My favorite part of visiting a video store was exploring the aisles. I had so many choices and they were all mine. The only marketing inside the video store was maybe a standee or a few posters of the new releases, but otherwise I was left alone to see what looked the most interesting to me.
There was something about this power that really resonated with me. It wasn’t found just at the video store, but at the bookstore, music store, and video game store as well. I had power and my decisions weren’t tracked and fed into some sort of algorithm to be used against me down the road.
I also had less peer pressure. I wasn’t fearful of running across spoilers or seeing my feed fill up with people gushing about this or that, it was just me, picking out a movie, and sitting in my room watching it. I made my own impression of it, that wasn’t skewed by some grand internet mob that deemed it too stupid or not good enough, and I was happy without all that extra noise.
I believe that because of how personal these choices felt, it’s part of the reason why I’ve hung onto things so much in my life. Sure, the big budget releases are great, but it’s those smaller films, the ones that aren’t talked about as much that continue to excite me to this day. They felt like they were mine, because I watched them, completely disconnected, and on my own fruition. I miss that.
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