anyone else feel attached to digital things?

[randomtangent]

i think especially some franchises (like Pokemon and Tamagotchi/adjacent things) have definitely gotten me weirdly attached to them.
like, especially in Pokemon Sword where i can use the camp thing and my favourite little pokemon are playing with a ball or that weird feather-on-a-stick toy thing; and in S/M/US/UM and XY/ORAS as well, it's kinda nice petting them (literally) and feeding them and stuffs.
i remembered getting Pokemon Moon for the first time in 2017 when i got my 3DS for the first time, and being able to literally feed them those weird bean things, and seeing as they grow and evolve, it made me feel so warm. and then when they actually do better in battle (like leaving on 1HP even if they got one-shot) or when it says something like "you and your torracat are breathing in perfect sync..." aah it makes me so happy and attached that i seriously don't wanna ever delete my save.

and not pet-related, but Vocaloid/UTAU for me. especially as characters, especially since i was a little kid when i first got into it (so around a decade or so ago now?) i remembered heaps of tracks, and i love indie/doujin Vocaloid, less so mainstream.
some artists like DECO*27 i used to love, for tracks like Ai Kotoba, but more recent tracks i just... can't stand. and some producers aren't alive anymore, like wowaka.
Dixie Flatline, OSTER PROJECT, Pinnocio-P, wowaka, etc - some of my favourite artists, and various others i probably have forgotten about too. but it's more than just seeing the characters as a weird storybook character or a mascot marketing character - they don't feel distant at all, they're blank slates, and my child-like brain has hard-coded them to be exactly how i see them. plus tracks like ODDS&ENDS only solidified that thing where a digital character doesn't have to be some fucked marketing mascot, and doesn't have to be distant either.
and maybe a small list of tracks - Kokoro, Ai Kotoba, Gigantic Girl, ODDS&ENDS, Love is War, etc really felt super relatable for me, some more just feeling like someone's vent or something. and seeing those slapstick MMD skits like Rin being thrown at a wooden board or Meiko going full Dragonball Z on Miku because she accidentally tripped on her, it was so fucking funny..

i dunno.

[AY38910]

Big box full of floppies full of weird shit I made on dad's old ZXS back when it worked. And of saved Doom games.

That weird shit includes the dumbest quiz EVER, with every question being suggested by my friends back in 2009.

[candycanearter07]

There is a reason I feel bad deleting any of my old projects. This is also why my computer is such a freaking mess ;)

Code

$ ls Documents/coding

3ds/               bash/       cpp/          java/            rust/            unityubuntu/
ahk/               basic/      CSS-dev/      kchingdatacore/  ss13/            upload.sh*
aseprite-scripts@  c_code/     gamesjammed/  python/          stupidrobotics/
asm/               commodore/  godotdump/    raspibackup/     tic80@

[crucifixkiss]

Yeah!! Specially on today's carelessness regarding the preservation of digital media, my attachment to digital stuff has grown a lot.. mostly around sites and music. This attachment also doubles with the fact that my longest-running special interests are internet mysteries and ARGs.

[fawn]

There's not a lot that I, or anybody else for that matter, could create that I personally wouldn't consider art, so absolutely. I don't get super hung up on it or anything, but digital creations hold the same weight as something phsyical so to me it just makes sense to feel that attachment.

[Bailey / Jay]

I do get very attached to digital characters and such, but I DISTINCTLY remember having a complete meltdown over a corrupted SD card - sure, I had some funny videos and such, but all my irl pictures and videos were backed up elsewhere, so why was I upset? Screenshots. At the time, I had lots of online friends that I talked to regularly, and a few that weren't active anymore but I missed. I'd taken screenshots of our funny moments to hold onto them, and they felt really special since our profile pictures kind of indicated, to me at least, how long ago they took place. When your friends are all online, screenshots are like pictures, but I hadn't really thought of it that way until I lost them. I went back to try and screenshot the important ones, but some of the people in them had deactivated their accounts for one reason or another, so those moments were essentially lost to time. I'm honestly still kinda sad about it :((

[GideonWilhelm]

I often find myself lamenting the loss of the data on a hard drive I removed incorrectly when I upgraded my PC... It was mostly some movies easily replaced, but there were a lot of game screenshots, a lot of silly ideas I'd just written down in a text file... a lot of memories.  Stuff I'll probably never truly remember again.  But at least I can say that there are always new memories on the way.  And endless things to fill my hard drive with then back up what actually seems important and wipe it all with linux install after linux install

[Gizmo]

I am as well, I'll sometimes look back at old docs / projects / YouTube videos (I used to run a few channels) for a dose of nostalgia. A lot of it is super cringe, but I know I had fun making those things and it kinda transports me back to the time I made them.

[boreal_cryptid]

yes, yes and yes.

due to be unable to really attach to physical things (living in unsafe environment for almost my whole life, for different reasons), i found myself being attached to digitals instead. maybe in my case i just see digital form as more safe, protected and mobile, but that's not all.

i really value my game files, game saves, game screenshots and modlists. i don't want to loose it. not only because, say, certain save is 60+ hrs long, or modlist is carefully crafted through years - but also it's just so mine. it's a whole small world for me, every game and save. a whole world in a folder, you know?

non-gaming screenshots too, actually! it's like a little snapshots of the moments i decided to preserve. it doesn't need to be something "important", it could be just a funny website glitch or dialogue on forum, for example.

the same with art, especially with scans. scanning traditional art can protect it from physical damage, being lost, etc. and my art (any of it) is a treasure, and i just can't imagine myself without all these archives!

and... notes & docs! no matter how small or strange, or outdated, or "cringe". it's just a history of my thought process. physical equivalent is my diaries.

sometimes also messages and emails... but not with everyone. i once moved a years long chat with important person to the other messenger (due to previous platform being unsafe), and we made a back-up of our dialogue. if this wouldn't be an option... moving would be a way more hard emotionally.

and if not for my stuff at all - i download music, art and some videos, because i just want it to be... here, with me. especially with the current (bad) state of digital preservation, i can only trust myself and fellow archivists. though it's more of a personal collection, because i don't really want to re-upload something that isn't mine without a consent of creator, you know?

[randomtangent]

actually, really same to a lot of these.

my OCs and things i can only seem to make digitally (like through VRoid, picrews, or my own digital art) and every single time i make them i always make them Redistribution Prohibited. they're mine, they're not for anyone to touch i guess.
especially since i have one that's moreso just me trying out different outfits to see what fits - she uses the exact same name as i do and same everything, all that would be completely heartbreaking if they ever disappeared!!

i mean my OCs are all misfits in some way or another - literally just personified forms of parts of me. that one with the same everything as me is... well, me.

same with my Animal Crossing NH town too for some reason (feeling weirdly attached to the characters a lot lol)
hasn't been long since i started it but already made good progress imo~!

same with boreal_cryptid i've been in an unsafe environment pretttyyy much all my life so digital beings are my only way of getting this kinda feeling.