The Internet Archive Celebrates 20 Years

                                               
PHOTO: Kid tries on the virtual reality goggles

Internet Archive Celebrates 20 Years

Brian Healy

Food trucks and techies ascended to the Internet Archive Headquarters, easily visible from Park Presidio Ave. thanks to the buildings unique architecture with white tall columns reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial in DC welcoming guests. The lines for the trucks were packed. The virtual reality chair, where you put on a large helmet style headset and attempt to stand and walk around a room entirely through a game/software program, garnered an audience for the poor souls who had no idea how funny they looked. It felt like a legitimate party, or even a festival, like something you might be lucky to get invited to at SXSW.

I had no idea what the Internet Archives was before I attended the celebration, only having been associated with The Way Back Machine, even though I only now found out of its relationship to the Archives. I have used The Way Back Machine on many occasions since probably around 2014 when a friend showed it to me on Reddit. We were reading the comments on a thread in the Hip Hop Heads subreddit of J Cole’s (at the time) new album 2014 Forest Hills Drive. The album went on to break records and is one my personal favorites.

When I looked over the entire first page of the hip hop themed subreddit I wondered what other moments in rap history had been immortalized on this website. I started by doing a cursory search of other older rap albums I had enjoyed but my friend told me of an easier much more rewarding way of doing that.

He showed me on the Way Back Machine the day Kendrick Lamar’s “Good Kidd m.a.a.d. city” came out in 2012, an album that introduced Kendrick Lamar to a national audience of rap listeners. It has since been dubbed a new classic, although apparently it was easy to tell it was destined for success even back then. “I just got started [listening],” said homeboy5925 in 2012 “but I already know this shit is a game changer,” he continued.

Reddit, which only sponsors links and threads that users decide to promote, or ‘upvote’, is probably as perfect a visual representation of what users on the internet want to read in one specific day. In my spare time after just learning about The Way Back Machine I scoured Reddit’s url for snapshots of certain days throughout history. Just hours before Senator Barack Obama took the stage in Grant Park for his victory speech on Election 2008, The Way Back Machine shows that users on Reddit were just as plugged into the presidential race as we are.

“Police Identify Distributor of Phony Letter Designed To Make Democrats Believe Election's On Wednesday; But NO CHARGES!!!???,” read one of the posts on the Front Page. Another said “Breaking: The first votes are in......Dixville Notch, NH elects Obama 15-6 votes!!!,” from user desitexan. And others, just making sure people exercise their right as a citizen of the United States. “537 people decided the 2000 election. Upvote, then go vote. DO IT,” read the post by runrunwootwoot.

Back at the Archives as I eavesdropped on conversations, and thought about the type of person that would attend these sort of things, I felt reminded by Brooks’ piece on Becoming a Real Person. With a workforce that refuses to conform to traditional work environments and norms, the tech industry is one of the few work areas where that attitude is not only tolerated but welcomed.

Although my observations of techies rely almost exclusively on just observation (including all seasons of Silicon Valley), I would still feel confident in saying that the majority of the people in the room that night graduated from elite universities. Dropping out later to pursue a job opportunity might be something else to consider. Either way, I wonder what Brooks would say about a profession filled with millennials who are constantly affecting global change through the web, but, who were also subject to influence from the institutions that place a strong importance on commercial ethos, as he called it. Mark Zuckerberg created history’s most interconnected communication tool while at academic monolith Harvard University, after he graduated from the prestigious Exeter Academy in woodsy New Hampshire. Just down the road at MIT is where Brewster Khale, founder of the Internet Archive, graduated.

Khale, who was the man of the hour at the anniversary, was preceded by a former journalist who said “the Internet Archive has become a tool for journalists,” specifically in our current place in time with the presidential election looming. The argument is that the platforms running on Archive software are now a watchdog in and of itself. Unlike before, the Archive now has the ability to pass stuff into digital much faster and at a much larger reach. Whether it’s the Duplatron, that acts as an audio fingerprint based Way Back Machine, or the political ad archive, which keeps track of donors that have given money to the candidates. One of the only tools to track dark money in politics as was mentioned in the talk.

Was also interesting that many of the media outlets that the Internet Archive likes to associate themselves to (Vox, Mother Jones,) are openly liberal publications that would seem like the sort of news the people in the room would read an enjoy. Similarly, as an extension of that, it was interesting to see how badly Trump got it, without really being able to know how many Trump supporters were actually in the room. Only a couple, if any, but that's what points me toward drawing a conclusion about the exclusivity factor of tech and their employees. 

Felt as though I was introduced to entirely alien world that I now want to get to know better, and potentially write about. There is certainly a crowd for it. Felt pleasantly surprised that journalists were mentioned at all, but to see how big of a tool this could become for me is eye-opening. It not only allows you to fact check, and creep on other people but means that you too are now held to a higher standard. The stories I create now might be getting snapped as we speak. If I go into journalism a paper trail of my previous work would always follow me.

Inside the big room where some servers are, and where the talk took place 

Front page of Reddit on Early Nov. 4, 2008