Episode 53 - Loss

(Music fades in)

Welcome to the podcast. Although it is not the podcast you know or initially subscribed to. Or maybe it is. I don’t even know anymore though. This was supposed to be a podcast about a forum I vaguely remembered from my youth and the game that came along with it, those secret whispers around a maze, as it were, a coding of a game that wasn’t really a game. It was just something to do, something to fill up time that seemed to hit at just the right itch in our minds. It worked for us, the small group of misfits that gathered on that forum. It made sense to us. Until it didn’t. And we–like so many that came before–fell off the site and into some other adventures in our lives.

It was the sort of experience I’m sure some of you found fascinating, either because you remembered what the internet used to be like or because you can’t imagine that iteration: that form that predates the ones so many people reminiscence about on the same seven or so websites we’ve all been shepherded onto because nothing else seems to have survive.

I mean, I remember Neopets and the other various websites I spent some parts of my childhood on just like I remember the more specialized and genre-specific writing forums that have fallen away.

But there was a time before those things, before the internet became so accessible as a mass transit hub for information and potential consumers of goods, services, and content. The inclusion of more people and more opportunities fundamentally changed what the internet was, but we don’t talk about that. It’s a hard thing to talk about. It’s hard to understand such thorough and all-encompassing changes when they happen in real time. It’s hard to trace out the land beneath your feet in the middle of the earthquake.

Although we do not understand it well, things changed. They had to. Nothing can last forever. We may want it to. Or we–generally speaking–have wanted it to. We’ve tried to find ways for it to, tried to devise schemas wherein immortality in some form was possible. Maybe it is too far to say that we created the concept of history just to have stories that endure. But maybe that was what myths and legends were supposed to be: indulgences in the urge to carry on and the urge to have a legacy that were then ripped from our hands turned into concepts that could live on forever but without the names of their creators attached.

If so, that would be somewhat ironic. Or I suspect it would be. Irony is the sort of thing I struggle to identify sometimes. I missed that lesson in English class, I think. Something else had come up that week. Maybe it was the constant moving about or some other sort of catastrophe sweeping me from my desk and into this unforgiving real world that made it so I would never know, truly, what irony actually is.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

That part doesn’t matter though. What matters is that we have lost things, we always lose things. But unlike the losses of people–family and friends–or objects–treasured gifts like teddy bears and the like–the losses of the internet feel different somehow. First of all, there’s something almost impossible about it. The losses of the physical are inevitable, intertwined with the nature of the medium in which they exist, but the internet is supposed to be forever. And in some ways, it is. A stray mouseclick can keep the mortifying image we want so badly to erase just out of our reach. That’s a real boogeyman, as it were. It’s the sort of thing every criminal across the centuries has had to fear: the stray and unseen witness that can stay one step or two ahead of them and their knife. But the witness is not summoned by our malicious intentions or our indiscretions. On the internet, the witness is just there.

But there are things that we might witness and we don’t save. Not all witnesses are created equally after all. There are those witnesses who have seen but cannot explain. The witness can assert but cannot necessarily prove what happened. And in the case of the internet, where so much was possible but not everything happened and where things could be faked so easily, we should have grabbed some evidence, some shred of the world we knew.

But we didn’t. Or not always anyway.

It didn’t bother many of us, though. We were content to move on. Those versions of the internet were just places we outgrew, like schools we spent some of our childhood in that we will always cherish in our hearts. We will look back on them fondly, but there is no reason for us to go back. Nothing good would come of it. We had to move on to have the life we love. And the memories themselves serve whatever purpose going back might have had. And our old online handles, the usernames, those various versions of ourselves, were people we had to outgrow, for our own sake, no matter how painful it was, no matter how badly we wanted to hold on or if we really preferred that version of ourselves to the version we ended up with. We couldn’t hold on. We had to let go. I regret letting go.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

But in any event, the landscapes change again. Because what really got me thinking about this whole loss thing was streaming. You know, that thing we all ditched cable for because it was supposed to be cheaper and on-demand and the advertisements on TV were getting pretty annoying? How has that gone for us, I asked even though I know the answer. We’ve gotten the streaming wars, as we call them. That’s meant there’s now a plethora of different services we have to pay for, if we choose to do that, and there’s a reason we may have to in order to keep up with the trends or our own preferences, or the like. But it’s all more expensive than cable, and the shows we love and would choose to keep watching are getting canceled for some (quote) ‘metrics’-related reason that just sounds like an excuse to avoid pay raises in subsequent seasons. And now they too have plenty of ads, too many ads, so many that it has also gotten annoying.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

But really, it’s the cancellations that have started to annoy me most of all. Maybe you agree. On one hand, it hurts when a story is left unfinished. There’s frustration and a gnawing curiosity that comes with not knowing what’s going to happen to the characters we grew attached to. There was always a risk with getting attached to a television show. It was a risk that one took when choosing to love a story, but now, things are being deleted, wiped off the record potentially as a tax write off. And forever kept out of our grasp.

It’s Lost Media. That’s the technical term for it. And it’s something that’s always happened. There’s always been a risk of things not being preserved, media not released in physical forms, or those physical forms decaying as time eats away at them. It just feels different now because those other forms were accidental, the product of the same forces that we ourselves are potentially going to fall victim to one day. But what we’re seeing now feels more deliberate, the purposeful deprivation in the name of a couple bucks.

But okay, maybe that description isn’t charitable. I didn’t mean it to be. I am a skeptical person by nature, taught to be it by nurture as well. I know there are good people, but they are few and far between and often punished for being good. I felt punished for being good sometimes, but that’s not relevant here.

My point is that this has felt more like theft than anything else. It has felt like those who have already taken so much from our wallets take these things from our hearts as well. And from there, the bitterness seeps out. From there, the frustration becomes so much harder to ignore. It’s the only reaction one could have, and the disregard for that reaction–the lack of fear that we will take back our wallets and the dollars we offer these studios every month doesn’t deter them.

That’s a compounding disrespect, really: to lose a thing and to then lose your dignity on top of it.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

But maybe that was a needless rant. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe I was saying something. Maybe there’s a conversation we need to have about compounding loss, about the sort of theft that steals more and more. Is it even really a theft then? There’s a limit to our language that I’m struggling to navigate. Theft is a singular action, in many ways. It’s a taking of something, and while that loss is noted, it is not welcome, and it stings a bit. But it ends once the action ends. When the two parties involved break apart, it is done. But there are types of taking that become drains, they are breaks in the wall and a seeping out of all that is required to exist. They are a continued loss, a loss of something originally and then that portion of the self that was meant to keep everything in.

It’s a loss of ourselves again and again and again.

In any event, I have been thinking about lost media a lot. It’s something that has become a recent topic of a larger cultural conversation. But also, it never really left. How many of us 90s kids have tried to remember the faint frame or two of a once beloved TV show? There’s whole TikTok accounts devoted to that thing. And maybe that part isn’t surprising. TikTok is an app that has a lot of potential for fame, money, and clout if one can find just the right niche to fall into. And television has its appeal, the shows we love especially, and the things we struggle to remember are always a welcome addition to our feeds. So the logic was always there, right?

We’ve all had that sort of show, don’t we? We all have that old comfort show we’ve hardly thought about in years that we would love to see again in our worst times. When we are beaten down by our own adulthood, we would love that taste of childhood comfort just to reawaken those feelings of safety and love that we haven’t known in years.

I’m no different in that respect. Every so often, I try to find a very specific show from my childhood that I can really only half remember. It’s this old cartoon about a girl that goes on adventures. She wanders away from her family or whoever is meant to watch her and goes on some grand journey. Those journeys often bent and twisted various genres, so really, it could be anything, from what I remember. Except the sort of thing you would want your children to see and emulate. That girl’s behavior is not the sort of thing I can really condone. Nobody could, in fact. And if that was the reason the show was canceled, I understand. Not that I’ve ever been able to confirm that’s what happened. It just seems logical really.

And that’s not news to you, is it? I mentioned it in this season’s trailer, when I was trying to set your expectations appropriately for what this season was going to be about.

I’m not good with trailers, I know. It’s something I struggle with. I just don’t know how to capture what a season will be like without just telling you what it will be. I don’t put everything out there, but I do put a lot out there. More than I should, really. And yet also not enough.

But there was a supposed advantage to doing it the way I did. I had wanted to open up some sort of discussion of what this show was and invite anyone else who remembered it to come into my email or DMs to share what they knew. Maybe–and that word does not fully encapsulate how unlikely it was–someone would know where to find it. And let’s just assume for legalities sake that I was only going to follow completely legal and legitimate leads on this search. Not that I think this could have been morally wrong. I mean, is it piracy if I have no legal way of purchasing the product? Technically yes, but the spirit of loss that is meant to accompany the word doesn’t really apply. I would have bought it, though, if that option existed, but it didn’t seem to. And I wanted to be wrong about that.

But–unsurprisingly–no one had any leads. Legal or not. No one even seems to remember this show. I did get some emails about similar shows. Escaping children made someone think of Rugrats. I did love that show as a kid. I’ve seen every episode, but this show I’m talking about was not Rugrats. Rugrats was about a group of kids sharing some adventure, the whimsical magic and wonder of creation that is only within the reach of those who do not understand how the world works. The show I’m talking about was different. The Rugrats children were loved. This girl–the character of the show I remember–might not have been. I really don’t think she was.

Sure, loving parents sometimes misplace their children. These are creatures prone to chaos, after all. They can easily wander off with the sliver of second given to them when a caregiver’s back is turned, but it was different with this girl, this character on the television set, this girl with a bright green ribbon in her hair. She didn’t just instantly disappear. She meandered about. She lingered within reach of her caregiver for several moments. And in those moments, there was a chance to grab her. No one took it. She didn’t have to wander off so far and into such real dangers. In hindsight, I get the feeling the girl with the bright green ribbon didn’t have much in the way of a self-preservation instinct. She didn’t seem to understand what it meant to be in danger, and sure, you don’t expect a small child to be able to articulate those things, but it’s the sort of understanding that’s very visceral. It’s an impulse or an instinct their body should bow down to. It should govern their actions. It will take over and do what needs to be done.

And yet, she didn’t seem to have that. Despite this, she always came out on the other side safely. She would run into the arms of an uncle waiting to take her home. And I’m sure that’s legally what he had to do. Legally, he couldn’t just keep her, but when he did that, when he brought her back to her parents, it was like the cycle was starting all over again. In no time at all, she would be back in danger. She would be wandering off again and the cycle would repeat.

But that’s how it always has to be with television or content creation. There always has to be more show, is a line from BoJack Horseman. I forget what episode it was in. But the TV show about a horse had a profound take on the perils of media creation. Unless you really know it’s going to be the end, you always have to set up for more. Sometimes you even know it’s the end, but you still have to leave a few threads out in the open for you or someone else to pick up in case the studio executives call for more show. Whether it’s more episodes or a reboot or a sequel of some kind.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

And really, that’s one of the good things about studio executives. Actually, no, that wasn’t a good segue. I mean, when it’s someone else calling for more or the end, there’s a clear end. Somewhat. You know when it is coming. You know to lay down your pens or keyboards or whatever it is you work with and move on with your life. When someone else calls an end, there is an end. And when it’s someone from outside of the show, they call it with little thought to the emotional stakes. There is no attachment driving the decision. There is no nostalgia or need to just feel something, to chase a high that came from an earlier success. There is just the end, the cold cauterization of the lifeline.

For me, I wonder if I shouldn’t have ended this podcast by now. Maybe there was a time or an episode when I should have just pulled the plug. Maybe the show shouldn’t have moved onto Symbolic Myst, my writing, or anything beyond the initial game and the forum that went with it. Maybe the end of that, the mystery I couldn’t solve, was the real end of the show, an end that happened before it really had any chance to start.

That's actually a long way of saying maybe I shouldn’t have launched this podcast, which is something I do think about from time to time. Because I don’t know how or if I should end it.

I like running it, for my own sake, though. I don’t think anyone is really benefiting from terrible stories and veiled remarks. And if they are, that small good pales in comparison with the good I could do, the help I could offer if I told this story in a different way. I know that. I’ve never doubted that and have only hid behind my own insecurities, fears and reasons.

The truth would likely help. It would essentially bring some people closure even if there isn’t much that could be done with it. But I can’t bring myself to say it. I can’t seem to bring myself to do the thing that I know I really need to do. But that doesn’t surprise you, does it? That’s a very human experience, one that you’ve likely had in your own time and in your life.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

There’s so many things to do or think about, so many different streams of thought or issues in our life that we should be taking care of but really can’t. We cannot solve the greatest unsolved mysteries of the world or our time. We cannot know all the answers to all of the inquiries and random musings that plague our day to day lives. We don’t have the ability to stop every car crash just because we can see the driver is swerving. We don’t have the ability to stop our boss from blowing the company’s biggest account or pushing away the top earner. We don’t have the ability to referee a battle between our parents as they try to make decisions that will forever alter the life of our family. We can do none of those things.

But there are things we can do, aspects of our lives we can control. In theory, I can find this show. In theory, I can tell the stories of my childhood–the ones I made and the ones I lived. I can talk about the things I’ve seen in the way that I remember them and in the ways that they fit properly in my mouth. I can leave the clues, and someone else can put them together.

It would probably help, though, if I could describe this show better or give you any sort of context. What channel was it playing on, you might be thinking? What did the credits say? Can I seriously not remember something as simply as the title? And look, I get it, but it’s complicated. The human mind and heart are both limited. I was a child during all of this with all the limitations and hang ups that come with that stage of development. My transformation into adulthood did surprisingly little in the face of these things. I also wish it could have done more. I wish it could somehow have rewritten what was laid out into my mind or help me remember this story. But it couldn’t do that. It didn’t do that. And here we are.

But to answer all of your many questions in an order that makes the most sense to me. No, I cannot remember the title. If I’m right, the title must have been the young main character’s name or some sort of reference to her. And that would make sense, right? It’s how a lot of children’s television shows are titled. The main character, their growth, and their adventures are at the center of the story, and therefore, it only makes sense to frame the entire narrative around that one person, but I can’t remember that character’s name. Also there was no talking in the show, not even the parents or other caregivers frantically yelling for the young girl when they realized she was gone. And I think that’s what you are supposed to do anyway. Like you’re not supposed to yell the kid’s name because you’re just giving the malicious or evil a tool in luring the child away. And those around you with the best of intentions and noblest of hearts don’t know what to make of that name anyway. They don’t know what the child who bears that name is supposed to look like, so they–armed only with that name–cannot do much in the way of searching. A description is better, the experts say. But these parents did not even call that out. In fact, I think they hardly noticed that the young girl was even gone before it was too late.

Or if they did, I don’t remember those scenes, which might have been another reason the show hardly lasted. That is definitely not the sort of behavior you want to normalize on the parents’ part. That’s not the sort of expectation you want to code into the popular consciousness.

But also, no, I don’t know which channel this show was on. I don’t know which one might have made the call or how that even works. Of what I do know, the networks order and agree to show certain programs, which makes them strong enough to suffocate nearly any project in any stage of its run or development. But I don’t know where I found the show. It was just something I clicked onto amidst the few channels my television was able to connect to. We had cable, potentially too much cable, as my dad sprung for literally every package and upgrade he could get. There were a sea of channels, many of which were blocked off and hidden from me because of the specialized parental controls my dad had installed.

Then of course, there’s the credits. The sort of thing that always interests a child, I say sarcastically. I never watched those. It wasn’t because I was bored or didn’t appreciate how hard it was to make a piece of art in that medium. It was just something I didn’t fully understand. I get it now that the credits serve a vital function, but when I was a kid, that went right over my head. Back then, it just wasn’t the sort of thing I thought to stick around for. Because what if it wasn’t just the credits? What if there was another scene where the little girl got lost again or where the uncle made it clear he did not want her to be okay or he did not care about her like that first hug would make you think? What if the happily ever after that I was so desperate to hold onto in that moment fell apart too soon?

Emphasis on “too soon,” I guess, because I always knew it wasn’t forever. I always knew–used in a loose sense because I was a child–that there would be a next time, another instance where the uncle who cared so much about the young girl was not watching her. And in that other instance, the young girl with the green ribbon in her hair would be back with her parents or babysitter or someone who did not love her enough to be mindful. And so, she would disappear again. She would slip away from that relative, that caregiver otherwise undefined, and into the dangerous world to find her way back to her uncle again. I knew there would be another episode that I would eventually stumble into, but I could deal with that when I got there.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

On some level, I think I understood that much about the world: that these sorts of heartaches and sins never really stop, that sometimes there is no true end to the hurt and heartache that we stumble into or that others inflict upon us directly or not. I think I understood that certain struggles or journeys never truly end. And even when they do, the effects linger. The scars remain. Even when the action stops, the hurt ends, the pattern is broken, the damage remains. It remains to be coped with. It is still haunting you and you need to retreat to some place where you find comfort and can heal from wounds that are constantly reopening.

For me, for a time, it was that show, that show with the young girl and the bright green ribbon in her hair. Or it was that show at first. Now it’s this one. This podcast and my random musings.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

You should be relieved or even surprised that this podcast takes breaks, that the episodes and seasons don’t stretch endlessly. Because they could have. Because this is the sort of show I hold onto too tightly. I have too much to say. I need to say it. And I keep telling myself that not listening to this podcast is an option. You could turn it off at any time. But all the same, this is the place I have poured myself into it. There’s always more to add, more to say. It’s not that things are being created but that the main thing, the truth, cannot come out yet.

And maybe it never will. Maybe it never can. What would you have to say about that?

(Music gradually fades out)

Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or post about it on some mysterious online forum. You do you.