Happy Clipping

At 6:52 on a Wednesday evening, a website deleted my life's work and wished me a happy day.

The website was clips.com. The work was four hundred and twelve wedding videos, ten years of uploads. One of them I had promised to cut into a ten-minute anniversary film by Saturday at seven.

The countdown on my screen said clips.com would erase all of it for good on Saturday at 6:52.

My mother, Ilona, was on the phone. She was explaining curling.

"The regional finals run four hours," she said. "Every year. Sometimes there's a tiebreaker. A tiebreaker can run long, Joanna."

"How many tapes did you record over?"

"Not all of them."

"How many?"

"I kept the Hendersons. Their best man fell into the fountain. That one is educational."

"Mom."

"A hundred and seventy," she said. "Give or take the Hendersons."

I put my forehead on the desk. The desk was cool and did not have opinions.

"You digitized them," my mother said. "You told me they were safe. You said, and I am quoting you, 'Everything is backed up.' You said it at Easter. You said it in front of your aunt."

"They were safe. They were on clips.com."

"Someone else's basement," my mother said. She said it with the deep satisfaction of a woman who has waited ten years to be right.

Then, more gently: "Do you want me to come over?"

"No. I'm going to call them."

"Call who?"

"The basement," I said.

---

Clips.com does not have a phone number. I learned this at 7:10 p.m. It has a Help Center, which is a search bar that answers every question with an article titled "Getting Started with clips.com!"

It also has a chat window. It took me forty minutes to find it. The link was called "Still Need Help?" It sat at the bottom of the privacy page, in gray text on a slightly different gray.

While I searched, I read the clips.com Community Guidelines. All of them. Section 4.2 said accounts could be removed for "repetitive, automated or mass-produced content." The example it gave was a man who had uploaded the same sunset nine thousand times.

I have never filmed a sunset. Sunsets don't pay a deposit.

At 7:51 p.m., a chat bubble appeared.

Benny (clips.com Support): Hi there! I'm Benny. How can I make your clipping experience amazing today?

I typed fast. I explained the account, the gray box, the four hundred and twelve weddings, and the seventy-two hours. I may have used capital letters.

Benny: I'm so sorry to hear that! I totally understand how frustrating this must be.

Benny: Account removals are handled by Sieve, our automated review system. You can submit an appeal using the link below!

Benny: Happy clipping!

The appeal form had a box labeled "Explain why this decision is wrong." It allowed 280 characters.

I wrote: "I am a wedding videographer. Every video is a different wedding. These are real people's memories. Please restore my account."

I pressed submit at 8:04 p.m. and eleven seconds.

At 8:04 p.m. and eleven and a half seconds, an email arrived.

Your appeal has been reviewed.

After careful consideration, Sieve has upheld its decision.

Happy clipping!

I went back to the chat.

Me: Your robot reviewed my appeal in half a second.

Benny: Sieve is very efficient!

Me: Is there a human I can talk to?

Benny: I'm a human! :)

Me: A human who can do something.

The typing dots appeared. They disappeared. They appeared again.

I have edited enough best-man speeches to know what that looks like. Someone was writing the true thing and deleting it.

Benny: Let me see what I can find.

---

Benny came back at 8:30. Then at 9:15. Then at 10:40, by which time my mother had come over anyway. She brought a thermos of soup and the expression of someone attending a funeral she had predicted.

She sat on the studio couch under a framed still of the Hendersons' best man going into the fountain. She read the chat over my shoulder and commented on Benny's punctuation.

"He uses a lot of exclamation points," she said. "Is he all right?"

"It's the script."

"Nobody is that happy about storage."

While we waited, I tried the clips.com community forum. I posted a calm, factual message titled "Account Deleted in Error." Nobody answered.

I posted it again twenty minutes later. Then a third time, with more capital letters.

Sieve removed all three posts for repetitive content.

"Well," my mother said. "It's consistent. I'll give it that."

At 11:02, Benny sent something different.

Benny: OK. I'm not supposed to share this, but I can see the reason code on your account.

Benny: "Repetitive Content. 412 of 412 uploads share an identical opening sequence. Pattern consistent with automated content farm."

Me: An identical opening sequence?

Benny: The first nine seconds. Sieve says they're the same in every video. Some kind of bird?

My mother set down her soup.

I did not need to look. I knew those nine seconds better than I knew my own face. A cartoon swan glides across a pink lake, and a harp plays a rising run of notes.

Gold letters spell VARGA WEDDING VIDEO — YOUR DAY, OUR ART. Then the swan winks.

My mother designed it in 1994 with a man from the public-access station. She paid him in pierogi. I have hated that swan for thirty years.

I have also put it at the front of every video I have ever made. I added it to all of hers when I digitized them. I could not tell you why.

Loyalty, maybe. Or habit wearing loyalty's coat.

"The swan," my mother said softly. She sounded proud. "The swan got you deleted."

"Don't sound pleased."

"I'm not pleased. I'm moved. Thirty years, and finally somebody noticed the swan."

---

Benny and I talked until two in the morning. I learned that he was twenty-seven and worked from a studio apartment overlooking a parking garage. He had been with clips.com for fourteen months.

I learned that Tier 1 support could see everything and change nothing. And I learned that the queue for a "human second look" was nineteen days long.

"Nineteen days," my mother said. "In nineteen days you could grow a radish."

At 1:47 a.m., my phone buzzed. It was a text from Celeste Pell.

Celeste: Sorry, late! Just making my list for Saturday. How's the footage looking?

I looked at the phone. I looked at the gray box. I looked at my mother, who raised one eyebrow by exactly the amount that means "Well?"

I typed, "Everything is backed up." Then I deleted it. Then I typed, "Working on it tonight!" I hit send before I could do anything more honest.

"Coward," my mother said, kindly.

At 1:58 a.m., the typing dots came back.

Benny: Can I tell you something off the record?

Me: Please.

Benny: Sieve doesn't delete anything itself. It just schedules it.

Benny: The actual purge runs on a storage server. A physical one. In a building.

Benny: Buildings have doors.

Me: Where is the building?

The dots went on for a long time.

Benny: 400 Commerce Street, Lodenburg. It used to be a department store. The storage is in the basement.

Lodenburg. The same town as the Pell party. My mother made a sound I have only heard her make during a perfect draw to the button.

"Someone else's basement," she whispered. "An actual basement."

Benny: Ask for Augustin. He runs facilities. He hates visitors.

Benny: Please don't tell anyone I told you. This chat is logged.

Benny: Happy clipping. I mean it this time.

The chat window closed itself. A small gray line took its place: "This conversation has ended."

My mother was already putting on her coat.

"Lodenburg is three hours," she said. "They have the best curling club in the state. I know a diner."

On the screen, the countdown read 64:51:09. Somewhere in a basement in Lodenburg, four hundred and twelve weddings were waiting. Every one of them began with a winking swan.