Does the tactile experience of holding a DVD in our hands change how we feel about watching movies, rather than endlessly scrolling through titles and never clicking play?
Growing up, before Blockbuster became the default, the nearest video store for me was a couple towns over, where the titles were listed in alphabetical order in a binder. You’d page through, pick a movie and then wait to see if it was in stock — a brief moment of uncertainty created an exhilaration all its own.
The convenience of streaming altered that process for the better, or so we tell ourselves. But studies have found that physical media still has a hold on us in quantifiable ways. “In five experiments, people ascribe less value to digital than to physical versions of the same good,” according to research conducted by Özgün Atasoy, who is a business school professor at the University of Warwick in England. He told me he and co-author Carey Morewedge “wanted to explore whether there is something psychologically unsatisfactory about digital goods compared to physical goods and, if so, identify what might be missing.”
The rise of streaming — the absolute and complete dominance of streaming — means retailers including Target and Best Buy are phasing out the sale of DVDs. Some audiences will greet that news with a shrug. Others will see this as yet another ominous sign that the industry is spinning down the drain, because finding a movie to watch on streaming has never come with the same anticipatory thrill of browsing and buying physical media.
A shopper walks the aisles at the Blockbuster Video store on Division Street near Clybourn in Chicago on Dec. 14, 2004. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
Once a major source of revenue after a movie’s theatrical run, studios have become blatantly unenthusiastic about their DVD business (if it even exists). Ironically, the British-based retail chain HMV is reporting that despite a years-long decline, more customers are buying DVDs again. Among the factors cited: An overall frustration with titles coming and going from streaming platforms, and the regular increase in subscription prices. Maybe you also have doubts about the sustainability of streaming platforms as a business long term. It’s entirely possible that one or more of these services eventually just … collapses.
What researchers like Atasoy have found is that for many of us, the “difference in value comes down to feelings of ownership.” DVDs and other physical goods aren’t abstract concepts that exist in a cloud, but tangible objects, “which enhances the sense of control and ownership. This psychological ownership is a positive feeling that people are willing to pay more for.”
Talking about this column with my editor Doug George, he joked: “Should you need more images of VHS tapes or a real-live VCR machine, I might know where to find them: Middle shelf of the back room of my basement in a green Hefty tub.”
What compelled you to keep them around, I asked?
“Well, that’s a really good question. I almost never watch them. I think the bulk of that box is tapes I recorded some time way back and now they feel like artifacts. We’ve dug them out like once or twice over the years to show my daughters vintage Dave Letterman, some old TV commercials, old MTV. But 90% of it should just get tossed. Or maybe 100%.”
No, don’t throw them out!
“Do not send this stuff to the landfill. It has value and it’s useful — share it with your neighbors,” said Brian Morrison, who came up with the concept of volunteer-run, repurposed newspaper boxes called Free Blockbuster, where people can both offload and acquire movies. It’s a concept borrowed from the Little Free Library organization, but for VHS tapes and DVDs.
Here’s how the idea came about: “A friend of mine who works in the movie business was moving to New York and she had a big collection of DVDs she wasn’t going to bring with her. At the same time, LA Weekly, our free weekly newspaper, shut down physical distribution, but they didn’t take the boxes away. They left them on the street and they became commercial blight. And the third thing was, a friend of mine made a short film reminiscing about his time working at Blockbuster; I also worked at Blockbuster in high school. So I thought: We can take these movies, put them in old newspaper boxes, paint them blue and yellow and call them Free Blockbuster.”
A map of locations across the country can be found at FreeBlockbuster.org. In Chicago, there used to be a box set up in Logan Square, but the Tribune was unable to locate it. There’s another one in Bronzeville; alas, it contained only scraps of garbage as of last week.
“I think there is sometimes an expectation there will be a circulating selection, but it doesn’t work out that way,” Morrison said. “Also, this happens all the time, that someone has taken a sizable number of items from the box. More than their fair share. Which we can’t fault people for — we’ve been programmed to hoard stuff and all of this is free. So if you want to take a bunch of DVDs, which are basically worthless, out of a community box and try to sell them on eBay, I’m sorry, I feel for you. But it’s not worth worrying about, even though that question comes up a lot: What if someone steals everything? And my reply is: You can’t steal it, it’s free. Policing this is not your job. This is a community service. This is a gift you’re giving to your community.”
There’s a box in northwest suburban Elmwood Park that’s going strong and is shepherded by Don Shanahan, a film critic and editor-in-chief of Film Obsessive. His experience suggests Free Blockbuster works best when one person, or a group of people, commits to being consistent and enthusiastic custodians. Shanahan said titles move out of the box “like hotcakes,” so he refills the box once a week. “I could do it more frequently if I wanted to. I’ll do themes like Christmas in July, horror films in October and Oscar winners and nominees in March.” His stock of movies is supplied by “donations from local residents, shipments from downsizing faraway friends of mine who love the physical media cause I’m supporting, free overruns from the Elmwood Park Library and gifted extras from fellow film critics like myself.” He even has “a few donated DVD players that could go in the box “for people who need the devices to go with the movies.”
I asked Morrison if he had any theories about why we don’t get that same feeling of anticipation scrolling through a streaming app. “Streaming platforms are not designed to help you find something you want to watch, they’re designed to keep your attention and largely push you to things they’ve spent money on recently. It’s not about showing you the thing you want, it’s about showing you the thing they invested in.
“I always say Free Blockbuster is not about nostalgia, it is about the future,” he added. “I grew up in the video store era and on Friday nights, going to the video store was a thing to do as a family — to go to that place and run around and pick things up and say ‘What about this?’ That process was fun. Way more fun than scrolling through Netflix or Amazon. The greatest illustration of this now is when there are children or young adults who did not grow up going to Blockbuster and they still love visiting the box, looking through it and picking something out, holding it in their hand and reading the back. It’s the thrill of discovery.”
If studies show people are willing to spend more money on physical media, why aren’t studios taking advantage of that?
“They’re huge companies and things in the corporate world happen really slowly, so they’re not really nimble enough to react on a year-to-year basis,” Morrison said. “And media executives are out of touch because they’re living in a different economic strata than the rest of us. So for a kid in Chicago who doesn’t have the ability to pay for every streaming service, maybe having a media collection that you know you have access to is really valuable. I don’t think executives see that. And they’re also terrified of being old and out of touch. For the past few years, everyone said physical media is dead and streaming’s the new thing, and they don’t want to go back to ‘dead’ media.
“Streaming is a tool and we got really excited about the tool, but now we’ve overapplied the tool,” he said. And then Morrison got philosophical, which is exactly the kind of free association movies are supposed to inspire. “Convenience has been used to sell us any number of things, but what does even that mean? It’s easy and it’s quicker. But I still have a garden where I grow my own tomatoes. I can go get tomatoes at the grocery store much easier and quicker than I can grow them. But I enjoy growing the tomatoes. So this idea that we’re all supposed to want to do nothing all the time, like the idle rich? I don’t know if I subscribe to that.”
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
Artwork is painted on a repurposed newspaper dispenser for Free Blockbuster in the 3300 block of South King Drive on July 26, 2024, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
