5 ms·

This seems counter to my experience and memories. I'm old enough to remember the pre-VCR days so lived through the entire rise and fall of video rental. These s

This seems counter to my experience and memories. I'm old enough to remember the pre-VCR days so lived through the entire rise and fall of video rental. These stores were never a community gathering place or anywhere that you really met people. You'd go in, browse for a bit, pick a movie, pay and leave. This was the same at the locally owned shops and later when Blockbuster arrived and put all the local shops out of business. I do think we've lost a lot of "civic life" in the past few decades but video rental stores aren't anything I remember fondly.

BeetleB 3mo ago
Yeah - the article does over-glorify. I did frequent one rental store where I could chat with the person behind the counter about movies, but none of the others.
- carabiner 3mo ago
  Seriously. I just remember as a kid seeing my school bus driver browsing the adult video section. I'm sure he did not want to find "community" there.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - jasonfarnon 3mo ago
    there's supposed to be a curtain to keep you nosy freakin kids from seeing us in there!
2OEH8eoCRo0 3mo ago
Mine had a video game rental store next door (GameCrazy) where I met other gamers.
nater5000 3mo ago
I think people forgot what the experience was actually like and are just recalling commercials where the experience was obviously over romanticized. If Wal-Mart went away today, you'd have people a decade from now reminiscing about how great going to Wal-Mart was and how sad it was we lost a "third place" when they went away.
- chrisco255 3mo ago
  Nobody typically took a date to Walmart and Walmart employees were rarely the most knowledgeable about any of the million things they sell. Still, I have some nostalgia for the Walmarts of the 90s. I remember being mesmerized by Super Mario 64 demo in the electronics section for months before I finally got an N64 for Christmas. I remember playing arcades while my mom shopped. I remember reading magazines there I couldn't buy. I remember staring at the fish tanks, playing with the loose hula hoops, checking out the latest super soaker designs, having a meal at the cafe (later replaced with a McDonalds) with my grandpa, etc.
mturmon 3mo ago
On the other hand: Vidiots: https://vidiotsfoundation.org/history-mission/ https://vidiotsfoundation.org/history-mission/ Video Journeys: https://conorholt.medium.com/video-store-interview-video-journeys-83c61429c34b https://conorholt.medium.com/video-store-interview-video-jou... (Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne) Video Active: Down the street, they kept a stock popular with visual artists although reviews concentrate on other content (https://www.yelp.com/biz/video-active-los-angeles https://www.yelp.com/biz/video-active-los-angeles) Video Archives: https://www.bbc.com/articles/c4g40ndzpe0o https://www.bbc.com/articles/c4g40ndzpe0o (Tarantino)
AngryData 3mo ago
Yeah I could see this idea with other small local community businesses, but the video store? Ive never seen or experienced it. People just want to go in, get their movie rental, and gtfo because they still gotta drive home afterwards to watch their movie. Movie stores were even designed to move people through them as fast as possible too because the more people standing around clogging up the store, the less people that are coming in are going to be willing to browse movies and rent extras. There is a reason they didn't have benches or chairs for people to sit around on idly watching the movies they were playing on the walls.
bananaflag 3mo ago
Same here. Anyway I only went to movie rental stores during the brief two-year window in the mid-2000s between owning a DVD player (never had VCR, we were too poor) and having broadband internet so I could pirate movies.
chrisco255 3mo ago
They weren't necessarily a place to meet people but they were definitely a nice place to visit after a date out or for a family to discuss and pick their entertainment for the weekend. Occasionally a passionate movie fan would encourage you to try a movie when they noticed you were glancing at the cover. Some of the staff members were actually knowledgeable and would discuss suggestions or favorites in detail. I worked at a GameStop-like store for my first job. We had regulars come in to trade games all the time and they would chat it up with us (the clerks) for long periods of time about various games. It had a similar function. Across from us was the music store and their employees were generally quite passionate about music and loved to discuss it. Rarely did it create an enduring friendship but that kind of social interaction has declined for sure.
Dumblydorr 3mo ago
“Never” is a bit presumptuous. Sure you didn’t use them that way, how do you know for sure others didn’t?

BeetleB 3mo ago

Yeah - the article does over-glorify. I did frequent one rental store where I could chat with the person behind the counter about movies, but none of the others.

carabiner 3mo ago
Seriously. I just remember as a kid seeing my school bus driver browsing the adult video section. I'm sure he did not want to find "community" there.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- jasonfarnon 3mo ago
  there's supposed to be a curtain to keep you nosy freakin kids from seeing us in there!

2OEH8eoCRo0 3mo ago

Mine had a video game rental store next door (GameCrazy) where I met other gamers.

nater5000 3mo ago

I think people forgot what the experience was actually like and are just recalling commercials where the experience was obviously over romanticized. If Wal-Mart went away today, you'd have people a decade from now reminiscing about how great going to Wal-Mart was and how sad it was we lost a "third place" when they went away.

chrisco255 3mo ago
Nobody typically took a date to Walmart and Walmart employees were rarely the most knowledgeable about any of the million things they sell. Still, I have some nostalgia for the Walmarts of the 90s. I remember being mesmerized by Super Mario 64 demo in the electronics section for months before I finally got an N64 for Christmas. I remember playing arcades while my mom shopped. I remember reading magazines there I couldn't buy. I remember staring at the fish tanks, playing with the loose hula hoops, checking out the latest super soaker designs, having a meal at the cafe (later replaced with a McDonalds) with my grandpa, etc.

mturmon 3mo ago

On the other hand: Vidiots: https://vidiotsfoundation.org/history-mission/ https://vidiotsfoundation.org/history-mission/ Video Journeys: https://conorholt.medium.com/video-store-interview-video-journeys-83c61429c34b https://conorholt.medium.com/video-store-interview-video-jou... (Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne) Video Active: Down the street, they kept a stock popular with visual artists although reviews concentrate on other content (https://www.yelp.com/biz/video-active-los-angeles https://www.yelp.com/biz/video-active-los-angeles) Video Archives: https://www.bbc.com/articles/c4g40ndzpe0o https://www.bbc.com/articles/c4g40ndzpe0o (Tarantino)

AngryData 3mo ago

Yeah I could see this idea with other small local community businesses, but the video store? Ive never seen or experienced it. People just want to go in, get their movie rental, and gtfo because they still gotta drive home afterwards to watch their movie. Movie stores were even designed to move people through them as fast as possible too because the more people standing around clogging up the store, the less people that are coming in are going to be willing to browse movies and rent extras. There is a reason they didn't have benches or chairs for people to sit around on idly watching the movies they were playing on the walls.

bananaflag 3mo ago

Same here. Anyway I only went to movie rental stores during the brief two-year window in the mid-2000s between owning a DVD player (never had VCR, we were too poor) and having broadband internet so I could pirate movies.

chrisco255 3mo ago

They weren't necessarily a place to meet people but they were definitely a nice place to visit after a date out or for a family to discuss and pick their entertainment for the weekend. Occasionally a passionate movie fan would encourage you to try a movie when they noticed you were glancing at the cover. Some of the staff members were actually knowledgeable and would discuss suggestions or favorites in detail. I worked at a GameStop-like store for my first job. We had regulars come in to trade games all the time and they would chat it up with us (the clerks) for long periods of time about various games. It had a similar function. Across from us was the music store and their employees were generally quite passionate about music and loved to discuss it. Rarely did it create an enduring friendship but that kind of social interaction has declined for sure.

Dumblydorr 3mo ago

“Never” is a bit presumptuous. Sure you didn’t use them that way, how do you know for sure others didn’t?