our own history. That's not really done anywhere else, at least not to this public scale. I have no issue with lost media being used as a topic on social media, because it can bring awareness to others on things that have gone missing. That's what it was originally used for anyway. The problem, again, is clout and infighting. We need to work on educating others and cut out the people that don't actually want to participate instead of getting caught up in drama that doesn't matter. People need to stop calling autistic adults "children" for wanting a TV intro. They need to stop telling others to look for things that "matter" when what "matters" is objective. They need to stop arguing what's actually "lost media" when that definition has been defined in the LMW for a long time now. It's not a hard concept to understand. The only real solution here is education and cutting out those who don't want to learn. That's a lot easier said than done, but that's all I can figure. You're right though, a lot of the issues we have does parallel with a mainstream group. The lost media community has become more of a fandom than a group devoted to preservation. This is because of the commodification that's been done with the subject. That can be reversed, but not enough people are working to reverse it. Once we get it into people's heads that we aren't about clout, then the people that don't actually care will leave.

Last Edit: Mar 19, 2025 0:57:01 GMT by ziggycashmere

sigmahero045
Lost Media Fan

Posts: 383

A statement about the community and my departure. Apr 26, 2025 20:13:36 GMT MantleM, awesomereesee, and 1 more like this

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Post by sigmahero045 on Apr 26, 2025 20:13:36 GMT

As an actual archivist in learning, this is also what drew me to lost media and what I wish for it to be : a community-based archiving effort. Oh my goodness, the number of threads that are "lost media is ruined, the dang kids, that doesn't matter!" uuugghh, so true. I still say we need everyone's help to help reverse it, as you yourself said, and that's exactly why I'd wish you'd stay, if only from times to times, everyone matters here, especially those who want to make it a kinder less toxic more inclusive place.