My grandpa's old VHS tapes made me realize something about lost media

I was at my parents' house last weekend digging through their attic and found a box of my grandpa's old VHS tapes from the 80s. He used to record local news segments and random TV shows that never got reruns or put online. My dad said he threw out a bunch of them 10 years ago thinking they were junk, and now I'm wondering how much unique footage is just gone forever. Has anyone else found something like that in their family's old stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

clark.faith1d ago

Did you ever find tapes that made you wonder if you accidentally destroyed one-of-a-kind history? I have a similar story with my old camcorder tapes from the 90s, where I recorded my cat doing nothing special for hours, thinking it was pure gold. Turns out, my grandma had a stack of her own tapes she labeled "boring stuff," and I tossed them in a fit of spring cleaning. Now I bet half of them were actually rare local commercials or family moments we'd love to have. I swear, my house is a museum of "oops, I threw away the wrong thing.

abbyd361d ago

Your whole 'oops I threw away the wrong thing' museum thing really hits home. It's wild how we always think the stuff we make is the important stuff, but someone else's 'boring' tape is the real gold.