Growing up we did not have a lot of things. So the things we did get we tended to care for and drag around with us everywhere. I hoarded music, books, music CDs and Cassettes, video games, VHS tapes, DVDs, and notebooks full of my writings and ideas.

I come from a family that kind of hoarded nick knacks and other things. The more property the person had in my family, or the larger the house the more they hoarded. Have some acreage? No problem let's put a bunch of vehicles that never move there. Throw in a very old antique mini-bulldozer that works.

Wander down the hill to see all kinds of piles of things... this was what an experience was like visiting one of my grandmothers.

People

Most people I know hoard to a certain degree. We may simply call it COLLECTING and I am so there with you. I have more books, and miniatures, and board games, and many other things than I really need.

I also have CD-Rs backed up with tons of my old documents and works. I then have DVD-Rs and I have a Bluray burner (purchase thanks to steemit a couple of months ago), but I have not started hoarding my digital information on bluray yet. It is coming. With my first 10 pack of BD-R DL at 50GB each sitting there it is going to happen. I just have not gotten around to it.

This is but a few examples of how I have moved from a physical hoarder to a digital hoarder.

Going Digital

I was using MP3s when they first came out. In fact I wrote some articles in an old online Magazine about how to download MP3s long before the Napster incident and the hijacking of the word Piracy to make you equate copying music with being the same thing as boarding your ship, stealing your goods, and perhaps killing you. (sarcasm) Those definitely seem like the same thing. (/sarcasm) Yet I cannot let it lie there. "You wouldn't steal a car? So why do you steal this?" If I steal a car it is gone. If I download an MP3 I am making a copy. The original is still there. I did not stop anyone else from also using it. That doesn't make it right, but it is certainly NOT the same thing as stealing something physical, and it is not the same thing as piracy. It is good to hijack these concepts and appeal to people's emotions as these shocking metaphors can be highly effective at making people feel guilty. Even when you are feeling guilty over a false comparison.

Yet that entire issue aside, my real interest here is how I transitioned from physical hoarding as a family tradition to VAST digital hoarding. I still have physical things I hoard, but many of those forms of hoarding have stopped, and some of my items I collected for years have been sold, given away, or thrown in the trash.

Yet I have more STUFF than I've ever had before.



Those are the current counts from my PLEX server and I clean out things every so often as disk space fills up to make room for new things. I've had far more than that and I've hoarded things onto other media that sits on spindles from over the years.

The spindles still represent a physical hoarding...

Yet we recently got rid of most of our DVDs, CDs, etc. We didn't ever use them. They just take up space.

In some ways it can become worse

As far as the sheer amount of stuff that can be hoarded in the digital fashion it can become far worse. In hoarding physical things you have to lug them around to use them and if you move. This can be frustrating and can do something to stop hoarding of such things.

This is not so much a problem with the digital. I have far more styles of music than I am interested in. I watch shows across multiple countries. Do you like The Voice for example? Me too. So I'll also watch The Voice - UK, The Voice - AU, and occasionally other countries that are not English speaking. Why? Because I can. Once I step outside of the traditional box that the industry would like me to be confined to I can expand what is available and watch, listen, read, and experience things that are not available in the normal market in my country.

Yet I have subscriptions to places that offer many of these things. I simply do not use their service to acquire these things. If I see a TV Show coming on my local network, I download it rather than watch it through my subscription. I rarely see a commercial, so watching commercial television can be extremely annoying. I've seen shows where it is 50% commercials, and 50% the show I was trying to watch. Furthermore, most of the commercials were usually pharmaceutical advertisements... I got more enjoyment out of making fun at the fact that most of the commercial is about potential side effects.

Gaming

One place that I have absolutely fallen in love with digital hoarding is Video Games. I used to lug around many boxes full of my physical copies of my games. I even transferred most of the disks into a big 300 disk folder at one time. That made it more convenient until one of my sister in-laws decided to steal that and suddenly we had a bunch of manuals, but no games.

I was hesitant to try out Valve's Steam platform. I wanted to own a physical copy. I am also not a wealthy person and I didn't like the idea that someone could cut off my access to something I paid for. So I was resistant.

Then about 5 years ago near a Christmas a friend of mine said he wanted to buy me the Valve complete pack on Steam. For about $40 I was getting all of the Half-Lifes, Counterstrike, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, and a few others. That was a VERY amazing deal to someone still embracing the contrived and cartel like pricing of the physical market for games. (that has changed a lot)

I happened to login and check out Steam during the Christmas Sale. HOLY COW!!! The prices were phenomenal, the selection was huge. I bought stuff for myself and all my family members.

I was hooked. Now I won't look back... I don't want physical copies of my games.

I do prefer it be on Steam, though I am also a fan of GOG (formerly Good Ol' Games). I have pretty much replaced every game that was stolen and then some.

That doesn't even count the massive amounts of games I have bought for other family members and friends. I am not a wealthy person, but if you are patient you can get so much more by this method than the traditional method.

It is also far more convenient. Yes I have a hoard of games, yet I no longer have to dig through stacks of CDs or DVDs for hours to decide what I want to play.

This is true of movies, TV shows, and music as well... and even ebooks.

eBooks

I don't have a Kindle and really haven't embraced the eReading yet. Though I do see myself heading that way. That does not stop me from going through the free eBooks on Amazon.com and adding them to my collection. Surely I will read them some day.

Digital hoarding can be hoarding in secret if you so desire. I tend to exalt in my collections!

Steem On!

(P.S. - I hoard game assets too... look at all of that furniture and such I own!!! Much easier to take with me when I move)