The Importance of Physical Media in the Digital Age

This topic came to my attention in a series of three events: perusing the comments section of a YouTube video, getting jump-scared by Spotify, and a research rabbit hole. Before discussing the importance of physical media in today’s world, I’m going to give some more context to these three events because they illustrate their relevance in social media, music, and film.

1. Reading YouTube Comments

After watching a video essay from one of my favorite Youtubers, Mina Le, I opened the comments to see what people were saying about the video. I was surprised to find that instead of responding to the topic of the video, everyone was freaking out about an off-comment that Mina had made about the fact that she doesn’t store her video essays anywhere offline. She had alluded to the fact that she records and edits her videos, uploads them on YouTube, and subsequently deletes them off her computer to save storage. Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong. This sparked a frenzy from her fans who were lamenting what might happen if YouTube were to delete her videos or shut down completely. They strongly advised her to store her videos on a personal hard drive where their integrity wouldn’t be at the mercy of a third party. 

Reading these comments, I realized for the first time that there’s no guarantee that the things we store online will be protected or accessible forever. I thought of all the essays I have stored on my Google Drive and all of my photos saved on Snapchat and Instagram. These works and possessions mean a lot to me, and they only exist digitally in the hands of third parties who could lose everything on a whim. Perhaps the digital age lacks in security what it makes up for in convenience. 

2. Spotify Jump-Scare (a recurring event)

If you know anything about me, you know that I am OBSESSED with music and I’m a huge Spotify enthusiast. Spotify gives you access to just about every song ever made with ease, except for when it doesn’t. One major issue with Spotify and other streaming services is that they don’t properly compensate artists whose songs are on the platforms. As a result, many artists have taken their music off of streaming services, leaving listeners who don’t own their music in physical format with no way to hear their songs. 

I’ve experienced this several times since downloading Spotify 9 years ago and it is a certified jump-scare every time. Among notable examples is the time when Dr. Dre’s album, The Chronic (one of my all time favs), disappeared from Spotify for about a year due to a change in ownership of the record label that produced it. After hearing Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” for the first time at a restaurant in Nashville, I was disappointed that I couldn’t find it on Spotify because Brooks has an exclusive deal with Amazon Music. 

A section of one of my playlists where two songs have been taken down and are no longer playable

The availability of certain songs on my playlists is constantly shifting and I’ve noticed that it has become more erratic recently. For countless reasons, artists have pulled their music off of streaming services. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t, but the heart of the matter is that we can’t guarantee whether our favorite songs will be available to us tomorrow or even an hour from now unless we own them physically. 

3. Research Rabbit-Hole into Film Archiving

In the past few years, I’ve become increasingly more interested in movies and film preservation. Prior to doing my own research, I just assumed that every movie ever made still exists and will exist forever. I didn’t give any thought to where they were stored and never considered the reality that hundreds, if not thousands, of films are dying every year. 

Since the dawn of streaming, only select films are chosen to be physically archived while the others make their way to streaming services where they may or may not be kept alive long-term. Films with no physical storage are at the mercy of the platforms that stream  them, but as with music and YouTube videos, there is no guarantee that they will be housed forever. Once again, the only way to guarantee the permanent existence of your favorite movies is to own them in physical format. 

So Why is it Important?

As you’ve already seen, owning physical copies of albums, movies, books, and more ensures that you will always be able to access them. This is one way that physical media has retained its value in the digital age, but there’s so much more to it than that.

Let’s start with the film. I mentioned above that only certain films are selected for archival each year. This saves space in film archives and, in theory, ensures that the best films are preserved for future generations to study and enjoy. But who chooses which films will be passed on? People are subject to bias no matter their level of expertise, and with each film that dies, certain voices die along with them. If the job of collecting movies in physical format is left strictly to archivists, we won’t have a say in which perspectives endure and which ones pass away. In light of this, film enthusiasts have recently pushed to start collecting and restoring old tapes and DVDs. Amassing your own collection of film in physical format turns you into a historian of sorts and takes some of that curating power back from streaming services and a limited body of film archivists. 

Next, I want to talk about Gen-Z’s legacy, specifically when it comes to music and social media content. For all of human history right up until about a decade ago, all human artifacts were physical. From arrowheads and stone tools to books and vinyl records, each generation’s mark on society was immortalized insofar as it could be preserved physically. These artifacts aren’t attached to any third parties that keep them alive under certain terms and conditions - they just are what they are. 

Gen-Z is creating its legacy under a different set of circumstances, and the possibility of its long-term preservation is on shakier ground. Much of Gen-Z’s innovation and contribution to society takes place on social media. Influencer culture, online content creation, and chat forums have radically shaped our world, and most records of these developments are on platforms managed by tech giants with their own sets of interests. In moving our innovation online, we have shifted the responsibility of recording human history from museums and historians to AI and tech companies. But Meta and TikTok aren’t concerned with the preservation of human innovation and interaction in the way that the Smithsonian is interested in preserving it. Governments also don’t seem to be particularly interested in preserving evidence of the activity taking place on these platforms (take TikTok bans in many countries for example). The main point here is that our access to these platforms and the information stored on them is not absolute. They could be shut down at any moment, our uploads could be taken down and our data deleted, leaving nothing behind. 

If every online platform were to suddenly disappear, what would our generation have to show for itself? What would future generations know of our thoughts, culture, and impact? I’m not saying that Gen-Z has failed to change society - quite the contrary - I’m simply drawing attention to the fact that the documentation of this change isn’t in stable hands. That is the key importance of physical media in our age. It’s the only certainty we have in a time of ever-changing policies regarding tech and social media.

My roommate’s record player and the little vinyl collection we have in our apartment

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a huge collector of physical media. I’m not. I have an amateur vinyl collection, a handful of CDs that I play on the radio, and own a grand total of 0 DVDs. These are thoughts that I’ve only recently started having, but I do think they’ll impact how I approach the question of streaming vs. owning my favorite shows, movies, and albums in the future (a Parks and Recreation box set is in my near future, I can feel it). I have also started transferring my digital writing off of Google Drive and onto my computer hard drive. 

There’s a certain power in knowing that no one can take your work away from you; and that it could outlive you to impact people in the future. As for Gen-Z, I think it’s in our best interest to start thinking about how we can give our work the best chance of survival and leave a tangible mark on the world. In my opinion, physical media is still the best way to do it.