Summer of Watching Movies
That’s how I spent my some of my summertime 6th through early high school. A few friends, a couple 12 packs of Shasta, some Pixie Stix, and at least 4 movies. VHS slowly gave way to DVD and then as Blu-ray came about, the magic started to drop off. Redbox seemed to make the experience even more trivial. Netflix has made easier to take for granted then a vacuum cleaner.
“We’re small-town America, even though most people don’t think we’re America.”
That’s why this story from Vice News is so satisfying to watch. Blockbuster Video is important in Alaska. High-speed, reliable internet is costly and the cities are very spread out. The 250MB download speed we take for granted to stream 4K video takes no effort to use and the content, even when it’s great, somewhat meaningless. There’s no walking down the stacks of movies, looking for a specific title or just something new.
“People want membership cards. We send them out membership cards all the time.”
I worked at a Blockbuster Video (in Sugarhouse) one summer, just for some extra cash and it was pretty fun. The people were movie geeks just like I was – and still am – and you could watch all the new releases before they were put on the shelf. The customers were mostly pretty cool and were pretty excited when you could find them a movie they didn’t think we had.
Anyway, enough of my reminiscing. This story will have you do some of your own.
