Nic Hoffmann: “We need cultural moments. We need permanence. A society that forgets too quickly invites easy rewriting. In an era of censorship, content removal, demonetization, and deletion, controversial works must exist in owned form. VHS may have been clunky and fragile, but no one could patch, delete, or erase it without leaving scars. It embodied permanence in a way digital platforms refuse. Streaming feels convenient but unstable; tapes remain inconvenient but reassuring.”