Gigantic VHS videotape hoard of thousands of videos stored in McDonald's boxes being given away for free — Internet Archive looks set to claim the tapes of U.S. news output spanning 2004-09

If you would like to rehome thousands of old VHS videotapes, there’s an incredible hoard of these nostalgic artifacts from the days of analog TV, stored carefully in McDonald's boxes, being given away for free. However, you’ll need a convincing story, as it already looks like a representative from the Internet Archive is a hot favorite to claim this truckload of tapes and digitize them. Redditor whatdoyouthinkisreal shared images of this gargantuan collection of tapes a few days ago.

The OP notes that the collection of tapes has already shrunk by around 18 boxes.

The general goal of whatdoyouthinkisreal’s giveaway is to “give them to someone who is going to save and digitize the tapes.” Bonus – the donor will get a lot of garage space back.

So, what TV and cinematic gems should the new owner expect to find in this massive collection, recorded at an Ann Arbor area home between 2004 and 2009? Apparently, it is wall-to-wall news coverage from that era, featuring channels like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.

That content might be of some interest to someone, we guess. The Redditor suggests that “I think the commercials might be even more valuable than the news, but there is Hurricane Katrina Coverage here too.”

Other notable round-the-clock news coverage events during that time may have included:

• Janet Jackson had a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the Super Bowl in 2004
• Two presidential elections, 2004 (Dubya won) and 2008 (Obama won)
• The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
• The 2005 London bombings (7/7)
• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston divorced in 2005
• The Execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006
• Release of the first iPhone in 2007
• 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' premiered in 2007
• 2007 U.S. troop 'surge' in Iraq
• The 2008 Beijing Olympics
• The 2008 Financial crisis
• Russia–Georgia war in 2008 (they're still at it)
• Michael Jackson died, and Lady Gaga rose to fame in 2009
• The 2009 Colorado Balloon Boy hoax earned 24/7 coverage

In case anyone finds the McDonald's franchise cardboard carton packaging questionable, the OP explains, “They're in McDonald's food boxes because the woman who recorded these worked at McDonald's at one time.”

As we mentioned in the intro, any potential suitor for this titanic collection better have a good story. One of the first Redditors to throw their hat in the ring and claim this incredible prize was Jason Scott of the Internet Archive. Many other Redditors upvoted this suggestion, understandably. However, there were a few grumbles about the IA currently sitting on tons and tons of content without getting around to digitizing it and sharing it online.

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