Preservation

Jesus, it’s been a long time since I’ve been here.

I’m not going to waste time with explanations of why I didn’t touch this thing for so long. There’s no point in it.

But I do have a reason to dust this thing off and use it again. And it started by being scared that yet another piece of my history, my story, had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Because that seems to be a pattern. Just about every outlet I had written for no longer has my work available.

Some, like 411Mania.com and Blogcritics.org, have wiped me out of their archives. No, I don’t think it’s any big conspiracy or anything. Companies only have so much server space. That stuff costs money.

Some just plain went away. Examiner.com – arguably where I was the most prolific and made the most money – was bought out by AXS TV and promptly disappeared. An outlet I had been a co-owner of, TheGorillaPosition.com, was sold. And the new owner saw fit to wipe out everything I had done for it! (I apparently should have included some kind of caveat into the sale agreement.)

Others morphed into some other form of media. PanelsOnPages is exclusively a podcast with a Discord community. Hell, if you check my social media? THIS VERY BLOG morphed into shortform video presentations. So that, I definitely understand.

One outlet that morphed into another form was one that was the impetus for this (re-)visit and updated purpose. Part of my absence can be blamed on going back to school and getting a bachelor’s degree and damn near finishing my master’s (still working on that one as of this writing). As part of that journey, I was a writer and content editor for The Horizon, “The Student Publication of Indiana University Southeast.” Serving two semesters with the student newspaper there was a requirement for my degree in multimedia journalism. Makes sense.

However, I discovered today that The Horizon is now a radio station, podcast and YouTube channel. The Horizon news publication – either in print or online – is no more. Another outlet I had poured so much of myself into had disappeared.

The weird part was, when I checked the Horizon website earlier in the day, it was gone. Completely.

Hours later, after I had inquired about its existence? The website returned, which means my contribution to The Horizon is at least still available online.

But the damage had been done. It was the last straw. I keep a Google Doc that’s 62 pages long with a link to everything I have ever written for an online outlet since I started that game in 2003. And about 99% of those links are inaccessible.

And I’m over it. I’m over my history disappearing. I’m over my story being erased.

So I’m taking it upon myself to preserve my history. I’m taking it upon myself to make sure my story doesn’t get erased. And I’m doing it here.

I may post the occasional thought or missive like I used to, but I’m much more focused on publishing my old stories here. And there’s a ton of them. I told you, what, 62 pages worth of links?

As many as I can resuscitate and reprint, they’re coming here.

I’ve done it before. I made sure  “Remixing The Industry” and “Revenge Of The Nerds” were preserved because they were too important to me to let them evaporate. Now it’s time to save what I can of the rest of my history.