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I have always had this concept in the back of my mind, but only just now became clear: Rotten Media.
It's not Lost Media, although it can be. RM is media that has been found or maybe was never lost, and maybe isn't even obscure, but survives in a corrupt state, it has degraded and now it's a glitchy sort of mess. You can still consume it as intended, but most people won't because it simply looks and sounds bad.
And to put it into categories, we have to be subjective because we need to consider quality. Since it's subjective, these terms can be useful because they can be used, they contain information and communicate, but they're not strict designations. I came up with four:
MOLDY MEDIA.
If something was never lost but the records of it are of low quality, and the quality is not *that* low so it can still be consumed properly as intended, that's Moldy Media. You hope to one day see a proper restoration, but the record of it can be used. Also, since the artistic quality of the work is high, the enjoyment of it remains intact despite the low quality of the record. Example, "I Can Remember" from 1972 Sesame Street.
ROTTEN MEDIA.
Media which is available, but the quality of most records of it are so degraded that most people cannot consume it, simply because the audio-visual elements are so corrupted that trying to consume it as intended becomes a chore. If it's also only partially found, that silidifies the status of it as rotten. If it's also of low artistic value, but not extremely so, that silidifies it even more as moldy. Example, the Itsy Bitsy Spider TV series.
Showing all 137 replies.
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RANCID MEDIA.
Rotten media that would be hard to consume even if it was available in high quality, simply because the artistic quality of it is as rotten as the record of it. I can't think of an example of it, but maybe someone can give me an example.
REPROBATE MEDIA.
Media that is not necessarily lost or moldy, but of such low quality in art and execution that it *should* be lost. Again, I bet you guys can give examples.
And for some reason, I think that /co/ is where we can have the most examples of each.
Or maybe I'm talking shit! Let me know.
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I thought you were calling Leslie rotten, OP. I came to be mad, but I see what you mean.
You're clear, autistic, and clearly autistic, but I don't think those terms are gonna catch on. I'd like to see them being used, but I won't bet on that.
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>>154081540
I saw a video where a guy repaired an old film reel he found.
It was basically glued together and it was a miracle he even separated the films without destroying them.
Part of the film was covered in gunk but you could still see a girl dancing.
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>>154081547
>RANCID MEDIA.
>Rotten media that would be hard to consume even if it was available in high quality, simply because the artistic quality of it is as rotten as the record of it. I can't think of an example of it, but maybe someone can give me an example.
So when someone finds partially corrupt drives and damaged blurays of the slop we're making now, 20 years later.
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>>154081540
>Example, "I Can Remember" from 1972 Sesame Street.
Made me look it up because I didn't remember "I can remember", but after briefly googling, I remembered "I can remember" because I knew it, but I had forgotten it. Now I remember "I can remember".
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>>154081540
>RAW MEDIA
Only prototypes of the media have been found
>STALE MEDIA
Even more subtle degradation than moldy. Would more be used to describe more recent, digital media. For example, all that exists of a cartoon from 2010 is a 720p screenrip.
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>>154081540
>INGREDIENT MEDIA
Media where the fanlabor is generally considered to be just as legitimate as the source material, which may be abandoned or otherwise not exist in a finished consumable state. I'm thinking of Milky Way & the Galaxy Girls.
>TAMPERRED MEDIA
Media where the legitimacy of the franchise owner's canon is rejected. Example: Star Wars
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>>154082137
Oh, those are good too!
I approve, except that we may need a better term for the first one. Why "ingredient"?
>>154082167
>these are more epistemic and not really the point of what you're going for, OP
I was going for a good, interesting conversation about concepts, and your expansion offers that exactly.
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>>154082250
If you're familiar with MWATGG, it's a series of drawings and gifs by Lauren Faust for a scrapped toyline. There was a fan series on YouTube, that fans of MWATGG pretty much treat as canon. It's an interesting anomaly in the nature of fandom. But the point is that the official source material is just ingredients, not a finished product.
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>>154081870
The mom though.
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>>154082039
Here's a good example for stale
https://youtu.be/9Tsub52Fmgc
This show does exist in full quality though, but pretend this is the best that exists. I think moldy would be too harsh. It's just stale.
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I have one: WHAT IF MEDIA.
Media that we know could have been, that almost became a reality, but ended up not happening.
I named this what if because "aborted" sounds bad, and "parallel universe" sounds too wishful. That being said, I would jump into another dimension just to watch Toil and Trouble.
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>>154082039
>RAW MEDIA
I think this concept works, and is useful, but the name is confusing because you can have prototypes of something that then went into production, so the concept is not fully understood at first glance by the name alone.
I think RAW ONLY MEDIA works better.
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>DEAD MEDIA
Media that the only legitimate copy available is degraded to the point of incoherence, and the actual content of the material is not conveyed. This doesn't necessarily speak to how the quality effects enjoyability, but there would realistically be a lot of overlap.
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>>154082580
>Are you forgetting the lost media community is already founded on autism?
Oh, that's an excellent point.
I think we need a chart, autistics love charts (I know from personal experience). Also, a clarification in the chart itself: These designations aren't meant to be strict, just to communicate universally understandable qualifiers. They're subjective and should not be used to discourage the search of lost media or the expression of enjoyment by others. The moment you use these designations to subjugate or denigrate someone else's taste, their enjoyment of any given piece of media, or their efforts to find lost media, is the moment you start misusing them.
Something like that, or else people,e could use it as a tool for nastiness.
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>SPIKED MEDIA
Media where the only copy available is irreversibly filtered in some way, usually by the uploader. The example I have is this obscure metalcore song https://youtu.be/VaZXKOOMmZU there's an album version that exists, but this is the demo. I used to have the original but I can't find it anymore, only this pitched up copy remains. The pitch shift algorithm is lossy so the filter cannot be reversed without more loss. Spiked media is extremely rare but it does exist
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>>154082746
I love this kind of hyper specificity.
>>154082644
>DEAD MEDIA
That's excellent, but I vote that we call it CORPSE MEDIA, because DEAD MEDIA communicates easier a different concept: that the piece of media is no longer in production.
Also, I'm pretty sure that's a common term.
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>SCAM MEDIA
Media in the public domain that was gatekept for pure capital gain just to get leaked anyway through unconventional means.
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Not sure if this is within the spirit of the thread, but I have this subset of the Weird Al effect: RULE-RUINED MEDIA: a piece of media better known for the R34 of it, to the point where a good portion of the people that knows of it assume that it has only ever been porn. Or a piece of old media that would have almost no cultural significance if not for the porn parodies, lewd fanart and sexual online conversations. A piece of media that, when discussed online, has only lewdposts and when fanart of it is made, it's always porn, and no longer people engage in conversation online about it except for sexual things. It has no online interest except for the lewders that have fully captured it. Example: PreTeena.
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>>154082791
I know this isn't /co/ but there was a black metal band that made a release with one copy and buried it in the woods as a conceptual statement. However, it was supposedly found. I think this warrants changing the category's name because the same thing happened except it was a thought experiment, not a scam
https://youtu.be/o738mh_qyMc
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>>154082940
Scam media works for greedy fucks, then.
Your thing is a different category: LEAK-RUINED MEDIA.
Something like this. If the spirit of the thing was greed, then scam. If it was something artistic or experimental, leak-ruined.
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>>154081540
Now this is interesting, when I've gone crate digging for obscure media I've come across an spectrum of this.
For example last year I saw Fantastic Max, the first season survives in SD but the second only survives as zoomed in or stretched pus Fantastic Max is so damn bland it doesn't matter if it rots.
Lots of golden age cartoons only survive in really crummy prints, there is people restoring them but for years people only knew Terrytoons and Columbia from yellowed prints full of dust.
Digital media has it worse because some stuff was made in 360p and one has to pray that somebody made a back up.
Either way, discussing stuff because obscurity and rot are its main features is something I'd love to do.
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>>154083073
>Fantastic Max
Fuck, I had forgotten about that silly shit. Yeah, bland as can be.
>>154083076
>I believe you...
>NOT!
Would I lie to you, Borat?
OK, fine, I made a mistake, there's more to it. But that's it, now for real, nothing in the margins. Ignore the partial text which implies there's something in the margins. Ignore the fact that I'm clearly lying, also.
>>154083132
I'm with >>154082973
I think intent matters because the point of these terms is to quickly and easily communicate concepts. If the reasons behind hiding pieces of media are different, then the concepts are different too.
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>>154083174
>Blonde hair
>Wonder Bread
Why?
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What does the "rancid" and "reprobate" definitions have to do with the overall topic of media preservation? Some people would consider Rock and Rule or Fritz the Cat to be 'Rancid', some would not, but that's not meaningful to the factual discussion of whether the media is accessible and what state its in. People are either willing to preserve it or they aren't, the "why" is getting into the weeds of a different topic.
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>>154081547
>REPROBATE MEDIA.
>Media that is not necessarily lost or moldy, but of such low quality in art and execution that it *should* be lost. Again, I bet you guys can give examples.
This just sounds like a call for censorship.
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>>154084403
>sounds like a call for censorship
It's not, because it's not a call at all. It's just a way to express opinions. See:
>>154082711
>These designations aren't meant to be strict, just to communicate universally understandable qualifiers. They're subjective and should not be used to discourage the search of lost media or the expression of enjoyment by others. The moment you use these designations to subjugate or denigrate someone else's taste, their enjoyment of any given piece of media, or their efforts to find lost media, is the moment you start misusing them.
>>154082990
Found it! https://boards.plus4chan.org/pco/t477887.html#p479848
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>>154084594
>Found it!
Cool, but it's already posted here: >>154083566
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>>154085013
>I'm not up on the references
The Joe Dirt, treasure from a fish tank, and "bitch actress" text refers to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MsH8VoR-8M
The bottom part with the bread refers to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL8_c8WW1YA
The Playboy poster, if it's a reference, I don't know it. At first I just thought it was a funny thing but now that Anons are saying it must be a reference, I don;t get it. I figured it was just there for lol and also because Playboy was at its highest cultural weight in the 70s.
If there are more references, I also don't know.
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>>154086046
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>>154086046
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>>154085923
Seriously thoug, "I can remember" has been a conversation among certain animators since the 90s, and they've used it for study. It's not that odd that it gets referenced.
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>>154081540
>>154081547
What would you call media that is complete, uncut, and in its highest quality, but the context of who made it, why, when, and where is unknown?
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>>154081540
>FAN-ECLIPSED MEDIA
>Media that is better known for its fanfiction and OCs than for its actual content.
Example: Emmy the Robot
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>>154081540
I think Rotted Media works better as term, I know it sounds silly but I wouldn't be shocked if people would read Rotten Media as a quality indicator, Rotted implies the media it's self spoiled over time
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>>154082711
>>154083566
Made a sfw version
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>>154089861
This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzkUTgS75EM
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>>154086510
One example that comes to mind is Christmas Lights. The entire movie is readily available on YouTube in what is likely the highest quality that will ever exist. We know it was made in 1995, and that's about all we know. We don't know who made it or why. We don't know if it ever aired on TV or was released directly to home video. We have it and know nothing about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtyItRAngC4
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>>154082137
>TAMPERRED MEDIA
>Media where the legitimacy of the franchise owner's canon is rejected. Example: Star Wars
This is pretty sad, but yeah it happens and sorry to say, it's not always bad. Think of Gene Roddenberry's idea for ST TNG. Only after he dies the show became good, when the writers were finally free to ignore his ideas.
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>>154082940
>However, it was supposedly found.
Of course it was. There wouldn't be any point to hiding it unless they intended it to be discovered.
>>154082996
And of course it's boring, otherwise the gimmick wouldn't be needed.
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>>154097862
Yes, but it’s RULE-RUINED MEDIA, as defined by >>154082874
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>>154096895
For shame, anon.
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>>154083073
I've always wondered what should truly be considered lost media. When I was a kid, I made videos on my 3DS purely for my own enjoyment and never intended to show them to anyone else. Those videos are gone now, but are they actually lost media? Or does something only qualify as lost media if it was intended to be viewed by a third party or the public? Also, what about stuff like rough sketches or early drafts created by artists or writers? These are often thrown away because they are just simple doodles or rough outlines rather than works meant to be preserved or shared. Should material like that be considered lost media once it's gone, or is it simply discarded work that was never intended to survive in the first place?
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>>154081540
Coconut Fred is absolutely rotten media. Even on the pirate website I used to use before they blocked adblockers because they wanted you to get a premium membership, most episodes past a certain point were degraded VHS recordings.
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>>154097435
Because no one gives a shit about cartoons unfortunately. Same reason why there are a million websites to read manga and watch anime but we're stuck with the same like 4 websites for comics and cartoons.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq_HSShmVoY
This song has almost 16 million views but it simply doesn't exist as anything better than 2007 youtube quality. When I found that out, I realized... maybe some media is supposed to be consumed in shit quality. That's a part of the experience. Like people buying CRTs for retro video games. Like going on a hiking trip and getting your shoes all wet.
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>>154102965
>stuck with the same like 4 websites for comics and cartoons.
Part of me wants to believe that's only the case because manga and anime are foreign products, meaning there are fewer copyright obstacles standing in the way. But deep down, I know that's a lie. You have no idea how hard it is to find a website that has the Earthworm Jim cartoon.
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>>154102965
>>154103365
Part of it's also that the American manga/anime fandom was built on online discussion and piracy. Companies couldn't be asked or trusted to deliver a diverse selection of content in its original form, in a timely manner, if at all, so fans had to do a lot of things themselves, which strengthened the community. To be a manga/anime fan back in the day, you had to be a true fanatic, and true fanatics create sites like Nyaa, create and distribute torrents, write fanfics, produce hundreds of discussion boards, etc. Cartoons, by comparison, attract an audience of almost nothing but casuals who simply consume shows, only to quickly move onto the next one, before aging out of cartoons entirely.
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>>154104294
I can only imagine what it was like to be an anime fan back then. Watching a show on some random website in 240p with wrong fan-made subtitles. Meanwhile, Johnny what's his face, could watch his cartoons on live TV, or an official VHS or DVD release, and then walk into his local comic shop whenever he wanted. I never thought I'd say this, but I feel sorry for what anime fans had to go through.
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>>154104774
>I never thought I'd say this, but I feel sorry for what anime fans had to go through.
I'm not an anime fan but friction actually makes things fun. Searching for obscure shit online in acceptable quality was a form of treasure hunt.
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>>154104774
my favorite was when the wrong subtitles were slapped onto other wrong subtitles. worst i had to sit through was four layers of this shit.
admittedly i wasn't american and only had 5 channels on TV, none of which ran the actually cool cartoons, so my experience being a cartoon fan wasn't actually much different, just with barely-audible dub instead of the subs.
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>>154091372
One of the admins was hoarding the pilot for the show for years until someone leaked it which pissed them off so much they started mass reporting all of the reuploads and 4chan threads by filing false DMCAs claiming to be from Paramount.
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>>154089990
Here you weirdo
https://files.catbox.moe/mbav29.jpg
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>>154082874
>RULE-RUINED MEDIA
>when fanart of it is made, it's always porn, and no longer people engage in conversation online about it except for sexual things. It has no online interest except for the lewders that have fully captured it
>Example: PreTeena
Whatever do you mean, sir?