Remember Sanity? It still exists, and is thriving on social media with fair use-flouting posts

Remember Sanity? For suburban millennials, the Australian music, television and film-selling chain store holds a special place in our amygdala as the nostalgic backdrop to wasted afternoons spent hanging out in shopping centres. Just thinking about it makes me remember the scent of Lynx deodorant and bargain-store hair gel that I used to stick my fringe straight up as an early teen.

After somehow limping on for nearly two decades after the introduction of online music stores and then streaming services decimated their major revenue stream, Sanity announced that its last two remaining stores would close in March.

Except, as I recently discovered, a zombie version of Sanity has lurched on. Looking through the social media analysis tool CrowdTangle, I noticed that one of the most popular posts on Facebook for Australian users was a 17-minute compilation video clip of every song from the Pitch Perfect movie trilogy shared by none other than the Sanity Facebook page. The post had accumulated more than 336,000 reactions and over million views. (One of its top comments: “The suspension of disbelief is just ruined when everyone is choreographed and in melody and has their backup vocals setup.” Preach!)

A SANITY FACEBOOK POST. Source: FACEBOOK/SANITY

I noticed that Sanity was frequently going viral by sharing long, Fair Use-abusing clips from The Devil Wears Prada, the original Terminator, and other popular films from the Pixar and Marvel Cinematic Universes. They were typically overlaid with text asking whether viewers thought Toy Story 4 had the “saddest goodbye” or challenging them to watch the tear-jerking opening 10 minutes from the movie Up without crying.

A CROWDTANGLE SEARCH FOR THE MOST POPULAR SANITY POSTS IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS. Source: SUPPLIED

The motivation behind these posts is, predictably, money. Every post links back to Sanity’s website, which is an online store selling CDs, DVDs, Funko Pop! Vinyl toys and other merchandise.

I’ll be honest, scrolling through the sterile website doesn’t quite evoke the same serotonin as flipping through the latest nu metal album releases. Still, I’m glad that a part of my childhood has managed to adapt to survive, even if it requires flagrantly disregarding copyright law.

This article was first published by Crikey.