Historical records, letters, and the internet
People always say that the internet is forever, but as someone who has been online for over 20 years now, I can definitely say that is untrue. I have had multiple email addresses, some of which I let rot, or were deleted. My university gave me an email address when I was 17, promising that I would have it forever, and a couple years deleted all of the alumni accounts. All of the emails I sent as a teenager and 20-something are just gone.
Given that so much of historical records and how we understand people from the past comes from their letters, what does this mean for historians of the future? Donald Trump's tweets will be preserved forever because the media reports on literally everything he does online. But what about everyone else? A ton of politicians clean up their social media before running big campaigns -- all of that information is just lost unless you somehow have access to Meta/X/Substack/TikTok servers.
Not to mention, what happens when a site just goes dark? Geocities hosted tons of tiny personal sites, and all of those no longer exist.
Maybe it is better to think of our existence as ephemeral instead of worrying about legacy, or leaving a mark.