Watch This: Thousands Of Digitized VHS Tapes to Get Lost In

Whether you are a hardcore VHS horror collector or not, chances are you have come into contact with these rectangular blocks of polypropylene #5, housing magnetic ribbons of ever-increasingly fussy and fragile videotape.

You may not have as many as the author of this piece, depicted below having an existential crisis and starring at one small section of his collection, but chances are you have a few around, labeled “Family Picnic ’96” or “E.T. – DO NOT ERASE!!!!!”

If, for any reason you should find yourself with a lot of free time, you can explore a virtual mountain of videotapes using this amazing resource from the always indispensable site Archive.org. It’s a multi-user collection called the VHS Vault.

There is frankly a lot of unwatchable trash here, but you can give yourself the joy of the hunt as you bound through hours of chud and then finally land on, let’s say, a 1996 instructional guide for Sheriff’s departments as they deal with the growing menace of Satanism. Or possibly an old Bjork interview from MTV’s 120 MINUTES. There’s a LOT, including just raw tapes recorded directly from TV with commercials and everything.

Clearly, this is not for everyone, but it is a potentially pretty fascinating way to kill 400 or so hours if you need one. Thank us – or curse us – later.

 

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS