Funny

I was a (young) adult in the pre-9/11 world. You’re not wrong to miss it.

Going to Blockbuster ALSO kicked ass.

Hollywood Video had games to rent, way better

I used to buy a ton of discount video games from blockbuster. I really miss those times...

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.

I miss video stores, for sure. Blockbuster itself wasn’t great but it was so omnipresent in our lives that it has become shorthand for “video stores” the way Band-Aids are shorthand for adhesive medical strips. Often, when people reminisce about “Blockbuster,” it isn’t really about Blockbuster itself but just the culture of the rental store as it existed back then.

The ex Blockbuster employee in me hates the barcode on here.

It's a rental so it should start with 33 not 39

It has no copy number either, would likely be 001, 101, or 601.

I smell this photo.

Getting out of the house in a time before I could drive, get some candy, one of the big hit movies, 2-3 of the old release movies.

Not paying for any of it.(This is the part where being a kid matters)

Actually physically interacting with stuff instead of just flipping on netflix.

We lost something as a species.

I go to the library to borrow movies, still fun.

Imagine having the time and energy to drive over to a building, park, mosey on in and wander around looking at what you might want to spend another 3 hours engaging with.

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

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…

Blockbuster was meh. I missed my local movie rental joint that was next to a Chinese take-out.

Used to be a ritual every other Friday for the spouse and I to order food than walk around the video store well we waited. We used to walk past the weird obscure tapes and come up with fake silly stories about what they were about and look at the goofy covers. Most times we'd rent something unexpectedly good, typically not from the new releases. I never really watch TV sitcoms, so I consumed most of my media this way. The magic was that multi-million dollar media companies didn't pick what was available on their stream. The selection at the video store was more eclectic and not some sterile selection of just money makers. So I got to see some really good, not so popular, films.

Also they still had VHS when Blockbuster converted DVD and fairly sure they bought all the old VHS tapes from that conversion. DVDs were still fairly new, so I only had a VCR. Yes, I rewound the tapes.

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

I legit think streaming sites have become worse than video rental places.

It seemed like a big advantage that you could have unlimited number movies on a streaming site while a video rental store had limited shelf space. But it turns you you have to scroll through endless pages of crap to try to find something you actually want to watch.

Also the shops would eventually have any movie you want to watch. With streaming sites many things will never appear there because the corporation that owns the movie owns their own streaming site and will keep it exclusive to them. In the past it wasn't a thing where you'd have to keep track of which video rental shop had the rights to rent the movie you want to watch.

There was a time when it was just Netflix and pretty much anything would come on there eventually. That killed video rental. But it's been a long time since you could find everything on one streaming site, and it's gotten to be more expensive and time consuming to find a good movie to watch, so going to a video rental shop might actually make more sense now. But they're all gone now.

Luckily there are websites with dubious legality you can find everything on. I'm willing to pay for a streaming site that's actually convenient, but they don't exist anymore, just like Blockbuster.

This shit is cutting a little too deep tonight, homies.

Yes, the 1980s/90s me misses Blockbuster. But not today's me. I don't need to make another stop before the grocery store to pay $20 in today's money to borrow 2-3 movies to watch, only to have to return them tomorrow or pay a late or not rewound fee, then argue with the kids about overpriced candy.

We were so starved for things to do pre-internet, pre-cable, pre-netflix, video rental was like crack.

If you opened up a new one today where you could just take your phone around to a movie and scan a QR code to have it beamed to your streaming stick when you go home, no one would want it.

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.

I miss being able to physically browse movies and rent video games, but that's about it.

I do miss renting games, but in hindsight those games often kind of sucked specifically because they were still on the arcade model of difficulty 🤷‍♂️

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.

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.