Doomed to Obscurity

Sources:
7:13 is made by channel - Alexander Gustafsson

Music in order of appearence:
LcdDem Soundtrack
Kevin Macleod - Chillin Hard
Innervation - Movements 1999
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Drippy Eye
Von Hohenheim - Vestiges
Yume Nikki OST - Dark World (Extended)
Aphex Twin - Lmt
Aphex Twin - 1 nocares

[sphrcl.]

Solar Sands is like a solar eclipse: It doesn't happen often, but when it does, you know it's gonna be special!

[SharpnessSword]

I clean biohazard scenes as a job, recently I cleaned a suicide. The condo association said they had no family, we cleaned him off the walls and removed all his things. The thing that really hit me though was finding his youtube channel with a few dozen views at most, of the man sad, alone, playing his guitar months before I took it with my own hands, smashed it, and threw it into a dumpster.

[JJMcCullough]

The Washington Post did a podcast series a few years ago called "Presidential" where they profiled each president in succession, by talking to historians and other experts. And what was striking about the series was that even though we tend to think of US presidents as a group of men who have been researched to death, there are actually a handful of presidents about whom little substantial research has been done, because they're just not that important or interesting. Some presidents have never had a in-depth biography written about them (at best, just a fairly superficial one written ages ago) and today have no living, recognized "experts" on their presidencies. It made me realize that political fame, even at that level, can be very fleeting, and helped me understand how historical obscurity evolves, and is in some ways both rational and inevitable.

[masonmireles]

The Egyptians believed the most horrible thing was to be forgotten by history. By being forgotten and lost to the obscurity of time, your soul would die as well, for when people remember you your soul lived on in the afterlife. This was the case of Pharaoh Akhenaten who the Egyptians hated so much for his forced religion and ideologies that they tried to scrub him from history after his death, so that he may die forever and never be remembered.

[drengibami]

Solar Sands 4 years ago: haha deviantart art is so cringe

Solar Sands now: here’s your monthly *existential crisis*

[troncdenadal]

This video has reminded me of an experience I had last year. I'm a high school student who has done a school project about the life in my local town during 19th century. During my research, I was granted access to my town's historical archives and I spent hours upon hours reading hundreds of documents.
Among these documents, there was one that particularly caught my attention, not because of its major historical significance in comparison to others, but because of the opposite, because of its mundanity.
It was lawsuit from the year 1811 made my a woman who apparently ran into another woman who she did not see eye to eye with while going to buy some bread at the bakery. The two women then proceeded to have an intense verbal dispute inside the bakery, (which made me laugh out loud once I read the hilariously antiquated insults they threw at each other.) and it all led to one of them suing the other .
It made me reflect on how for these women, this incident was probably nothing more than an insignificant dispute which they would most likely end up forgetting not long after, but little did they know that silly fight would be the evidence that would preserve the memory of their existence over 200 years into the future and that a teenager from the 21st century would be laughing at them in a time long after themselves or anyone they would ever interact with had passed away.

[amphathyst]

In design, my class got an assignment where each of us had to make a map. It didn't matter how small the map was. I made mine about a kitchen cabinet, labeling mugs, plates, glasses and bowls that were particularly significant only to my small family. The assignment made me realize that there's probably an infinite amount of maps through an infinite amount of lenses, physical or within our minds, that will be known by little to no people. Forever ʘ‿ʘ

[itzyaboi]

This is a big reason why I love art. Theres nothing else I could listen to someone drone on and on for hours. And those same people tend to be as entertaining to listen to about anything.

[rbel]

I remember seeing a post on Tumblr were somebody went to a museum on Native American art, and naturally, a lot of the artwork didn't have names for the creators. But instead of putting "Name Unknown", the museum put "Name Once Known", and I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it. Even if we don't know them, they existed, and they left something behind.

[Mornings]

Stuff like this always reminds me of the quote from a bomb defuser who was asked if he was ever scared he would mess up and said "I'm either the hero or its suddenly not my problem anymore". Always stuck with me.

[domsooch]

There's a certain dehumanization that comes with the passing of time and I think that videos like these that discuss not "important" or "grandiose" events in history but regular, average people at the time finds a way to bridge the gap and reminds me that they're far more similar to me than I realize.

[thfelixraven]

My grandma once said she wanted a "stone", by stone she meant a ring. So my grandfather being who he is thought it would be funny to get a big boulder and put it next to her driveway, and that would be her stone. That boulder remains there, with meaning. If I had not told you, any other person would look and see that as a meaningless boulder, and if I had not had told you, that boulder would just become meaningless forever. Knowing how many people there are in the world, there are probably tens of billions of instances of small things like this which will go forgotten forever. -sincerely Uel

[Crowborn]

Being an archivist, it's impressive how WRONG the "everything is on the Internet" idea is. Even if you discard the old, unknowable stuff of history, take just 1980 to the present which is... nothing, on the grand scheme of Humanity. There is SO MUCH missing, so many libraries and museums just waiting to have the funds to scan their collections, so many cities and historical buildings about which you find not a single line written at all online despite there being books and books and books on their history on local libraries. It's actually really inspiring to work at the Internet's "Frontier", and to know it isn't some finished, ready-made, all-knowing thing, but one we need to - and easily can! - cultivate and keep improving. That's why i love working with obscure media. This video is excellent, really touches on many of those points.

[chonk]

“Slaves and masters die together” is the most humanizing phrase in the world

[baranxlr]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the oldest person whose name we know: A sumerian person named Kushim, who probably managed some kind of barley storage. They're also responsible for the oldest known math mistake

[brianholmes]

That talk of the tiny traces of routines reminds me of something that happened to me once on a dig. I'm an archaeologist, and we were excavating the remains of a bronze age hut. As we did so, we distinctly noticed a buildup of pottery shards near the front door, at the outside. The lead professor realised that these were the remains of a benine routine much like the ones talkd about here. Whenever a pot would be dropped or fall or break, they'd sweep it out the front door so its out of the way. Just a tiny one if those insignificant routines, noticed from thousands of years in the past

[Jackson-nqkh]

“You could hide a dead body within these black spines” - your storytelling has progressed tremendously and fantastically, I love it

[CloverSchilling]

I went walking with my mom around the river, where I found a ton of stuff had been thrown away into the tiny trashcan at the start of the walk. I got curious and poked around, found a few old printed off photos, not on glossy photo paper but just plain printer paper. They were old ass Vietnam photos. Just young looking guys standing in front of a somewhat sloppy tent, smiling at the camera. Nothing gross or scary. I looked through some of the paperwork and found what looked like a listing of awards. Someone got a purple heart, along with other awards I don't remember. Someone kept that roll of photos until they could just cheaply print them off on some paper to keep. And then that person died and someone else just threw it all away. I couldn't help but feel conflicted about leaving them there, even though I didn't even know the person.

[tomfoolery]

It kills me whenever I go back through a playlist only to see deleted and privated videos.

[DoctorLazertron]

Imagine dying and being uncovered hundreds of years later and the society that digs you up has this really cringe trend going on that just happens to match your unwilling pose. I empathize but do not envy you, dab mummy 🙏