The First-World Problem of Media Hoarding

innerspaceboy · 02-12-2017, 11:36 AM

This is something I think about often, as I struggle with it daily. I'm curious whether others are similarly affected or if even this circumstance is actually a characteristic trend among my generation.

I'm addressing the problem which arises when one has a collection, physical or digital, whether an archive of cinema, music, literature, television broadcasts, or any other form of media, and that library grows far too great for its collector to ever put so much as a dent into consuming it.

This is a very real problem in an era of digital media, which I suppose still rings true even for those who have forgone their local, static libraries in exchange for the seemingly endless sea of available content from streaming services (both legal and non-legal, alike).

For example, I labored for several weeks to compile an archive of 106 of my favorite television series from my youth. But since I've watched only a handful of episodes. And the same goes doubly-so for my mammoth discographic archive of scores of my favorite record labels and genre maps.

My dilemma seems to be that I take greater pleasure in the acts of researching, compiling, cataloging, and storing media than I do actually consuming it. (This is notoriously common among record collectors.)

Do you struggle with this as well? Have you developed any practices which help establish a routine of actually enjoying your content? If so, please, share your experience!