I think the thing I liked about Blockbuster was the routine of it, but also how the limited selection helped you make a decision, particularly when you’re with a group. When you’re scrolling through a streaming service with hundreds of choices, it can become difficult to make one. If your only options are the 10 new movies on the shelf, it makes it a lot easier to come to an agreement.
I miss being able to physically browse movies and rent video games, but that’s about it.
Going to the local video rental place is something I miss. Seeing lines of VHS with the latest movie out, NES games my parents refused to buy since we could rent. Then Blockbuster bought them out, it still offered that but it was less personal where you can talk about the latest movies or games that had released.
I didn’t really have a good childhood, there was trauma I didn’t realize was trauma until I became an adult. There’s some nostalgia for the worries of the world not being a thing but I never had the luxury of a blissful childhood.
The latter for me. I remember thinking as a kid that things would just keep getting better. That the best time to be a kid was always the future. Now I’m glad I was a kid when I was and I wish kids today had it better than they do. I’m sure that’s at least 50% old guy viewpoint but I really think some lines have been crossed that truly make childhood in the 2020s harder than it used to be.
Everything to do with nostalgia over Blockbuster is just comical. It was such a shit home movie rental store. The place was the McDonalds of video stores…
I loved blockbuster but I was definitely a child who probably didn’t know better
I really hated going there
I just remember it being really expensive. I think it was $4 to rent? Plus the looming potential late fees. Whatever it was, at the time it seemed like a fortune. So you couldn’t really fuck around and rent “Mansquito 2: Womansquito” just for laughs because it really was a huge ripoff when a movie sucked, or was damaged, or something. Also the popular movies were never in stock. They would put hundreds of empty boxes on the shelves to make it seem like it was there, but the actual tapes were always gone.
To continue your analogy, the place didn’t have the Mansquitos, it was nothing but the tent pole movies.
The mom and pop shops that Blockbuster drove out of business had all the unusual and hard to find stuff.
I was mad when they got rid of our local Video Zone. That place had the best ridiculous horror movies. Blockbuster had only the most middle of the road bullshit.
This was my experience. There was a local video rental place we used to go to that later sold out to Blockbuster, and everything just got far worse when they did.
My local video rental store (family video) hung on by a thread until the pandemic and finally went out of business. The property now holds an adult video store
still videos
The entire appeal of McDonald’s is being predictable. It’s mediocre but you know what you’re getting and it’s appealing to a lot of people. In that way, Blockbuster being McDonald’s is true — but also explains why it’s preferable to streaming in some ways. They had a limited selection but that selection didn’t change and you knew pretty reliably what kind of movies they would be carrying.
I liked the Blockbuster growing up. It was such a weird location though, this tiny triangle lot. Mother hated getting out of the lot so we didn’t go often.
We had an independent movie store here until about a decade ago which surprised people even back then. It was also nice.
I used to buy a ton of discount video games from blockbuster. I really miss those times…
Recommendations used to be better. There was a sweet spot for a few years where Netflix had everything and I could talk to the rental clerk about what we were watching, and I miss that. But video stores were too pricy to miss
Blockbuster had gotten so monopolistic and predatory by the time Netflix was mailing DVDs that I was thrilled to end my membership with them.
I sure don’t miss using AI for nostalgia slop.
Is this AI? I don’t see any obvious signs and there is a “signature” in the bottom left corner of the box with name “Doctor Photograph”, who seems to be the guy doing a lot of fake products: https://www.instagram.com/doctorphotograph/
Unless AI learned to copy that too. I don’t have Instagram so I couldn’t check if he posted this particular image, though.
No. It isn’t.
This is the original image posted in 2022. AI was straight up not capable of this at that time. There is literally NOTHING about this photo that suggests AI other than the different text. People on Lemmy are turning into Facebook Grandparents but in reverse. People on Facebook can’t tell something is AI but people on here can’t tell what is real. I’ve had posts removed that I could prove were not AI as they were taken from multiple angles and were dated well before AI were capable of certain things but nah. Gotta be removed because the mod felt like they were AI.
It’s gone past ridiculous and has cycled into pathetic.
It’s the “It’s photoshopped, I can tell by the pixels” all over again but even more obnoxious this time. Sometimes I feel like people falsely accusing artists of using AI has done more damage to some than AI copying their work.
I saw someone comment on a short of a seal being rescued from plastic by Ocean Conservation Namibia that it was AI and that shit pissed me off so much. I’ve been following them for several years and they’ve done so much good work.
So many dumbasses now just saying anything and everything is AI without doing a modicum of research.
Not even the usual “things were simpler/better when I was a kid” nostalgia alone, but having a ritual/routine (most people went every X, so they had something to look forward to), being out of the house (even if it was to a store, at least you were outside for a bit), and sometimes even just getting to go somewhere with your friends/family (see: malls)
I don’t miss Blockbuster but I do miss little routines.
The time imperative and combo deals meant that you would typically do this as a social event in and of itself so you’d likely have people over and because you had fixed number combos like x new release plus >X weeklies you’d often pick up something you otherwise wouldn’t spend money on since you need to meet quota to get your money’s worth and it was a good way to discover films. I mean you have way MORE choice now, but it doesn’t work the same way psychologically
Hollywood Video had games to rent, way better
So did blockbuster. You could even rent consoles at blockbuster. But not porn and they put local rental shops out of business so fuck them, I’m glad they’re dead.
I actually worked at blockbuster on 9/11. I was in high school. They made me and this other girl come to work because they refused to close for the evening. Awesome
My local blockbuster didnt have games until a year before it closed down. I would say I missed out but yeah.
They were often franchised so whoever in your local community bought a blockbuster franchise decided games weren’t worth it (dumb)
Was it a quiet shift or were people renting movies to distract the kids from the horrors in the living room tv?
Literally no one came
blockbuster = 1) be excited going to blockbuster for an awesome movie; 2) spend 45 minutes looking for an awesome movie; 3) getting fed up and settling for something that doesn’t look quite as stupid as everything else
And each extra person along increased the time it took by 20 minutes
So basically same as Netflix, except now there’s no excitement and you can stay safe and depressed in your house instead of going outside
Netflix doesn’t even have anything to settle on these days. I canceled my sub years ago and I’ve missed absolutely nothing.
I was a (young) adult in the pre-9/11 world. You’re not wrong to miss it.
Going to Blockbuster ALSO kicked ass.
If you miss blockbuster, you probably weren’t old enough to pay for it. Or you were super responsible and never had to pay fees.
Also you can still do the video rental store experience but even better where it doesn’t cost anything buy visiting your local library. Most libraries have lots of DVDs for checkout.
I love my library and rent from there occasionally but it’s absolutely not the same experience.
