Google defines Legacy Media as “traditional means of communication and expression that have existed since before the advent of the new medium of the Internet.” An example of this legacy media that struck me when I understood the concept of legacy media was the book. Following Google’s definition, books are indeed very traditional and date back to ancient times during which books were used as a means of communicating and recording information. Books still serve the same purpose hundreds of years later. However, they have rapidly begun to be replaced because of the growing technology that records the same information that would usually be recorded in books to be recorded on a computer which stores the information for much longer.

Personally, I loved books as a child. I would read for hours at a time and stay up with a flashlight underneath my blanket to avoid getting in trouble. However, as I grew up I would always tell myself that I would read this book that looks really good but I could no longer bring myself to do it because why read the book when I could read it online or find out what happens, online. In high school, I was a part of the IB Program which emphasized research and discovery which forced me to go to research libraries and look up the books and read through them to find the information that I needed for my papers. I was always so surprised by the amount of information that was still stored in the books. However, a lot of the information was in the “electronic library” which made it slightly easier to complete my research from the comfort of my room.  For some topics I didn’t even have to go to the library because all the information I needed was on the internet.

Websites like scholar.google.com and galileo hold a ton of information which made it easier to do research without having to go out looking for the book. If this option didn’t exist, one would definitely have to use books. I actually think that the value of books sort of goes down because so much is online now that no one feels that books are important. I wouldn’t say that books are no longer important or would eventually stop being used. However, I would say that a majority of books and the information that they hold, especially record books might eventually all be transcribed so that IF there comes a time where a book cannot be located, its information is not totally gone.

One form of (almost) obsolete media that played a large role in my childhood were VHS tapes. I still have an entire basket of VHS tapes of some of my favorite movies, mostly including Disney classics and Christmas movies. I remember them very vividly, including the act of having to rewind the full tape before watching, their cumbersome size, and their poor picture quality. My family even still has a VHS player under our television, although we rarely watch any of our VHS tapes. This form of media was replaced by DVDs, which are now being replaced by movie streaming websites, such as Netflix and Hulu. One common problem with these forms are media are that they can be easily tampered with or broken. However, Netflix and Hulu protect against this common problem, making these a more desirable and protected form of this media. I remember when my brother was much younger, he got into our basket of VHS tapes, and tore the tape out of the cassette.

Despite having a few ruined VHS tapes, my family continues to use them once a year. We watch classic Christmas movies, such as Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, together, as these movies are often hard to find on other forms of media. The VHS tapes also evoke a sense of nostalgia and remind me of previous Christmases spent as a child. Despite VHS tapes slowly becoming obsolete, their impact on the world of media has not. They made movies easily accessible, and made possible the creation of more advanced forms of media, such as DVD’s and movie streaming websites.

Media comes and goes, its a trend that is impossible to be broken. Some forms come and go much quicker than others. Some stick for a long time, such as Facebook, as it’s audience has been broadened over the years. The form of legacy media I would like to talk about today is the app known as iFunny. Now while this media is still around today, it is a shell of its former self. Back in the 2000’s iFunny had captured the young person’s mind, including my own. This momentary rise and fall of media is known as Residual Media. The app was a social platform for connecting people to other people through humorous pictures. This app practically invented the meme; a picture with bold writing captioning the image on top. It was particularly popular when the ipod touch was at its peak. This was mainly due to the ipod touch being the first handheld device other than a smart phone to have internet capabilities. Users could pass the time on their own Wifi scrolling through endless comical pictures to cheer them up. The app was popular from kids to young adults all the way to adults. The app had issues with consistency and producing new content. As times changed and the world continued to grow and evolve, iFunny could not keep pace. In the years since its peak, it has been overtaken by media such as Vine, Pinterest, and Reddit. Sooner rather than later, these will be overtaken by new apps and media that have yet to be created.

Legacy media was very prevalent in my life, and I remember it fondly as a child growing up. My family loves movies, and as a child I remember having a large collection of VHS tapes containing all of the movies I could ever ask for. Although VHS is basically obsolete, we still have an old tv upstairs in our house that contains a VHS player and all of our old tapes. I don’t think we have used the tv in years, making it weird to remember the time when that was all that we watched. My life changed when portable DVD players were invented, and I brought mine a long with me on every car ride, and on every trip with all of my favorite DVDs. Now, the portable DVD player has been replaced with laptops, and DVDs have been replaced with Netflix. Social media changes so fast that sometimes it’s hard to even remember a time when I didn’t possess an iPhone, or when I didn’t have Netflix to watch movies or tv shows on. It is crazy to think about how much can change in fifteen years, and makes me wonder if our current social medias will turn into legacy media in the next fifteen.

I remember back when I was younger I would use VHS tapes to watch movies and tv shows. I remember always watching The Teletubbies and Barnie. I specifically remember when my brother would watch his Thomas the Train and The Wiggles, VHS tapes. I believe my family still has all the VHS tapes but we don’t ever use them anymore because they are so obsolete now a days. I even think that DVD’s will eventually become obsolete because of all the things, like Hulu, Netflix, Youtube and many other things that have movies and shows to watch. I have Netflix and that is all I ever watch and I rarely even watch regular tv anymore.

Another thing that has become obsolete is the use of CD’s. I remember having a stereo when I was younger and I would always play the Hannah Montana CD, or the High School Musical CD. Even now, in the newer model of cars they don’t even have a place for you to play a CD. They all have bluetooth or a place for an auxiliary cord to use your phone to play music. There are so many apps like, Spotify,  and iTunes where you can create your own playlist of your favorite music and you don’t even have to buy the CD’s and then burn all your favorite songs on one CD. I remember my dad used to do that and my mom did it one time, just so that they had all their favorite songs on one CD.

When I was younger I had a Nintendo DS and PSP. I played those devices all the time. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen someone playing on one of those devices. Now everything is played on XBOX, or the PS4. My family has a Wii but I couldn’t tell you the last time we used that because we now have a PS4. It’s crazy how all the devices I used to use, I don’t ever use them anymore and they are just sitting around my house taking up space.

It’s amazing how over time the media I used has changed from using VHS to Netflix, from CD’s to iTunes, from Nintendo DS to PS4. Media is always changing and it will continue to change.

Many forms of legacy media are very prevalent in my every day life, even though many people consider these forms of media to be obsolete. No, I do not watch VHS tapes or listen to CD’s anymore, but I do have many memories of these forms of media from when I was younger. These forms of legacy media are associated with my childhood and make me feel very nostalgic. I still remember burning CD’s to listen to in the car, or burning CD’s to give to my friends in elementary school. These memories are a lot more meaningful to me than the first day I downloaded Spotfiy, which I don’t even remember. Another legacy media is the newspaper, which my dad gets delivered to our house every day. There is something about reading an article in a newspaper that reading an article on the internet just can’t compare to. Newer media like the internet is supposed to make other forms of media obsolete, but instead in my life it has made forms of legacy media even more appreciated and used. At first, trying out new media can be exciting, for example I still remember when my Amazon Kindle came in the mail many years ago, but after a while new media can become obsolete. I quickly ditched my Kindle for regular paper books, and to this day I still do not know where my Kindle is. New media can be a hassle, but old media is basic, reliable, and oddly comforting to use in a world that so quickly changes and updates.

In my house, music is a prevalent thing. We are constantly playing music in the background at any event because it can help set a mood. Nowadays, it is most common to hear of people using their phones to access their music libraries through Spotify, pandora, or apple music. It is crazy to think of how obsolete things like CD’s and cassette players have become. This is especially fascinating to my family, because my grandfather was the owner of a record label, Intersound. He would produce countless albums that were placed on CD’s and sold around the US. He sold this company in the late 90’s right as the music industry began to turn into a digital market.
With the generation today, CD’s have become residual media that are rarely seen due to the immense access people have to any and every song possible through their phones. No one feels the need to spend money on a complete album when they can simply buy a single song a download it on Itunes. Even simpler is the notion of Spotify. You simply pay ten dollars a month to almost unlimited access to all music. Although we have access to such vast amounts of music there’s no feeling quite like being able to pop in a CD to your car and skip around the album of your favorite artist with the windows down. These are the moments I have the most memories of not the moments I plug in my phone to the aux. In reality the digitalization of music is the same situation as the digitalization of books. It is all personal preference, but how accessible something is to someone definitely impacts how often it is used.

One piece of residual media that my family has completely abandoned is cable TV. Recently a few months ago my dad switched from using DirecTV to completely relying on antenna TV. Though it seems like we were reverting back to a an almost obsolete media, what made us switch was the emergent media of Netflix and other online streaming sources.

Because I have Netlflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube, and other online streaming sources I have an infinite library of movies and TV shows at my finger tips, available to me whenever I need them. It allows me the ability to watch shows on my own schedule instead of keeping up with shows weekly, anxiously waiting for the new episode to come out. Instead I can just wait for a season to come out on Netflix or possibly find the new episode somewhere else online. It also saves me money because I can also just wait for movies to come out online too.

With DirecTV there were over 300 channels we could watch, but barely watched half of them. I only ever watched cable TV for all the cooking shows I never actually learned from to kill time after school or kept it on as background noise for other activities I would be doing around the house. My parents only ever watched local news channels or sports games, and the antenna is still able to provide that same entertainment, just limiting what games my dad can watch.

It is ironic how an emergent media allowed for a residual media to come back; however, because my parents are more old school and do not comply to newer technologies, I am the only one that uses the internet as my new source of TV entertainment.