Said Jaime Munoz, 39, browsing in a retro video rental store called Whammy!, quoted in "With VHS and video stores, ‘tapeheads’ are fueling an analog revival" (WaPo).
Are you nostalgic for the old-time experience of wandering around a video store and deciding on something you'd commit to watching and would need to rewind and bring back to the store in time to avoid late fees?
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28 comments:
Yes, when I don't know what i want to watch.
No, when I do.
No but I can see the experience as interesting to someone young enough to have never experienced it. All these ancient artifacts - black bricks that you can feed to the machine under grandmas television, browsing shelves for what to watch- what was that like?
remember when you had to go to the back room, to sneakily get your "adult" movies (soft porn)?
instead of having all forms of The Hardest Porn beamed right into your house whether you wanted it or not?
No new VHS tapes are being made. What you'll find in some retro store is all the tapes that no one wanted enough to watch to death. There's a niche audience for bad movies.
While I wouldn’t personally like doing this, it does seems to say something about the routineness of how we interact with the internet today, especially when it comes to video entertainment, when we see attitudes like this showing up in others.
A similar thing happened with vinyl records. They were going away with the rise of CDs and later streaming, but many liked the interaction and visuals of simple mechanical technology (and records may sound better than some digital sources too). Records have regained a stable niche position in the marketplace.
One nice thing about VHS tapes is that virtually none contain Woke content. They were all released in Hollywood's decadent and profit-driven competitive era. Some were great and some were terrible, but very few are preachy.
I doubt my 4k OLED is going to look anywhere as good playing a videotape than a BluRay or 4k stream.
I am certain that it won't sound as great either. Good luck basing a business around tapes lol
Sometimes - yes.
We used to have a really superb local movie rental shop.
Are you nostalgic for the old-time experience of wandering around a video store and deciding on something you'd commit to watching and would need to rewind and bring back to the store in time to avoid late fees?
In my single days, I used to wander around Blockbuster for hours, just to kill time. And then I met my wife and discovered there are things that are a lot more fun than watching old movies!
I agree its impossible to sit with someone else scrolling through content. I have to leave the room. We somewhat ameliorate that with using the 'watch list', where we each put stuff.
No.
I AM nostalgic for the old neighborhood hobby shops, though. They have all disappeared.
No. I just wish Netflix had available the entire catalog they used to rent.
I used to love browsing the video store. If I knew I had a weekend night coming with no plans- this happened from time to time- I would get to the video store. Always worked on the decision between rewatching a movie I loved and would eagerly watch again, or one of the new 'hits' just released onto video.
Now, on those weekends I scroll...and scroll, and scroll through Netflix or Prime or one of the others looking for just one worthy movie out of a giant catalogue of crap. Eventually handing the control over to my wife who will select something she loves and I cannot watch. It's our thing.
Sure...there was a wall full of crap in the video stores, but it did not include every stinking thing ever made, movies that would never have been purchased by the video store operators in the old days. They were, to a point, a kind of filter for movies, cutting out the real crap that makes up at least 70% of Netflix offerings.
Ah, there is nothing like going back to nature, and experiencing things like vinyl and VHS in their pure, unadulterated state, like the pioneers did.
Short answer: No. As a "last resort", I'll pick up a book that's been laying around for months, or search online for a technical article on whatever comes to mind. Wikipedia entries that are not devoted to politics or current culture are pretty good.
Answer to Althouse question: "No, I am not."
I remember when nostalgia was fun. Ah, those were the days...
I don’t miss it, but that is a feature of video stores that is missing from streaming—the family can go off in different directions to find what they want simultaneously. And if you have to decide among choices, you can see all the choices as you’re deciding.
I remember the old days when dentists didn't have these high speed drills. Fillings were done in a more leisurely manner and it gave the dentist more time and opportunity to take pride in his handiwork. How slowly time moved back then when you were sitting in a dentist's chair. Ah, those were the days. Who wouldn't want to relive those poignant moments, gone, alas, like our youth too son.
I've watched a few videos recently that predicts a revival of physical media (more aimed at DVDs) as streaming content starts to shrink. The idea of owning what you want to watch being the big selling point.
Temujin speaks my truth
No, not at all.
Naw. We just get the stereoscope viewer and picture cards off the living room shelf.
Analog browsing is more efficient than digital browsing.
As Musk pointed out a few years ago when he was hyping Neuralink, the last major bottleneck for computers/smartphones is the pathetically slow cumbersome and error prone digital user interface that relies on actual digit dexterity.
So it's not just nostalgia.
Blogger PB said...
No. I just wish Netflix had available the entire catalog they used to rent
All those thousands of titles lost forever. You could pick a category and find interesting things you'd never heard of. I signed up for Netflix streaming thinking that would all be available and was sorely disappointed. Netflix is dreck.
Maybe not nostalgic for it, but it was fun back in the day.
Friday or Saturday night at the video store. Rent a movie - or Super NES game - load up on candy, popcorn and a 64-gallon drum of Coke and spend the night in. Maybe run into some friends and make a party of it.
"Are you nostalgic for the old-time experience of wandering around a video store and deciding on something you'd commit to watching and would need to rewind and bring back to the store in time to avoid late fees?"
No!
If nostalgic hits for the old-time movie search experience, I just go to Wal-mart and dig through the $5 DVD movie bin. This week I purchased two movies. One titled "Nobody" that was a fast action "shoot 'em up" movie that was good. And another titled "Old Henry" that was a western. Also good. We also re-watched "Chicago" last week. Hubby has had shingles for the past three weeks so he has been stuck on the sofa, in pain and unable to wear anything other than his soft fuzzy PJ pants.
We do not have any television streaming or service at our house. We have a computer and DVD player connected to a large screen and use it to watch podcasts, C-Span, news segments we are interested in, or DVDs. Although I have several videos from years ago, including collectible old Disney movies, our video player died about a decade ago and buying a new one is too expensive to warrant it. I have no interest in rewinding videos or worrying about remembering to return them on time. I paid enough late fees when my children were teens.
Just for a moment there I thought this was about going outside and doing something instead of staying home and scrolling something.
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