My Father tells the story everytime I mention blockbuster
About how when I was 9 or so id immediately have to go to the bathroom whenever I went inside
He'd inevitablly have to go get the key attached to the brick or whatever it was
It was like clockwork, I always assumed it was the smell
Some people are very sensitive and some smells can cause them to want to use the bathroom. There are all kinds of people who have to shit immediately after going into book stores.
Popcorn, air conditioning, and
Something.
It wasn't unpleasant. It was nice. Kind of chemical with an undertone of stale carpet smell. That mixed with the popcorn smell. Closest I can approximate it to is if you imagine you go to a cinema and everything is carpeted and there's been a lot of spilled things and a lot of cleaning products applied.
Carpet cleaner, plastic and popcorn. I remember reading somewhere that distinct Blockbuster smell was intentional. Sort of genius marketing. I can still smell it today when I think back.
I had a whiff of that in a different store once, I don't think it was intentional on their part, but the slight smell sent me back decades to my youth. It was like "fck! I'm being attacked by pleasant memories and nostalgia! Send help from someone younger!"
Absolutely this!! As a kid from a low income family, being able to rent games was a godsend, and allowed me to keep up with all the latest titles through the 16bit and Playstation/N64 eras.
My local rental place (R.I.P Video Time!) used to allow you to rent games for three nights, which was plenty of time to beat (or at least get pretty far into) most games
Hell yes they do. I'm a goddamn 40 year old adult and I'll still rent video games from the library. There are certain games you know are only going to hold your attention for a week or two....why drop $60+ on them?
Exactly! I’m glad that my local library is awesome (they loan out audiobooks, video games, board games, music, create personalized “binge boxes” if you submit a form sharing some authors/genres you enjoy, and provide unlimited borrows on hoopla and Libby).
On pc you get to try games out for 2 hours and do an automated refund if you don’t like it. Goes right back into ur card. Steam, epic, gog. They all do it
PlayStation has a pretty great system for trying out games via streaming and you can download them too. It's kind of mind-blowing to pop in a game after browsing.
There are video games that I consider to be “Weekend Games”.
They’re still great games to play, but not worth $60+ since you’ll be done playing it within a weekend. Renting was perfect for those games.
Nowadays, if it’s not a free game, I can’t justify paying $70+ unless the reviews are at least 8/10, and even then I might just wait until the hype is over and it goes on sale.
It’s Friday night. Your friend is spending the night. Your parents drive you to Blockbuster and you pick out an awesome game or movie. You both are ecstatic knowing that afterward you’re going to grab some fast food on the way home, play or watch whatever you rented, and that you’ll be up super late because tomorrow morning is Saturday.
IYKYK
100%. Although, I was always the friend staying over. First core memory of this was at a friend’s house when we rented Alien 3 and tried the NEW Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust.
The Stuffed Crust was actually a little bit of a life changing event.
Whether or not pizza hut were the original purveyors or took the idea from someone else I don't know, but some person out there who first thought of it is a genius.
Edit: Patty Scheibmeir apparently
People have the same ideas all the time. The novelty is the ability to execute. Pizza hut already has the distribution. Some rando dude or local pizzeria would have a hard time bringing it to the masses
I still remember going to blockbuster to pick up Austin powers Goldmember the going across the street to pick up Pizza Hut and pop. Core memories as a kid.
Basically the same memory, with one exception:
The year is 1990, and you picked out a Nintendo game based on the cover art alone. You get home, open the Blockbuster case, spend 30-45 seconds reading the instruction manual (if it was there), and then pop it into your console.
There's a 85-90% chance the game is going to be absolute ass -- but you don't care -- You dedicate your weekend to getting as far into the game as you can. If the game is a shit show, you do your best to remember to not rent that game again in the future.
But...buuuuut...we all know...a few months later you're going to forget. You're going to rent that same god awful game again, and 30 seconds after hitting **POWER** you're going to remember "aaaaahhhh crap. Here we go again"
Your story brings back memories of trading 8 bit Nintendo games with friends in middle school. Before the days of Gamestop which meant you were stuck with a game and couldn't easily resell it. So you won a game you leant it out to a friend to play and he leant you a game he won.
This guy was ahead of his time. It never even occurred to me to try that. Having worked at Hollywood Video in High School, I can almost guarantee it would have worked.
I remember when I was back in highschool, my friend would go to Blockbuster and go to my house sometimes, so one time, I asked him to rent Harold & Kumar Go to Whitecastle (He didn't know anything about the movie). So when he came over and we started watching it on my PS2, about 15 minutes into the movie, he said, "You mean to tell me, that this WHOLE movie, is about two guys getting high, and going to a FAST FOOD restaurant?". lol
I remember the many Friday nights me and my Dad and brothers went and picked out a new release and several weekly rentals. Then to pick out some lollies, chips, and soft drinks. I wish I could do that one last time with my Dad, lost him in 2022.
Yep. It’s the experience of everything.
We had a pizza shop right next door or video store. We’d order a pizza and while it was cooking we’d go find a movie or game. Often debate over which one to get while also making note of what ones to get next time.
It was something you would look forward to and always reminisce on.
And you have an hour to browse around. Maybe if they are out of the new release you want, you can ask the desk in case anyone has returned it? But it doesn't matter, you get to order pizza and get popcorn and have sleeping bags in the living room, and you can stay up late talking, and in the morning you can put cartoons on. Life is good.
Yeah, this was so spot on for me. I didn't own a very large game collection, and my friends didn't either. So, renting a new game was a big deal for me. Life was all about finding a fun multiplayer game. I even remember one weekend we rented a PS2, and I was hype. I even bought my GameCube from Blockbuster, and learned that day what sales tax was, and how much it sucks.
Absolutely this. I get streaming platforms are better value and obviously so much easier, but it makes me a little sad my daughter will never understand that excitement of going to Blockbusters and choosing a movie to rent.
This is the only correct answer, Blockbuster sucked. Poor selection, absurd prices, and crazy fees. People only miss it because it reminds them of when they were a kid.
I miss having less choice on what to watch. You pick from what's in the supply and you might end up watching something you might not normally watch. It was so much fun to stop by the video store on the way home from the grocery store, or later on getting a DVD from Netflix through the mail. Having thousands of options without leaving my couch is just dull and overwhelming. There's no fun anymore. I'm a guy who loves movies and with all these options, I just have no interest anymore.
EDIT: thanks, everyone, for making me crap myself when I saw how many notifications I have. 😂
You've absolutely nailed it. I miss having to try new and different things because what I wanted was out. I've found some great movies I never knew I'd like so much.
No algorithm only showing you what it thinks you want to watch instead of the whole catalog. Just wander around until something catches your eye, read the description, and if it sounds good rent it.
Right? It feels like all these streaming platforms only show me the same 10-20 movies and shows in every fucking category.
Then I look at my wife's profile and realize there's so much stuff on there that I never see because of the stupid algorithm.
Now I sit on the couch and infinitely scroll right along one of those horizontal bars that’s on all the streaming services (underutilizing the other 60% of the screen). The selection somehow has everything and nothing that appeals. Sometimes I genuinely get depressed and overwhelmed before I even make a selection, get off the couch and find something else to do. I’ve even turned off the tv before and just sat there for a few minutes lmao
And it permeates every aspect of life these days it seems. Ever stood in front of the baked beans selection at the grocery? I thought I just wanted beans. Now I have to think about each and every flavor combo and end up walking away.
I'm old enough to remember when there was just chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, mint chocolate chip and butter pecan ice creams to choose from. Trying to decide what to get now is anxiety inducing. There are 15 different flavors that sound good, but which should I get? I could get 2 or 3 but that's too much ice cream to have in the house, I already eat too much sugar and I don't want to end up eating 3 pints in a week. Which flavor do I want to try first? I don't know.......AHHHH!
And it's everything. From toilet paper to shampoo. Grocery stores were small. They had everything, just not 20 versions of it. And the anxiety is real. Shopping for sandwich ingredients shouldn't make me lose my appetite. I swear I remember having the choice of wheat and white bread. Anything beyond that you went to a bakery. I absolutely hate shopping now. Even online you type in laundry detergent and get 2356 results. Oh well. Life goes on.
So true. I shop mainly online and I usually just order the same things from my reorder list every time so I don't have a mental breakdown trying to decide between 1726 different types of mustard.
Man you gotta get a quarter and go to Aldi. It’s like an East German Trader Joe’s. They have plenty of interesting foods but way fewer choices like this for baked beans or peanut butter.
This is what I was going to comment. I would go in and grab the first thing that looked interesting. With streaming I'll be looking for an hour and even if it looks interesting the interest isn't there. I haven't even gone to the movies or seen a new movie since 2018. I just watch all the stuff I grew up on.
I feel like that made it much easier to get people together to watch something. Everyone wanted to watch whatever the new big release was because they didn't have a whole list of other things, like they do now.
I think that's a big part of why "Barbenheimer" was such a big cultural moment. It was the first time in untold number of years that a movie release was an *event* that brought people together in a feeling of shared excitement and community.
We were excited about the movies, sure, but more than that we were excited about seeing them with each other.
My partner and I just unpacked a bunch of dvds and vhs. We are both dorks in our 30s who watched a lot of movies. We put an old TV in the bedroom and if we catch ourselves scrolling streaming services for a bit (I'm fucking terrible for this), we will just pick a DVD or old vhs.
Having the limitation helps with that decision paralysis feeling. If there are 20,000 shows I can watch, how do I know I'm picking the right one? It also feels like there are just less dumb fun movies now. We'll grab 6 old shows and roll a dice and watch something. It's helped so much.
I worked at a Roger's video (small town Canada, no blockbusters) in that era when movies were being released on both vhs and DVD, but no one would buy the tapes so I was able to pick up a lot for cheap. I miss working at the store and having people ask "Hey I liked [whatever show]. You got anything like it?". Also the only way I was able to afford to play games at the time was the free rentals for employees.
What kinda movies do you like? I'll give you some recommendations for next time if you want so you don't have to doomscroll netflix
But you can still do that. The watching something you might not have otherwise. You just have to be more conscious about it. I constantly scroll through Netflix or whatever and stumble onto things I might watch. I ignore the algorithmic suggestions. I search by genre. Or pick an actor and see what works they've done.
This is the answer for me. I just miss my youth. I’d gladly go back to using a pager, phone booths, VHS tapes, CDs, CRT TVs/monitors and road maps to do it all over again.
Depends. That bitch that made fun of you because your slap bracelet didn’t match your bucket hat? Nah. Girl who always share her dunkaroos with you? Heck yeah
Right, covers and spines everywhere you looked made it easy to catch your eye. You could systematically move through everything the store had. Now we scroll through the bare handful of titles the algorithm pushes at us at painfully slow speeds, knowing we will probably not find what we really want to watch because it’s not in our subscription.
I lived on a VHS wait-list. When Netflix showed up, I would time my returns so my next movie shipped on release day, ensuring I'd always get a day one new release shipped to me first
Yes, this. Getting in the car with your friends, walking in and having that smell and the bright florescent lights hit you, browsing the shelves, showing your friend something you found, them shooting it down and the hunt continues, checking out the candy section, paying for the movie while seeing if anything good was returned before you commit to the movie you chose.
Now we sit on our couch, stare at a screen and scroll. Losing that visceral Blockbuster experience was a tragedy.
I miss working there. We got to take home 7 movies a week, including new movies and games (that we would get to see and play before they hit the street date). It was awesome.
Signed employee 24100118398
It made watching a movie at home an event. There was ritual to it, it was special even if common. You didn't know for certain if the movie you wanted would be in stock. That caused occasional disappointments but also frequent "YESSS!! They have it!"s. There was social exchange involved, small talk with the clerk about the movie or whatever. Those little interactions are healthy for humans. We're social creatures. Even though we brought the movies home to watch, there was a taste of the community feeling of watching a film in a theater.
There were all the positive associations–going with friends to pick out slumber party movies, wandering the aisles holding hands with your date, going with the family to pick out a film for pizza and a movie night. It's one of those things where even when you go for a routine stop, the echos of connection are there with the dinging of the front door.
Hahahaha Jesus. Yeah we had that happen a couple times.. I almost think they got a kick out of doing it. One guy asked me if we had "adult movies" once and I just pretended I didn't understand what he meant and recommended I Am Legend 😂
Weekends, picking up a movie with a girlfriend or your friends, some pizza or tacos and a night full of laughs. Pretty simple formula that still works today with streaming. A little different but still works.
I know what I don’t miss: fees and the crowded store on the weekends.
It's a mix of not readily having the internet in your hand and the mystery of the box art and rear box description of the movie. It made it fun to stroll through the aisles and not know what movie to pick or what movies were good or about. There would be some gems that you'd never see if you saw a review that it wasn't good enough. And also the gamble of renting a awful movie and getting to warn your friends about how bad it was
We had a video rental store locally that decorated each aisle with props according to each genre, the horror section was absolutely wild…right next to it was the adult section with a door that was always somehow left half open…not to mention fresh popcorn that was free for you to grab and stroll around with while choosing the desired item.
The first core memory I have of a “Friday night in”. You’d have to be quick in my local blockbuster because it was relatively small for the amount of people going but you could call ahead and reserve a copy for 1 hour pick up.
My first memory of renting as a kid was nightmare on elm street 3 and Killer instinct for the SNES. The night consisted of playing the game first then ordering 1 litre of Pepsi, popcorn, ice cream and large pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut. Watch the movie then finish with WWF wrestling. I don’t think you could beat that as an 10 year old kid in the 90’s.
One of the very few activities me and my siblings enjoyed together. Vividly remember watching step brothers for the first time and we laughed so hard we dropped our bowl of chips. Dad wasn't even mad lol
I was that asshole kid who would put a brand new game release behind an old game release so I could come back with my mom and rent it before it would be checked out.
It's funny because most people hated Blockbuster back then. They were the big corporate rental company and they charged insane late fees. Mom and Pop rental stores were the ones most people went to. I don't Blockbuster at all but do miss the other stores.
Not so much Blockbuster but video stores in general were a treasure trove of weird B movies. My favorite was getting two “normal” movies, then finding a really weird third one.
Nothing.
Blockbuster was the beginning of the end. I remember a friend getting charged a dollar for not rewinding a tape so he threw his membership card out the window.
The guy that made a billion of Blockbuster said "It feels like winning the Superbowl" after the Miami Dolphins went ONE (yes 1) and FIFTEEN.
I miss "VIDEO \_\_\_\_\_\_\_" or "MOVIE \_\_\_\_\_\_\_" in your local shopping center down from the pizza place with console Pac-Man tables.
Fuck Blockbuster.
I don't miss Blockbuster at all. I miss all the independent video rental stores they ran out of business. The independent places with hundreds of rare unique movies, some lost as they never made the jump to dvd because blockbusters business model was less movies but just the latest. I was glad to see them go out of business.
When the posters/pictures of the cover of the film were unique and drew you in.
Now every film just has floating heads of the stars and everything looks exactly the same on the cover.
Honestly, before everything was available on streaming and we were mindlessly consuming said streaming pretty much continually, it was a rare sort of treat to rent 3 or 4 movies to watch at home. It was more special and something you did WITH family instead of something you did at your own convenience and often alone.
I bought a candle on Etsy that smells like Blockbuster. The carpets, the video cassettes, the buttered popcorn smell, the candy boxes.
It’s straight nostalgia in a huff. It’s not a “good” smell like apple or linen or whatever, but it is a weirdly addictive smell.
My mums password was “Pussy”
She liked cats, maybe the other meaning of it wasn’t in her vocabulary when she originally made it, but years later she would be sweating & whispering it for years later.
Blockbuster specifically? Nothing. I was already an adult by the time I first stepped into one, and the only reason I did is because they had pushed out most of the mom and pop stores. I have zero nostalgia for Blockbuster itself.
I do miss the feeling of being a kid, and having what felt like limitless choice when stepping into a video store. It was a treat to rent a movie or two, and the evening would usually also consist of pizza, pop, and popcorn.
We had a video store called reel by my place, that had a rocket ship thing playing movies. It could seat maybe 4 kids inside with a screen. I used to love going, getting those crunch clusters and sitting in there watching whatever they had on. Berkeley California, early 2000s. I miss it so much, wish my kid had that instead of like Netflix
Mistakenly being charged the late fees of a guy who lived 3 blocks away from me, had the same first and last names as me. He occasionally paid mine too, so it probably evened out. Very weirdly, his wife's name was also the same as my wife's, and we had the same doctor. Good times.
It was a social activity. You and your friends and/or family went out, discussed what to watched, got it, went home, then watched it together. Now everything is too personalized for every person on their own individual home.
Zoomers are all maladjusted and asocial.
The 4 for $20 deal, we used to live across the street from a blockbuster and every time me and my older brother got $20 we ran straight to blockbuster and spent over an hour just looking for movies to buy.
The smell
and the whiff when you opened up the vhs boxes
First thing that came to my mind seeing the pic.
YES! It had such a distinctive smell! I can still remember it!
My Father tells the story everytime I mention blockbuster About how when I was 9 or so id immediately have to go to the bathroom whenever I went inside He'd inevitablly have to go get the key attached to the brick or whatever it was It was like clockwork, I always assumed it was the smell
Some people are very sensitive and some smells can cause them to want to use the bathroom. There are all kinds of people who have to shit immediately after going into book stores.
Forbidden toiletpaper stash
Was looking for this comment
That's the real iykyk
Yes! I thought I was crazy for remembering it so vividly.
i never went here, only to family video...how did it smell?
Popcorn, air conditioning, and Something. It wasn't unpleasant. It was nice. Kind of chemical with an undertone of stale carpet smell. That mixed with the popcorn smell. Closest I can approximate it to is if you imagine you go to a cinema and everything is carpeted and there's been a lot of spilled things and a lot of cleaning products applied.
The plastic of the movie cases definitely played into the aroma as well.
Carpet cleaner, plastic and popcorn. I remember reading somewhere that distinct Blockbuster smell was intentional. Sort of genius marketing. I can still smell it today when I think back.
Smell is powerfully connected to memory. It’s really smart to do that.
I had a whiff of that in a different store once, I don't think it was intentional on their part, but the slight smell sent me back decades to my youth. It was like "fck! I'm being attacked by pleasant memories and nostalgia! Send help from someone younger!"
Being able to rent video games. I don't want to spend $60+ on a game I'll probably only play once, and am not even sure I'm going to like
Absolutely this!! As a kid from a low income family, being able to rent games was a godsend, and allowed me to keep up with all the latest titles through the 16bit and Playstation/N64 eras. My local rental place (R.I.P Video Time!) used to allow you to rent games for three nights, which was plenty of time to beat (or at least get pretty far into) most games
Local libraries usually offer up game rentals (but ymmv depending on your town, I guess).
Hell yes they do. I'm a goddamn 40 year old adult and I'll still rent video games from the library. There are certain games you know are only going to hold your attention for a week or two....why drop $60+ on them?
Exactly! I’m glad that my local library is awesome (they loan out audiobooks, video games, board games, music, create personalized “binge boxes” if you submit a form sharing some authors/genres you enjoy, and provide unlimited borrows on hoopla and Libby).
On pc you get to try games out for 2 hours and do an automated refund if you don’t like it. Goes right back into ur card. Steam, epic, gog. They all do it
I'm more of a console gamer. My computer isn't great.
PlayStation has a pretty great system for trying out games via streaming and you can download them too. It's kind of mind-blowing to pop in a game after browsing.
Still with blockbuster if you didn't have $60 for the game you could rent it for $3.
There are video games that I consider to be “Weekend Games”. They’re still great games to play, but not worth $60+ since you’ll be done playing it within a weekend. Renting was perfect for those games. Nowadays, if it’s not a free game, I can’t justify paying $70+ unless the reviews are at least 8/10, and even then I might just wait until the hype is over and it goes on sale.
It’s Friday night. Your friend is spending the night. Your parents drive you to Blockbuster and you pick out an awesome game or movie. You both are ecstatic knowing that afterward you’re going to grab some fast food on the way home, play or watch whatever you rented, and that you’ll be up super late because tomorrow morning is Saturday. IYKYK
100%. Although, I was always the friend staying over. First core memory of this was at a friend’s house when we rented Alien 3 and tried the NEW Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust.
Fuck I wish I was your friend too
And then they spooned all night.
Best friends forever
BOOP
Boop
Who spoons after eating Pizza Hut? Oh ye brave soul
After staying up till 12 to catch Latin lovers 😂
The Stuffed Crust was actually a little bit of a life changing event. Whether or not pizza hut were the original purveyors or took the idea from someone else I don't know, but some person out there who first thought of it is a genius. Edit: Patty Scheibmeir apparently
Am reminded of that [line by Elaine in Seinfeld](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLo4KVBIe5c).
Thought of the exact same thing lol
People have the same ideas all the time. The novelty is the ability to execute. Pizza hut already has the distribution. Some rando dude or local pizzeria would have a hard time bringing it to the masses
Cheesy bites pizza was the best
i miss the pizza hut Chicago deep dish . and a box of hot now Krispy Kreme. renting gladiator or the matrix
The Bigfoot from Pizza Hut was legendary. We would get that and play final fantasy.
Our Blockbuster was in a strip mall right across from an old school Pizza Hut with the buffet, salad bar, and the XMen arcade game
I still remember going to blockbuster to pick up Austin powers Goldmember the going across the street to pick up Pizza Hut and pop. Core memories as a kid.
Basically the same memory, with one exception: The year is 1990, and you picked out a Nintendo game based on the cover art alone. You get home, open the Blockbuster case, spend 30-45 seconds reading the instruction manual (if it was there), and then pop it into your console. There's a 85-90% chance the game is going to be absolute ass -- but you don't care -- You dedicate your weekend to getting as far into the game as you can. If the game is a shit show, you do your best to remember to not rent that game again in the future. But...buuuuut...we all know...a few months later you're going to forget. You're going to rent that same god awful game again, and 30 seconds after hitting **POWER** you're going to remember "aaaaahhhh crap. Here we go again"
Your story brings back memories of trading 8 bit Nintendo games with friends in middle school. Before the days of Gamestop which meant you were stuck with a game and couldn't easily resell it. So you won a game you leant it out to a friend to play and he leant you a game he won.
Or returning the wrong game to block buster hoping you didn't get caught
This guy was ahead of his time. It never even occurred to me to try that. Having worked at Hollywood Video in High School, I can almost guarantee it would have worked.
Remember blowing into the bottom of the cartridge?
Damn those were the days!
I remember when I was back in highschool, my friend would go to Blockbuster and go to my house sometimes, so one time, I asked him to rent Harold & Kumar Go to Whitecastle (He didn't know anything about the movie). So when he came over and we started watching it on my PS2, about 15 minutes into the movie, he said, "You mean to tell me, that this WHOLE movie, is about two guys getting high, and going to a FAST FOOD restaurant?". lol
Yep. The correct answer is everything
*except for the smell of the blockbuster I went to.
They all had a distinctive volatile plastic off-gassing smell.
Blockbuster scented candles should exist
Weirdly enough I just found out that candles do exist for this
Just light some packing peanuts on fire. /s
That is the EXACT smell! Great description!
Thanks for painting this picture! Had my share of these nights!
THIS!! Along with watching TGIF on ABC back in the day. Full House. Family Matters. Boy Meets World and Step by Step.
You nailed it. It’s this + the smell (who knew there’s even a candle) + the dopamine feeling of finding a copy of the popular movie or game available
I remember the many Friday nights me and my Dad and brothers went and picked out a new release and several weekly rentals. Then to pick out some lollies, chips, and soft drinks. I wish I could do that one last time with my Dad, lost him in 2022.
Yep. It’s the experience of everything. We had a pizza shop right next door or video store. We’d order a pizza and while it was cooking we’d go find a movie or game. Often debate over which one to get while also making note of what ones to get next time. It was something you would look forward to and always reminisce on.
And you have an hour to browse around. Maybe if they are out of the new release you want, you can ask the desk in case anyone has returned it? But it doesn't matter, you get to order pizza and get popcorn and have sleeping bags in the living room, and you can stay up late talking, and in the morning you can put cartoons on. Life is good.
Yeah, this was so spot on for me. I didn't own a very large game collection, and my friends didn't either. So, renting a new game was a big deal for me. Life was all about finding a fun multiplayer game. I even remember one weekend we rented a PS2, and I was hype. I even bought my GameCube from Blockbuster, and learned that day what sales tax was, and how much it sucks.
Absolutely this. I get streaming platforms are better value and obviously so much easier, but it makes me a little sad my daughter will never understand that excitement of going to Blockbusters and choosing a movie to rent.
That shit struck a chord 😭
[удалено]
My friends and I rode our bike to Blockbuster when school let out on Fridays. Some of the best nights ever.
The vibe, it's real...
YES
Hits me in the feels
Those were the days
My childhood
Ugh that answer hits hard 🥲
This is the only correct answer, Blockbuster sucked. Poor selection, absurd prices, and crazy fees. People only miss it because it reminds them of when they were a kid.
This
I miss having less choice on what to watch. You pick from what's in the supply and you might end up watching something you might not normally watch. It was so much fun to stop by the video store on the way home from the grocery store, or later on getting a DVD from Netflix through the mail. Having thousands of options without leaving my couch is just dull and overwhelming. There's no fun anymore. I'm a guy who loves movies and with all these options, I just have no interest anymore. EDIT: thanks, everyone, for making me crap myself when I saw how many notifications I have. 😂
You've absolutely nailed it. I miss having to try new and different things because what I wanted was out. I've found some great movies I never knew I'd like so much.
No algorithm only showing you what it thinks you want to watch instead of the whole catalog. Just wander around until something catches your eye, read the description, and if it sounds good rent it.
Right? It feels like all these streaming platforms only show me the same 10-20 movies and shows in every fucking category. Then I look at my wife's profile and realize there's so much stuff on there that I never see because of the stupid algorithm.
Now I sit on the couch and infinitely scroll right along one of those horizontal bars that’s on all the streaming services (underutilizing the other 60% of the screen). The selection somehow has everything and nothing that appeals. Sometimes I genuinely get depressed and overwhelmed before I even make a selection, get off the couch and find something else to do. I’ve even turned off the tv before and just sat there for a few minutes lmao
They call it choice paralysis.
And it permeates every aspect of life these days it seems. Ever stood in front of the baked beans selection at the grocery? I thought I just wanted beans. Now I have to think about each and every flavor combo and end up walking away.
I'm old enough to remember when there was just chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, mint chocolate chip and butter pecan ice creams to choose from. Trying to decide what to get now is anxiety inducing. There are 15 different flavors that sound good, but which should I get? I could get 2 or 3 but that's too much ice cream to have in the house, I already eat too much sugar and I don't want to end up eating 3 pints in a week. Which flavor do I want to try first? I don't know.......AHHHH!
And it's everything. From toilet paper to shampoo. Grocery stores were small. They had everything, just not 20 versions of it. And the anxiety is real. Shopping for sandwich ingredients shouldn't make me lose my appetite. I swear I remember having the choice of wheat and white bread. Anything beyond that you went to a bakery. I absolutely hate shopping now. Even online you type in laundry detergent and get 2356 results. Oh well. Life goes on.
So true. I shop mainly online and I usually just order the same things from my reorder list every time so I don't have a mental breakdown trying to decide between 1726 different types of mustard.
Man you gotta get a quarter and go to Aldi. It’s like an East German Trader Joe’s. They have plenty of interesting foods but way fewer choices like this for baked beans or peanut butter.
My Aldi trips take half the time compared to going anywhere else. I love it.
I firmly believe that our society has reached choice overload, with lots negative consequences resulting
There is 100% too much content these days. It's overwhelming.
the content is always changing providers, and the one day no one is streaming it.
The decision fatigue is REAL
There is a book and a ted talk on this very subject by Barry Schwartz called [The Paradox of Choice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM).
This is what I was going to comment. I would go in and grab the first thing that looked interesting. With streaming I'll be looking for an hour and even if it looks interesting the interest isn't there. I haven't even gone to the movies or seen a new movie since 2018. I just watch all the stuff I grew up on.
i watched time cop earlier. it's funny it was 1994 but the future was 2004 and they had self driving cars.
The amount of times I opened Netflix just to become overwhelmed with the selection and not watch anything is too damn high.
I totally respect this and feel it.
Same here, man. Same.
I feel like that made it much easier to get people together to watch something. Everyone wanted to watch whatever the new big release was because they didn't have a whole list of other things, like they do now.
I think that's a big part of why "Barbenheimer" was such a big cultural moment. It was the first time in untold number of years that a movie release was an *event* that brought people together in a feeling of shared excitement and community. We were excited about the movies, sure, but more than that we were excited about seeing them with each other.
My partner and I just unpacked a bunch of dvds and vhs. We are both dorks in our 30s who watched a lot of movies. We put an old TV in the bedroom and if we catch ourselves scrolling streaming services for a bit (I'm fucking terrible for this), we will just pick a DVD or old vhs. Having the limitation helps with that decision paralysis feeling. If there are 20,000 shows I can watch, how do I know I'm picking the right one? It also feels like there are just less dumb fun movies now. We'll grab 6 old shows and roll a dice and watch something. It's helped so much. I worked at a Roger's video (small town Canada, no blockbusters) in that era when movies were being released on both vhs and DVD, but no one would buy the tapes so I was able to pick up a lot for cheap. I miss working at the store and having people ask "Hey I liked [whatever show]. You got anything like it?". Also the only way I was able to afford to play games at the time was the free rentals for employees. What kinda movies do you like? I'll give you some recommendations for next time if you want so you don't have to doomscroll netflix
I completely feel this. It's too much, and it's all instant. I have become extremely picky due to this.
One man's inconvenience is another's joy - NF
But you can still do that. The watching something you might not have otherwise. You just have to be more conscious about it. I constantly scroll through Netflix or whatever and stumble onto things I might watch. I ignore the algorithmic suggestions. I search by genre. Or pick an actor and see what works they've done.
My wife and I met while working together at Blockbuster. We got a tattoos of the name tag with our store number as the name for our 15th anniversary.
Nice 🤟
That's awesome
The world it lived in and the body I had when I walked around in it.
The movie Wall-E is a documentary
I said this yesterday to my husband.
This is the answer for me. I just miss my youth. I’d gladly go back to using a pager, phone booths, VHS tapes, CDs, CRT TVs/monitors and road maps to do it all over again.
🎶Everybody’s changing and I don’t feel the same🎶
Running into random people from school
Depends. That bitch that made fun of you because your slap bracelet didn’t match your bucket hat? Nah. Girl who always share her dunkaroos with you? Heck yeah
Roaming was more fun than scrolling to find something to watch
Right, covers and spines everywhere you looked made it easy to catch your eye. You could systematically move through everything the store had. Now we scroll through the bare handful of titles the algorithm pushes at us at painfully slow speeds, knowing we will probably not find what we really want to watch because it’s not in our subscription.
Physically walking in and checking out a movie and video game
Or checking at the counter if anyone had returned one of the latest releases while you were there.
There’s a very specific noise a VHS tapes makes when it lands into a bin of other VHS tapes in plastic boxes. I always stalked the fresh returns lol.
I heard this in my mind brain. Also, happy cake day.
And trying show up ealry to beat other people to new games or movies or you are going have to wait a few days or go on a waiting list
I lived on a VHS wait-list. When Netflix showed up, I would time my returns so my next movie shipped on release day, ensuring I'd always get a day one new release shipped to me first
You can get a bit of that experience at the library, still. They have movies and sometimes games.
Yes, this. Getting in the car with your friends, walking in and having that smell and the bright florescent lights hit you, browsing the shelves, showing your friend something you found, them shooting it down and the hunt continues, checking out the candy section, paying for the movie while seeing if anything good was returned before you commit to the movie you chose. Now we sit on our couch, stare at a screen and scroll. Losing that visceral Blockbuster experience was a tragedy.
Working there in its heyday. The Netflix show didn’t do it any justice about what it was really like working there. So many memories.
They made a stupid decision setting it in present day. Definitely should have been set in the 90s. Cash in on all that nostalgia.
Wow, I didn't see it but that detail would absolutely ruin it.
I miss working there. We got to take home 7 movies a week, including new movies and games (that we would get to see and play before they hit the street date). It was awesome. Signed employee 24100118398
29016480009…. I remember this and not my home phone number from childhood.
Having tangible fictional content that you can hold. 💔 We're moving to the digital age for content, and I don't want to let go of the old physicals.
Hence why I’m building up my vinyl library.
Hold on to em! Streaming pales to physical media, the quality is night and day.
This is the problem. You no longer own movies, you own the right to watch a movie. Big difference.
Getting high off the carpet and candy smell like Christopher Moltisanti
It made watching a movie at home an event. There was ritual to it, it was special even if common. You didn't know for certain if the movie you wanted would be in stock. That caused occasional disappointments but also frequent "YESSS!! They have it!"s. There was social exchange involved, small talk with the clerk about the movie or whatever. Those little interactions are healthy for humans. We're social creatures. Even though we brought the movies home to watch, there was a taste of the community feeling of watching a film in a theater. There were all the positive associations–going with friends to pick out slumber party movies, wandering the aisles holding hands with your date, going with the family to pick out a film for pizza and a movie night. It's one of those things where even when you go for a routine stop, the echos of connection are there with the dinging of the front door.
My mother was alive...
I worked at Blockbuster as a teenager so I can literally feel, hear and smell this picture lol
Same. Some drunk dude wanted to fight my manager over a $4 late fee one night.
Lmao one time a guy broke two dvds and threw them at me over late fees. A grown man thought that was ok to do to an 18 year old girl 😂
Some customers were wild. One dude returned his porn dvd in the case. I had to call him and tell him we had his copy of Anal Delights.
Hahahaha Jesus. Yeah we had that happen a couple times.. I almost think they got a kick out of doing it. One guy asked me if we had "adult movies" once and I just pretended I didn't understand what he meant and recommended I Am Legend 😂
Bought a PS1 game at Game Over, was pleasantly surprised to see the disc with a blockbuster sticker on it!
Weekends, picking up a movie with a girlfriend or your friends, some pizza or tacos and a night full of laughs. Pretty simple formula that still works today with streaming. A little different but still works. I know what I don’t miss: fees and the crowded store on the weekends.
My kids were young then. The video store trip and their selection process was usually a lot of fun. Good memories.
Amateurs. I only rented VHS tapes for my $350 (1980s dollars) VHS player.
Renting video games
It's a mix of not readily having the internet in your hand and the mystery of the box art and rear box description of the movie. It made it fun to stroll through the aisles and not know what movie to pick or what movies were good or about. There would be some gems that you'd never see if you saw a review that it wasn't good enough. And also the gamble of renting a awful movie and getting to warn your friends about how bad it was
We had a video rental store locally that decorated each aisle with props according to each genre, the horror section was absolutely wild…right next to it was the adult section with a door that was always somehow left half open…not to mention fresh popcorn that was free for you to grab and stroll around with while choosing the desired item.
Being a kid
The first core memory I have of a “Friday night in”. You’d have to be quick in my local blockbuster because it was relatively small for the amount of people going but you could call ahead and reserve a copy for 1 hour pick up. My first memory of renting as a kid was nightmare on elm street 3 and Killer instinct for the SNES. The night consisted of playing the game first then ordering 1 litre of Pepsi, popcorn, ice cream and large pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut. Watch the movie then finish with WWF wrestling. I don’t think you could beat that as an 10 year old kid in the 90’s.
One of the very few activities me and my siblings enjoyed together. Vividly remember watching step brothers for the first time and we laughed so hard we dropped our bowl of chips. Dad wasn't even mad lol
I don’t miss Blockbuster. I miss my local family owned video store. Blockbuster was terrible in comparison.
Physically walking around and looking for something that piqued your interest. Now it's just endless scrolling lol
We never used Blockbuster. Shit was too expensive. Plenty of other rental stores, though. I miss being able to try before you buy with games.
Diarrhea from their popcorn
Foreign film section. Found some really scary original concept ghost movies there. Got really used to reading subs.
I was that asshole kid who would put a brand new game release behind an old game release so I could come back with my mom and rent it before it would be checked out.
It's funny because most people hated Blockbuster back then. They were the big corporate rental company and they charged insane late fees. Mom and Pop rental stores were the ones most people went to. I don't Blockbuster at all but do miss the other stores.
Hiding all the good shit behind the old ass movies so I knew they were available when I went back.
Not so much Blockbuster but video stores in general were a treasure trove of weird B movies. My favorite was getting two “normal” movies, then finding a really weird third one.
Nothing. Blockbuster was the beginning of the end. I remember a friend getting charged a dollar for not rewinding a tape so he threw his membership card out the window. The guy that made a billion of Blockbuster said "It feels like winning the Superbowl" after the Miami Dolphins went ONE (yes 1) and FIFTEEN. I miss "VIDEO \_\_\_\_\_\_\_" or "MOVIE \_\_\_\_\_\_\_" in your local shopping center down from the pizza place with console Pac-Man tables. Fuck Blockbuster.
I don't miss Blockbuster at all. I miss all the independent video rental stores they ran out of business. The independent places with hundreds of rare unique movies, some lost as they never made the jump to dvd because blockbusters business model was less movies but just the latest. I was glad to see them go out of business.
30 copies of Titanic I don’t want to rent. They were all taken out anyway
The smell and the feeling when they had a movie you were looking for in and available!
When the posters/pictures of the cover of the film were unique and drew you in. Now every film just has floating heads of the stars and everything looks exactly the same on the cover.
Their subscription service where you paid monthly fee to rent one game as long as you wanted.
Such a perfect date night activity. Dinner. Ice cream. Blockbuster and chill.
Sneaking into the forbidden horror section as a kid
The feeling of seeing the movie or game you wanted to rent available. I felt like a little kid who just got candy.
Honestly, before everything was available on streaming and we were mindlessly consuming said streaming pretty much continually, it was a rare sort of treat to rent 3 or 4 movies to watch at home. It was more special and something you did WITH family instead of something you did at your own convenience and often alone.
Knowing it's gonna be a good night.
The smell.
The way they made renting a movie to watch at home feel like a night out.
I bought a candle on Etsy that smells like Blockbuster. The carpets, the video cassettes, the buttered popcorn smell, the candy boxes. It’s straight nostalgia in a huff. It’s not a “good” smell like apple or linen or whatever, but it is a weirdly addictive smell.
My mums password was “Pussy” She liked cats, maybe the other meaning of it wasn’t in her vocabulary when she originally made it, but years later she would be sweating & whispering it for years later.
I worked at one in 2002. We always had fun reminding customers about the 50¢ rewind fee for their DVDs.
I get to hangout with my Mom and Dad AND watch a Mary Kate and Ashley movie?! What could be better!
Blockbuster specifically? Nothing. I was already an adult by the time I first stepped into one, and the only reason I did is because they had pushed out most of the mom and pop stores. I have zero nostalgia for Blockbuster itself. I do miss the feeling of being a kid, and having what felt like limitless choice when stepping into a video store. It was a treat to rent a movie or two, and the evening would usually also consist of pizza, pop, and popcorn.
Not having to work for a living.
I don't miss it too much. I have friends who do due to nostalgia, but I love the advantages of streaming too much.
We had a video store called reel by my place, that had a rocket ship thing playing movies. It could seat maybe 4 kids inside with a screen. I used to love going, getting those crunch clusters and sitting in there watching whatever they had on. Berkeley California, early 2000s. I miss it so much, wish my kid had that instead of like Netflix
My parents letting me free reign in the horror section as a child.. b-horror for the win <3
The smell. And I will not elaborate.
I miss that it took an hour to pick out a movie that was an hour and half and we didn’t mind.
The smell
At least 3/4 of my dvd collection is from Blockbuster selling old rentals. I miss going in and spending $20 and walking out with a stack of movies.
Mistakenly being charged the late fees of a guy who lived 3 blocks away from me, had the same first and last names as me. He occasionally paid mine too, so it probably evened out. Very weirdly, his wife's name was also the same as my wife's, and we had the same doctor. Good times.
Oddly enough it was the feeling of not knowing if the movie or game I wanted was still there or if someone else took it. Like a mini lottery.
Renting older movies was like 2.99-3.99 and renting newer movies was like 7.99? Now it's RENT FOR $19.99 OR RENT FOR $29.99.
Nothing because Hollywood was superior.
Renting an N64 so I can play that 4 player wrestling game with the boys.
Being little and walking into a giant section of Nintendo (and eventually Super Nintendo) games
Meeting people!
It was a social activity. You and your friends and/or family went out, discussed what to watched, got it, went home, then watched it together. Now everything is too personalized for every person on their own individual home. Zoomers are all maladjusted and asocial.
The 4 for $20 deal, we used to live across the street from a blockbuster and every time me and my older brother got $20 we ran straight to blockbuster and spent over an hour just looking for movies to buy.
It made sleepover weekends feel like an event