Lost media is defined as “an umbrella term for media that no longer exists, is missing, or is no longer available to the general public.” What we will be discussing today is a division of lost media called “Obscure Media,” which is often confused with “lost media.” While obscure media is a type of lost media, we will be discussing the type of Obscure Media on Youtube that has under five million views. Note that there is a disclaimer for this article, mainly for horror and graphic content. Without any further ado, let’s get into it.

“Daisy Leaves” is the last video from the channel named “Robert Helpmann” (presumably named after the Australian ballet dancer), which is known for featuring what appears to be the dead body of a person named “Daisy” wrapped in a plastic bag, in various locations around a house. In the video “Daisy Leaves”, the corpse is shown in the foyer of a house, by a closed door. At the 26-second mark of the video, the corpse is gone, and the door is open. A man, who we can presume to be Robert, is shown towards the end of the video, staring in the foyer. When looking through the comments, there are very few theories that can be found, as many of them are joking about Daisy “finally leaving that toxic relationship, like Sia leaving Beyonce’s basement.” (seriously, look at the comments). However, the few theories that do surround the channel are cryptic. Some people on discussion chains (mainly found on Reddit) believe that Daisy is an actual corpse, and that “Robert” posted the videos in order to avoid police suspicion, and would therefore be able to state that the corpse in his basement is actually just a prop used on his channel (as the now-deleted reddit user stated on the subreddit r/creepyvideos). Overall, that does not seem like the actual reasoning behind the videos, as there would have been police involvement with the channel (as we will later see with other channels). Others have speculated that the videos were an allegory for a Christmas tree, as that is a popular way to wrap up dead trees before throwing them in the trash. 

Robert Helpmann’s videos have also been connected to other obscure videos, such as “Passing” and “Clip 094.Mp4” as the videos both fit into the Obscure Media category. Whereas Clip 094.Mp4 is moreover just stitched together videos and jump-scare at 0:27, “Passing” features no major jumpscares, but rather has the same type of atmosphere as Daisy Leaves. “Passing” shows a video of a pier, with distorted audio (keep in mind it will only come out of the left side of the headphones you use) describing the death of a child. The video of the pier will later distort into the image of a gravestone before ending. I couldn’t find any theories surrounding the video, as it’s not as known in any communities, mainly because it only has two hundred thousand views. 

Luckily, however, not all Obscure Media is as horrifying. For instance, take “MISS SHAYE SAINT JOHN- HAND THING,” an old video from 2015, featuring a “Miss Shaye Saint John” talking to her friend about a “hand thing.” Honestly, it’s impossible to fully explain the video, as it has the same humor as Gen Z (which we all know is unexplainable), despite being old. Unfortunately, the creator of the channel, Eric Fournier, has passed away from alcoholism-induced internal bleeding, leading to the channel no longer uploading. 

Other videos, such as “PHR 2/77/1 EDUCATIONAL VIDEO” are both humorous and horrifying at the same time. The video includes music with deep bass, unsettling images, and even more unsettling text. It features a room of “Andy’s skin,” (its looks like what it’s called), a “Soft room”, and a “Suicide room”; which can never be opened as “keeps leaking”. While there is nothing humorous about the topics it discusses, the text shown on the screen jokes about the situation, such as by saying that “Andy didn’t want me to take pictures, but I did anyway”.

Now we move onto the videos where you think that the twist is so obvious, but you’re immediately surprised about how far they took it. The videos “Beasts” and “Hi Walter, I got a new Girlfriend today” are those types of videos. “Beasts,” by the channel “treatsforbeasts” is a two-and-a-half-minute video featuring green characters talking about their jobs, each one proclaiming, “I am the Beast…” before stating what they do. It’s unsettling, but as you get farther into the video, what you expect to be a horrific plot twist just turns into a more violent voice, each “I am the Beast” turning more and more desperate. However, the worst part of the video is not the imagery, but instead the voice. It’s something that I can’t picture belonging to a human, but rather a Beast.

“Hi Walter! I got a new girlfriend today!” is one of the only videos in this article that features police involvement. The video shows an unnamed man that is speaking to the camera, addressing the audience as “Walter”. He talks about how he had seen a beautiful woman at the mall, and that she kept looking at him with love in her eyes. Of course, I thought that it would just be another classic stalking story, as the internet was obsessed with those videos at the time it was posted (2009). However, we are taken to the basement, where a young woman is locked in a closet, screaming for help. The man enters the closet, then shuts the door, and as the woman screams more, the video stops. The video went largely unnoticed until seven years later when audiences noticed that the woman in the video resembled Kayla Berg, a fifteen-year-old girl who had gone missing around the same time the video was posted. People immediately started to launch investigations, including the police. The investigations of the video’s creator showed that the woman in the video was not Kayla, but instead an actress. The original video was later taken down, making it a piece of lost media (luckily, due to reuploads and the Wayback machine, I was able to include this video).

In all, Obscure Media has been proven to live up to its name. From showing dead bodies in their videos, old horror videos now considered comedy, to just plain creepy recordings, each and every one of the pieces shown in this article has proven to be worthy of their Obscure Media title.