Over the last 2 years, I’ve noticed that I spend WAY more time carefully cataloguing my collections of digital media (games, anime) than actually experiencing those media.

I would spend months carefully renaming the files, grouping them into folders by franchise, creating watch order files, remuxing videos so they would only have one audio and one subtitle file, reencoding videos that I considered bloated, reencoding videos that had flac or 5.1 audio to opus stereo, putting all my files into a spreadsheet along with other information, etc. etc.

Today I realized that my obsession is pointless. I’m just wasting my life doing something that’s not enjoyable, instead of experiencing the media I’ve collected. Who am I making those neat-looking catalogues for? I will never pass on my collection to anyone. I am just lost in my unhealthy obsession instead of enjoying life.

So yeah. Today I’ve decided to stop wasting my time. I will keep archiving (because I believe that in the future, the governments will make it very difficult to share copyrighted media online), but I will stop trying to make my collection look nice and tidy.

I will also delete stuff that I’ve watched/played that I didn’t enjoy. I’ve come to a realization there’s no point archiving it if I’m never going to use it again.

Anyways, I hope this helps someone realize that obsessions with cataloguing your hoards are unhealthy and a waste of life.

  • matt95110@alien.topBEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    I’ve been collecting genealogical data for the last 15 years. You better believe I keep that organized, otherwise I would be screwed.

  • oran12390@alien.topBEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    I agree. As I get older I want more out of my hobbies than just fun and stress reduction. I want to grow, learn a useful skill, engage with media that resonates with me emotionally. Organizing files accomplishes none of those things. Low value way to spend my time.

  • Vinterglede@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’ve had the same thoughts many times. It is a never-ending work in progress.

    Problem #1: I like too much, but I will never have enough time to watch/read/play/listen to it all in my lifetime. I need to be more selective with the content and keep only what I love and start deleting the average/OK stuff.

    Problem #2: Most of the re-encoding done is because of a constant struggle with HD space.

    I will keep organizing and tidying (sometimes it’s relaxing and fun), but I will try to do the bare minimum just so that I’m able to find stuff again and not have it too messy. I need to spend the time enjoying the content rather than just organizing forever.

  • crutonic@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I use a desktop app called Neofinder which scans any hard drive. As long as there’s at least a name (I add a date as well) that helps you find something, then it’s easy to search for it and find it using the app. It also shows me how many copies I have which lets me help decide if I can erase a drive if I need space.

  • Koush@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    If you did it that long, you probably on some level enjoy the busy work. You might just be burnt out. I know when something needs fixing on a software level I can spend infinite time just trying to fix it. Way more than I’d ever use said software too.

    • jakuri69@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Or maybe I’m just a rare case of a person who realizes that our time on this Earth is limited, and spending hundreds of hours doing OCD stuff is a complete waste of life.

      • eattherichnow@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Fun fact, this post comes off way more OCD than any amount of time cataloguing. Like not “OCD enough to be a one-post diagnosis,” but still more. Because actually, OCD isn’t about keeping things neat. It’s quite often the opposite, like for example intentionally alienating a social group ^_^

      • TheRealKuthooloo@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        “I’m just a rare case o-” 8 billion people on this planet youre not a rare fucking anything, blow me. This is the quickest turnover of a post going from “Oh this has a sweet sentiment if a bit pretentious” to “Oh ok the OP is so self obsessed he jacks off exclusively into a mirror”

  • nikowek@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I am happy about your change op, meantime if others feels pointless in Their sorting fun, please try to find community. We have all type of members - dragons which have huge space and keeps it online, ants enjoying working on data sets to keep them tidy and neat and bees adding new stuff for ants to work on!

  • SnooTangerines8774@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Well I’ve been looking for way to save everything in offline mode only stuff you want, and I came across this group just, I spotted your article here and it’s made me think well why not…

    Create a community driven nostalgic looking frontend that is categorised for eg. save sites to text and save sites to text with images/ save pdf/save video/save iso etcetc so you basically havwe a bridge to the web through this frontend it’s own simple browser that can extract and download the content for offline frontend use cases with the format of your choice then you could have shares on a website or server of these builds people have made with the mb/gb/tb/pb and so one file size to download from their own links provided these could also be apart of the frontend.

    ​

    Now that would be wicked you could also provide choices to install a chat tool inside your build for running a community that’s either online or offline so you can actually go offline any time with a button and online with a button to get back to the community when you like, now that would be so cool using special build crawlers to drag down and vbuild data into custom archive frontends you could theme them as wellthat would be nice man.

  • -Archivist@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    because I believe that in the future, the governments will make it very difficult to share copyrighted media online

    How do you believe this will happen? I hear this sentiment a lot but never a well put together explanation of how one thinks this is possible…

  • SnooTangerines8774@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Well I’ve been looking for way to save everything in offline mode only stuff you want, and I came across this group just, I spotted your article here and it’s made me think well why not…

    Create a community driven nostalgic looking frontend that is categorised for eg. save sites to text and save sites to text with images/ save pdf/save video/save iso etcetc so you basically havwe a bridge to the web through this frontend it’s own simple browser that can extract and download the content for offline frontend use cases with the format of your choice then you could have shares on a website or server of these builds people have made with the mb/gb/tb/pb and so one file size to download from their own links provided these could also be apart of the frontend.

    ​

    Now that would be wicked you could also provide choices to install a chat tool inside your build for running a community that’s either online or offline so you can actually go offline any time with a button and online with a button to get back to the community when you like, now that would be so cool using special build crawlers to drag down and vbuild data into custom archive frontends you could theme them as wellthat would be nice man.

  • blazinfastjohny@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I just do the most basic lazy cataloging like music, shows, games etc. Some people like to do the extended cataloging, it’s a hobby for them, so I say if it’s fun for them then why not? It’s not a waste of time then. If not then yeah, you don’t have to force yourself just for sake of clarity/ocd.

  • Far_Marsupial6303@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’m caught in this trap and it’s turned my love/hate of hoarding into hate/love. I currently have 40TB+ of files to organize, but put it off because it’s such a chore.

    But, I do it because not organizing it would mean I wouldn’t know what I have and where to find it. With proper organization and tools like Everything and VVV (Virtual Volumes View), I can find anything within seconds, as long as I know something about what I’m looking for.

  • im_making_woofles@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    renaming the files

    Can be automated

    grouping them into folders by franchise

    Should be managed in database rather than filesystem, and automated

    remuxing videos so they would only have one audio and one subtitle file, reencoding videos that I considered bloated, reencoding videos that had flac or 5.1 audio to opus stereo

    Waste of electricity and requires you to backup the file itself rather than a torrent, as you no longer have exactly what others have. Also a minor point you will kick yourself if you ever buy a surround sound setup and/or discover the wonders of headphone virtual surround

    putting all my files into a spreadsheet along with other information

    For any media category there almost certainly exists a database system that can do this for you automatically. You mentioned anime, in which case an example is Shoko

    –

    tl;dr you’re complaining about a problem you created, and solving the problem by scorched earth-ing the entire problem