If you could access your ancient, deleted posts and pictures...

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

A few years ago, Fotolog.com surprised the world by announcing that they'd allow anyone who ever had an account in there to access their long-deleted profiles (service had been discontinued ages ago), allowing people to see and retrieve pictures they had uploaded in the mid-aughts and hadn't seen since.

Naturally, this led to a sort of virtual gold rush and was a VERY big deal... For about a week, then everyone promptly forgot about it (and I'm not even sure that those long-lost, unearthed, irreplaceable photos were even backed up by their owners after the fact).

This got me thinking.

Being able to see my lost posts and pictures among the many defunct sites I had used since getting online for the first time sounds like it'd be a complete blessing for me, yet I'm not sure what I'd do with that after the fact -- would I back it all up to hell and back? Bookmark the page and then add it to the --endless-- "will read later" list? Would I even really care now that that part of my life is firmly over?

I actually don't know.

What about you?

 

[waterxwraith]

Nearly every image of my early teen scene/emo phase has been completely wiped from the internet, I'd love to have just a few back to show my spouse how dumb I used to look lol. I think about this a lot.

 

[Bakuma1997]

All the reviews and Memes i uploaded to Frente Vermina, a forum i was part until it collapsed by poor administration

 

[SliperyHippo]

Nearly every image of my early teen scene/emo phase has been completely wiped from the internet, I'd love to have just a few back to show my spouse how dumb I used to look lol. I think about this a lot.

I think you mean how cool you used to look

 

[bjork]

I've kept everything along the way, so I have it all. It isn't something I look at often, but it comes in handy on the rare occasion I'm telling a story and need visual reference.

 

[Zerpina]

If I had access to everything I had ever posted prior to here, I would, in fact, save it.
Like @waterxwraith said, a LOT, and I mean a lot of things I have posted are long gone due to now-defunct sites, blog posts, etc. Not photos of myself, but things I had created and posted on forums and sub-forums that have been gone since the mid-90s.

People I knew online who had passed away sent me photos that I would "save later," but I either never got around to it or lost them due to spinning hard drives dying out of the blue. So yes, I would back up stuff on an SSD and burn it to multiple Blu-rays just for preservation.

There were a few photos I hosted on a private image hosting site, kind of like a digital bank for images, which is now long dead. I had stored some pictures of my grandparents there. The original photos have been lost due to a fire, and digitally they are lost somewhere on some HDD that has either long since been destroyed or is in a server, sitting powered down for well over a decade now slowly degrading over time if not already completely dead.

You have to remember, I have been on the net longer than some people here have been alive, Like most of you have. Since right at the beginning of the '90s. So, I have posted a lot of stuff.

 

[PrismRed]

I'd be indifferent I guess, there are few people I've met back in early 2000s that I still contact sometimes so it doesn't feel much different from now.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

I have a lot of missing photos from my goth/punk phase as a kid that I'd love to share with my friends for a laugh.

 

[Aerolite]

Something like this would’ve been awesome for the Lost Media community, what the hell?

Anyways, I would LOVE to archive the very deep urban legends like LOL Superman or the original Jeff the Killer image

For the things I HAVE, uuuhhhhh I don’t know, I guess my cringe TikToks I made years ago? That be kinda cool to archive again

 

[Potapota]

More or less all of my past online activity has sadly been wiped away or forgotten but I do still have one ancient "personal" folder stashed away that has somehow survived its journey from some old family computer around the 2000's to my current nas. There's really nothing of value in there, its mostly just an assortment of vaguely interesting junk found online but I do cherish that dearly. It's a somewhat tangible reminder of the past that just keeps slipping away as time goes on.

 

[ObscureJigglypuff]

There is not much about me anywhere anyway, but i would die of cringe to see myself in old pictures.

And about old posts, those are the funny ones, and they aren't really lost yet.