Culture Share: The Importance of Archiving and How it Translates in a Fast-Moving Culture Cycle
Archiving, when done right, is a lifelong practice
Knowing when and what to archive
In the making of my latest film ‘The Dance Begins At Home’, I aimed to use archival footage of an MTV Base show called ‘Basketball Freestyler’ hosted by Trevor Nelson which aired in 2003. When I converted the VHS to MP4, I completely forgot that I had taped over the show with an LA Lakers vs Phoenix Suns game from 2007, which aired on Channel 5 in the early hours of the morning. I ended up watching the entire game and it felt like a time capsule moment, especially being able to witness Kobe Bryant’s prowess eighteen years on. Of course, I could’ve watched that particular game on YouTube, but the memories of staying up past midnight to record a game on the west coast were vivid because it was a deeper, meaningful ritual.
I could remember why I’d make such a decision to record over a show that can’t be found anywhere else online, I believed that I’d have an opportunity to watch that show again. I was wrong but now I live with the faded memory of the show but memories aren’t enough when we look back at the past, which is why we archive. However, it’s the discernment in knowing what’s worthy of archiving that’s a much harder skill to cultivate.
We’re seeing too many cultural moments happen in real time, they’re being livestreamed as they are happening, inflating micro, niche moments before they’ve had a chance to breathe and show us why they are important. The at-home audience has taken priority over the IRL, which is why Trump stealing the moment from Chelsea after their Club World Cup has gained so much traction. It became a spectacle worth tweeting and TikToking about for those watching at home, yet the IRL audience had their expensive experience tainted by Agent 47’s presence. Will we remember this embarrassing moment a year from now because we consumed it in a bite-sized form?
The Club World Cup and other live sporting events such as the NBA All-Star Weekend have attempted to appeal to a generation that has grown up multiscreening. Last year, our Head of Research, Jamie Oyebode, explored this trend that’s been growing since the advent of Twitter and the behavioural shifts among Gen Z: “The behaviour shift towards choosing TikTok over any of these [traditional] mediums means that, for the first time, consumers are opting to watch highlights that are (broadly) user-generated and made for portrait dimensions - both of which could be argued as inferior user experiences. Yet despite this, there is a desire to consume the highlights as quickly as possible, through an app that will whisk you onto the next video as soon as possible.”
However, the culture of skimming cultural moments and artefacts extends beyond sport and into our interpretations of art. There’s a rising trend that will surely increase over time, with people using ChatGPT and other AI platforms to summarise classic and iconic works of art. Why read Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ when you could just have AI summarise it for you? Or perhaps dangerously worse, why not ask ChatGPT for its interpretations of religious texts? It can be argued that this culture of skimming began when the stories feature became prominent on major social media platforms, popularised by Snapchat. When Snapchat launched in 2013, posting disappearing real-time updates on social media was a new phenomenon that quickly became embedded into our daily habits and routines. Soon after, most platforms followed.
In the way that some rules are meant to be broken, the same can be said for trends. Enhancing the live watch experience by ensuring that these grandiose moments are memorable. In the case of FIFA, this is a long-term strategy that needs to be considered, because much of the public sentiment surrounding this tournament is that it’s unnecessary and clogging up an already congested football calendar. And what was it all for? Few fans, besides Chelsea’s, would consider the CWC a major trophy since the tournament is largely invitational.
Much of this comes back to how iconic moments in sports are preserved. The NBA has been very successful in allowing its audience to access its archive through the distribution of classic championship series on YouTube, NBA.com and League Pass. Coupled with ‘The Last Dance’, which every sports documentary since then has tried to replicate, means the overall NBA product experience, to some degree, understands that legacy and storytelling through archives is fundamental to creating a lasting relationship with audiences.