What is one thing you hate about lost media hunting?

Something finally gets found after years of searching; be it an obscure commercial, scarce bumper, or even an unreleased pilot. You go to watch it, then you get flashbanged by a massive watermark added by the person that found it. Don't get me wrong; I'd take this over hoarders any day, but it's still so goddamn annoying, as oftentimes they weren't involved in the production at all.

Can't help but agree, there's a general perception amongst some that the lost media community is a bit childish and I can kind of see where that reputation comes from even if I don't fully agree with the overall opinion. Too much time and effort was spent on obviously false stuff that never existed in the first place(like that mythical ending of the Spongebob episode "I Was a Teenage Gary" that supposedly showed Squidward transforming into a snail. I never bought into it's existence for one second).

Wrong thread man. I guess maybe it is ChatGPT. Either that or a troll.





Oh crap, am I feeding the troll?

For me, I agree with this, but in a sense of American nostalgia & interests. It's not just those topics that can be considered "marketable" in that sense, but also Japanese media because that's like, the one country whose media has been able to have the biggest impact on us Americans. As a result, lost Japanese media can get quite the interest quick & especially so if it's an anime or a video game. Doesn't happen all the time, but still prevalent. Media from various European countries have far less luck unless it's either some British thing(and even then, that stuff doesn't get as much attention as Japanese lost media, & even then, it's mostly just England; Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, Jersey & Gibraltar got the short end of the stick) or it's related to something that's really popular here in the USA. I seem to be the ONLY person here who has an interest in European computer games of the 80s & 90s.

And when it comes to American media, the thing is that a lot of the ones that gain traction or are really talked about come from California 98% of the time. I'm from Tennessee & I'm sure that us Tennesseeans had some obscure comic books, music, video games, TV shows & perhaps even cartoons of our own, but they're probably really obscure to the point of almost zero documentation of them on the internet, especially the possible pre-1990s ones. And what about states like Idaho, New Hampshire(the birthplace of RSD Game-Maker), Arkansas or Connecticut? What local stuff of their own did they have that has been almost completely undocumented? It's not like Japan or the UK where they equally all get chances to make their own media & have an impact on the outside world & are relatively small places. The 50 US states can get pretty dang large & cities can be far away from each other so there HAD to be SOME ultra obscure local content.

And that's not even getting into lost media from places around South & Central America, Oceania & Africa. Those are WHOLE OTHER cans of worms!

you should check out the spreadsheet! there's a bunch of active searches on there
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y4WuJpwjdTqGpFrjLd_eb9B2okocCsDzyE-wDt-MRhM/