re: Do you miss video stores?

I think my generation is the last to really experience video stores. Back home, the local video store was owned by the same man who ran a fried chicken shack that was connected. On Friday nights we would get a fried chicken dinner and a movie. I’d also get a video game for my Super Nintendo to play on Saturday. I loved it. Unfortunately, the owner turned out to be a pedo and it all closed down when he went to prison.

I miss the activity of going to the video store, despite the incredible convenience of streaming. Back in high school my buddy’s parents owned the local video store so there was always someone in there I knew. I liked walking down the isles searching for something I’d enjoy.

Those stores were cool for sure. My wife worked at one when I met her in college. I’d go visit her. But I still wouldn’t trade streaming capabilities to have them back. There is so much quality content on these platforms if you are willing to wade through the bullshite to find it. Which isn’t much different than the video stores.

But yes, the nostalgia for those stores is real. I remember begging mom to buy candy and a coke at the counter and always being told no.

Or grabbing a single bag of popcorn to pop at the house.

Noting worse than getting home and realizing your movie was fricked up though. That happened fairly often.

Myth. Just so much content now available. There’s plenty of great stuff. Just have to find it.

I do, personally. It was such a fun experience, everyday once my brother and I were both home from school and my parents are both home from work on Friday we would all go to Blockbuster together. Typically we would get 2 movies, 1 for my parents and 1 for my brother and I. More often than not I lost the battle of choosing movies because I was the younger sibling. I did get ti pick out the popcorn and candy, though.

These type of stores will likely never make a return, as I have no problem finding what I want tk watch between Netflix, Redbox, and Terranium. But i do believe the convenience of things take out the fun it it as well.

i used to spend hours just looking at/reading all the boxes for the movies at rental places, so there is some real nostalgia

however, by high school i was reading encyclopedias of movies and then going to websites to learn about an even more expanded universe of film. so i have to remember that in real time, when i still owned and collected VHS tapes, i was abandoning the video store

i think the issue is more that since we have access to information about every movie ever made, we're restless b/c discovery has died. we just like to associate the rental store with that discovery so combining that with some childhood nostalgia makes it much more powerful than it was when we lived it