Missing The Video Store
As convenient as all of the streaming options are, I still miss my weekend visits to the video store. I miss the sights and smells, the community and the free popcorn. I miss holding a potential rental in my hand, that tactile connection you made as you browsed the aisles. I miss staff picks from people I knew (as opposed to algorithms today).
I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not alone.
If you’re like me, you might get a kick out of my latest Video Visions post over at Cemetery Dance. Sure, I miss video stores. But I’m one of the arrows that pierced their hearts and stole their souls. To find out why, you can read I KILLED THE VIDEO STORE, right here.
If reading’s not your thing, not to worry! The Monster Men dedicated a whole episode to browsing those video store aisles way back in 2013. The sentiment has only gotten stronger with the passing of the years. And I still have that bucket hat.
Do you feel the same? What do you miss the most? Let’s all have a communal love-in about our favorite video stores.
Hunter Shea 
The smell. I miss the smell.
Dude, when I close my eyes, I can still smell it.
One of the horrors of living in Small Town USA is – GASP! – we didn’t have a local video store. We could get movies from the town library and the grocery store (some 10 miles away) had a section devoted to movie rentals, but going to an actual movie rental store was a RARE! treat, once a month if we were lucky. I remember going, but sadly I don’t have the abundant memories of it that you do.
Oh my! No video store! Tragedy. Truly. Even the tiny town I go to in Maine had one. Well, I hope they come back some day and you can see what all the fuss was about. 🙂
Call me twisted, but I kinda miss the guy behind the counter who would read the back of EVERY cover rented… He was like a creepy uncle at holiday dinner – you know, the one that smelled like cabbage and had no clue there was such a thing as personal space. What I don’t miss is the walk there in the freezing cold!
Hahaha. Cabbage man. Oh, we definitely had our weirdos. And I miss them, too.