The BFI Are Preserving Vintage Memes On An Ever-Changing Internet
The British Film Institute (BFI) is launching an initiative to preserve internet memes as part of its extensive film archive. This project aims to capture significant cultural moments from the online world, highlighting the importance of these digital artifacts. The BFI emphasizes the need to safeguard these works, as many online platforms are impermanent and can disappear without warning.
- ▪The BFI is collecting and archiving internet memes to preserve their cultural significance.
- ▪The initiative includes a variety of online content, from viral videos to DIY tutorials.
- ▪The BFI is seeking permission from original creators to include their works in the archive.
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The BFI Are Preserving Vintage Memes On An Ever-Changing Internet While it may seem silly to archive 'Charlie bit my finger' for future generations, it's good practice to treat the internet as an impermanent space By Zack Kotzer Published May 17, 2026 | Comments (0) | 𝕏 Copied! The British Film Institute The British Film Institute is one of the largest film archives in the world, not only preserving a vast history of motion pictures but restoring them for future audiences. They’ve recovered Edwardian newsreels, Hitchcock’s earliest works and Ken Russell’s nudest. In a new initiative, the BFI will be collecting video from another notoriously inscrutable genre: internet memes.
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