Some words on media permanence

It is a strange thing about media artifacts that some of them age well, while others do not. Some can be forgotten for decades, only to find a new audience willing and able to engage with them. Others can not be revived as easily, and are thus consigned to reside only in the memories of those who were there at the time.

To be sure, this applies to things that are not media artifacts, too. Things happen, and after they have happened you were either there or you were not, and your memories of the event are shaped accordingly. It is a very important aspect of the human condition.

But the point of media artifacts is that it is possible to return to them at a later date. They are supposed to have some sort of permanence - it is a key feature. Books remain as written, pictures as pictured, movies as directed. It would be a substantial design flaw if these things did not last.

Though, then again, some things do not last. Books fall apart, movies fade, hard drives crash. Entropy is not kind to supposedly eternal things. Look upon these works, ye mighty.

But. All these things aside: some media artifacts age well, and some do not. Some can be readily introduced to new audiences, while others remain indecipherable mysteries even upon close encounter. There is a difference, and it is very distinct from the question of whether or not we're trying to jam a VHS tape into a Betamax player.

This difference can be clearly seen if we contrast Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5. Despite being from roughly the same time, belonging to the same genre and sharing a non-insignificant portion of plot elements, one of these television series is instantly accessible to contemporary audiences while the other is not. Though it pains me to say, it takes a non-trivial effort on the part of those who are not nostalgically attached to Babylon 5 to view it with contemporary eyes. A certain sensibility has been lost, and the gloriously cheesy CGI effects turn into obstacles to further viewing. Surmountable obstacles, but obstacles nonetheless.

The same goes for computer games. I imagine that, should we use the Civilization series as a benchmark, there would be different cutoff points for different audiences. For my part, the first iteration is unplayable, and I suspect many of my younger peers would balk at Civilization 2. I also have fears that 3 or even 4 might be too much of a learning curve for those who were not there to remember it. Not because the games are inherently impossible to play, but because the contemporary frameworks for how games are supposed to work (and how intuitive user interfaces are supposed to be) have shifted between then and now.

A certain sensibility has been lost.

It would be a mistake to label this development as either good or bad. The young ones have not destroyed theater by their use of the lyre, despite all accounts to the contrary. These changes are simply something that have happened, and have to be understood as such. Moreover, it is something to take into account as yet another generation grows up in a society overflowing with media artifacts, old and new.

Some of these artifacts will constitute shared experiences, while others will not. Such is the way of these things.