Woman shares scary realization about 'lost years' of Millennials and Gen Z — and she's got a point

A photograph is a memory made immortal. Moms and dads, for instance, want to capture every subtle expression of their newborn, while grandmothers want to capture every laugh of that family dinner. Similarly, couples want to capture every moment they share. In the 90s, people collected these special moments in journals, photo albums and chunky scrapbooks whose papers spilled from the doors of grandma's attics. But as technology overshadowed the world of image storage, and as most millennials and Gen Z shifted from DSLRs to point-and-shoot cameras, the vintage storage discs remain abandoned somewhere in dusty cabinets. Similarly, a 32-year-old woman, Yareli Reyes–who goes by @yaya_brie on TikTok–shared a video in November 2024, lamenting the fate of millennials’ digital photographs.

"Let's talk about how the last 10 years will basically be 'the lost years' for millennials and Gen Z because we hold all our memories and pictures online instead of physical copies, and one day, the internet or those apps may not exist. Same with films and music that are streaming," Reyes wrote in the overlay text of the video. The “lost years” she was referring to related to the transition from the culture of printed photographs to digital images, per Newsweek. Through this video, she reflected on the uncertainty of this technological shift, which could be its own downfall.

Even if all those DVDs, CDs, and floppy discs are as polished as they were during the olden times, they seldom work with modern technology. As a result, those special slices of life are now reduced to pixelated code combinations stored in the tiny memory cells of phones’ memory cards. If a technological disaster like a virus should attack these cards straight out of the Blackout scene in "Blade Runner," the entire library of these digitized photographs would become lost in the black hole of an invisible memory, gone forever, per The Wrap. 

"The post was to start a conversation about how millennials and Gen Z do not own physical media or photos because we stream and post everything online. We fail to recognize that the internet may one day not exist because of the convenience it gives us, so physical media is extremely important. If we do not back up, it'll one day be 'lost media' or 'lost history,’" she told Newsweek.

Hundreds of millennials resonated with Reyes's video. “That is something to think about. I have over 27,000 photos on my phone. I would be devastated if I lost them. I need to start getting them printed,” commented @bettymaria. @gingerspice_777 affirmed her idea by revealing that they lost 2 years of photos on X. “I’ve already lost all my pictures from college 2012-2016. Truly devastating,” said @des. @wml220222eb reflected, “If only memories could exist outside of the internet. Maybe in some kind of flesh computer inside a human head.” Reyes said the wild reaction to her video left her shocked, though she loved the comments in which people shared advice on how to protect her digital photos. “Can we go back to the 90s, please?” She captioned the video.

You can follow Yareli Reyes (@yaya_brie) on TikTok for more lifestyle content.