A Digital Love Letter to Physical DVDs
Narrative
A Ritual in Patience
Aimlessly wandering around a store with white panel lighting and navy blue carpet used to be an event that admitted everyone. The task of seeking out the perfect movie to celebrate the end of a long week felt ritualistic. There was something communal about getting in the car with your family (or friends), driving to a Blockbuster, and running around the store. My mom would take my brother and me to Baskin-Robbins before we went to Blockbuster, so it was a real treat. Selecting movies based on their covers and the excitement of it finally being “your week” to pick the movie was a coveted smidge of independence for a kid younger than ten. It was far from solely ‘renting a movie ’; it was a kid gaining access to the adult world in a way that interested them.
After that fad ended, and when movies were delivered in the mail, I recall jumping out of my skin at the sight of the USPS truck because maybe, just maybe, it was the movie I asked my mom to rent. Sometimes it was a movie for her instead, so I’d sigh and place it with her mail by the coffee pot. “A new week is only seven days away, anyway,” I would think as I moved on to something else, perhaps delighted in knowing I recorded a new episode of Wizards of Waverly Place to the DVR last night.
Looking back, I am grateful I lived like that for a little while. Not having everything at my fingertips forced me to be resourceful, and above all things, patient. The things on my island were items I had to lug with me, so they had to be important enough to carry.
Streaming: An Inconvenience
Streaming revolutionized the way most of us consume. Now, it is a monster bigger, more powerful, and so gluttonous that the most experienced D&D group couldn't annihilate it. Costs are ever rising, movies seem to land on subscription-based platforms long before I realized they entered (or left) theaters, and ads are up to three minutes, multiple times per movie. Ads providing revenue is nothing new, but cable commercials were different; they used to be an art because I remember some after more than a decade. I was entertained by ZhuZhu pets; I would shriek when I saw the Pillow Pet commercial, and I knew every word to the Prius commercial jingle. Frankly, I have no desire to stream a thirty-dollar (new) movie in my house. In case Big Streaming didn’t know, my TV is not IMAX-grade, I don't have blackout curtains, and I can’t recline my couch. For a while, it has felt like we’re being driven away from the times of having a local movie theater, and I do not remember buying a ticket on this bus.
For the sake of being thorough, I tried a college student plan for a streaming service, and the bottom line is I found myself unhappy. Unhappy! Nothing ever looked appealing; the shows lacked the pizzazz once they had (I wish I were old enough to experience the camaraderie and conversation when LOST released a new episode). This platform was littered with ads every eight-ish minutes. On top of that, the ads were much louder than the volume I preset my TV to!
“Paying to Borrow” is a phrase that is commonly said within my friend group, and a popular topic I read in the forums that share the same mindset as me. In a way I’ve never seen before, we pay to borrow most things, and I know that with Blockbuster and Redbox, we were also paying to borrow something. We paid a fee to rent a movie and bring it back; however, what we have now feels more and more like being nickel-and-dimed every step of the way. If I were to sit down to watch a movie on a subscription-based service, it would likely require an add-on. Forcing me to pay more money to the company I pay monthly feels like getting kicked while I’m already down.
Hidden Features
Something else streaming takes away is the lost media found on DVDs. The short films, the commercials, the deleted scenes, the bonus content, soundtracks, or interviews with the cast. The Office Space DVD my boyfriend found came with a mail-in voucher for a red Swingline stapler, dated back to 2005. We tried to send it in, but it was sent back for the reason: no such address. That’s okay! We had more fun putting it in the mail because DVDs gave us something more than just a movie; they gave us a connection with the people involved in making them.
I watched Monsters, Inc. as a very young child on a CRT TV, the ones where you could feel the static tickling your hands if you touched the glass. One of my dad’s favorite parts was the short film For the Birds. It won an Academy Award in 2001 and premiered before the theatrical release of Monsters, Inc. Well, the other day, my boyfriend and I were eating dinner and thought about this short film. We put our heads together and looked through our, alphabetized by genre, DVD cabinet and found the exact thing we were looking for. There were no ads, and above all, there was no need to gain access to something. It was just there, in our hands, with no door to unlock.
Flushed Away was another childhood classic. The slugs were recently a distant memory of mine, and I had to hear them sing again. I rented it maybe a month ago, because again, I’m not insane. Half because I never thought I would find the DVD and half because my boyfriend had never seen this incredible film. Would you believe me if I said that I found it TODAY as I was drafting this ode? The DVD comes with more than I could ask for and more than I knew was out there. We have our own special feature “Slug Songs” and “Learn How to Build a Slug,” something the streamed rental lacked.
Living without any kind of streaming service is a breath of fresh air. I am confined to the media I have, happily free from mindlessly clicking through tiles, never feeling truly satisfied. I never have to worry if the cats’ roughhousing unplugged the router, or if my wifi is stable enough. With physical media, if I have power, I have endless entertainment.
Collecting: An Art
Yes, sometimes there are movies I want to watch, and I do not own them physically. I am not a masochist; I won’t deny myself a movie because I’m convinced my pride will wither away and die. A lot of what I own came from eBay or similar pre-owned shopping websites, and I will rent things occasionally if I'm foaming at the mouth to watch it. Before I started collecting DVDs, Princess Protection Program and Easy A were two of my favorite movies, and (collectively since high school) I’ve rented them more times than I can count. I could immediately give up on the belief that I’d ever find the exact title I’m looking for and continue the cycle of renting, but that feels passive and would pacify me into consuming more sub-based platforms.
Patience can be a skill and a virtue, teaching us that gluttony will never satisfy anyone. I have a list of movies I am dying to own. I take that as a challenge, or a game of hide-and-seek. This movie I want exists somewhere; I simply have to find it. (I happened to find both of those movies when I wasn’t looking for them).
Currently, my boyfriend and I have a little over 100 DVDs, the entirety of House M.D, three seasons of SpongeBob, one season of Adventure Time, and two seasons of LOST. There is something slow and magical about waking up on Sunday and selecting a show to watch while we have cereal. We make it a habit to visit thrift stores and the like when we travel. I found Zoolander the other day, and the look we both shared is now a tangible memory I can recall by holding the box in my hands. This also means that our Ben Stiller movie collection is truly expanding with every passing day!
I didn’t pull the plug on everything in one day; I would have been destined to fail that mission. Collecting physical media was a gradual process over the course of 2026 due to how long I was reliant on subscription platforms. Happily now, I can say I have no streaming services, and I find it is freeing to be disconnected. It’s freeing to want something, but not be able to satiate that urge. It feels like I am living on an island with only the things I took with me.
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