In the real world, I am neither a hoarder nor a collector. If something gets in the way I consider it clutter, and I get rid of it. I don’t save things for “what ifs.” I also don’t feel compelled to collect things I don’t like just because they’re part of a set with things that I do like.
That doesn’t always carry over to my digital life.
When downloading an album, I often download every track, even after I listen to all the songs and realize there are only one or two that I would ever realistically want to listen to again. If I were to go to the store and buy a CD it would have every track on it, why wouldn’t I want to have the entire album in my library? What if I wake up one day and decide I actually like those other tracks? Wouldn’t I be sorry if I didn’t hold onto them?
Or what if I friend might want to borrow that album? (They won’t, they have streaming. Also, you’re 32 years old and haven’t given someone a burnt CD or a mixtape in over a decade.)
The same thing applies to movies. You have a 4K copy of The Dark Knight, don’t you need to also keep a copy of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises in case you ever feel a need to re-watch the trilogy (even though you don’t like the other two movies very much)?
There are many videos I’ve saved because I may want to watch them again one day, even though I have little to no desire to every actually sit down and rewatch them. If there’s a movie in my library that goes years between viewings, do I really need my own copy to keep and backup in perpetuity?
Sometimes I even picture myself sitting down ten or twenty years from now, possibly with a child, wanting to show them some film that I enjoyed once upon a time. Maybe in the future these movies will be more difficult to get. What if I can’t rent them from a streaming service? What if they disappear from civilization? What if I’m the only one who remembers them and this is the only way to keep them from dying out forever?
That’s not going to happen.
Sure, maybe some really obscure title might be hard to find, but how many of those do you really have in your library? I promise you, it will not be hard to find a copy of Blade Runner somewhere in the world, even twenty or thirty years from now.
The thing I have to keep reminding myself is: I’m not the library of congress. It’s not my duty or calling to keep a copy of every single movie that is vaguely interesting. It’s not up to me to keep every book I read, or every song or album I download. If you only like three tracks from a Greatest Hits album, don’t keep the other seventeen around “just in case.”
You are not the library of congress. Your collection is not the last vestige of a bygone media era.
What you are is a human being who consumes media, and who curates a collection of things they like and want to keep around. That movie you watch every Christmas? Keep a copy. That comfort show that you rewatch every couple of years? That stays. That album you know you’ll listen to again, when the mood is just right? Obviously. But that album from the 90s with that one hit song, and then a bunch of filler?
Get rid of the filler. It wasn’t good then, it’s not good now, it won’t be good later.
Online life is real life. Your digital possessions are the same as your physical possessions. Every file has a weight to it. It has a maintenance cost. It is something that has to take up space on your drive, potentially at the cost of something else you would like to store in its place. There are tradeoffs. There are tasks you must perform to keep it safe, like backing up (to multiple devices, in multiple physical locations). There’s work to be done.
Curate a library that you love. One that speaks to you. And don’t worry about what others will think about your library. You are not the librarian of Alexandria. You are not the library of congress.