 This may look like a regular dog food store to you, but this used to be my hometown blockbuster, which closed down about eight years ago, and I wouldn't be lying if I said that I didn't miss it. I had always thought about talking about these places, but never really committed to it. Until one day, when I was over at my cousin's house a few months back and saw their kids watching episodes of Paw Patrol on Netflix, I realized that, wow, they'll never really know what it was like to go out and try and find a specific VHS rental copy of that show and those specific episodes. I realized that perhaps hard-hitting stories and carrying over narrative isn't exactly the focus of a show about dogs with regular society jobs coming together every day to try and fix something, but some shows like the 90s animated Spider-Man series released episodes on VHS in this incredibly weird fashion where, and this is absolutely true, they weren't released in season box sets. I'm serious though, this was actually a really strange and very inconvenient problem that a lot of kids in the 90s had to deal with whenever they wanted to watch the next episode of one of their favorite animated series on VHS. For instance, the animated Batman series, one of my all-time favorite shows ever, had these based on character or based on theme VHS tapes with a collection of episodes throughout the show. This was kind of cool, I guess, but if you wanted to know what happened next or if you wanted to watch another episode in that similar fashion, you would need to find a tape that had the second part, and sometimes one store wouldn't have it, so you actually had to go to several different stores to try and find the VHS, and that's even if you found it. I shit you not, my brother once had my dad and I go on a bend through three different stores to try and find another tape for this Dragonflies, yes that was a Z, not a S, and I seriously only remember this show because of this incident. You know they put the Z at the end of this because this was considered radical at the time. But it was that sense of excitement and mystery that made going to the video store feel like a small adventure every time. What were you gonna find? What was the next story you were gonna embark on? Are in my later years of renting? When was that copy of Call of Duty 4 gonna be returned? God damn it! The idea that access to media via streaming services like Netflix is a great thing, don't get me wrong. It allows people to access content and find shows in ways that is unprecedented, and you don't have to worry about going on an extreme scavenger hunt to try and find the next tape of that show. But with this level of convenience also comes a sense of complacency. Now I know that that sounds a bit whiny, and honestly it is, but I still feel you will never be able to get as good of a media exploring experience on a streaming service as you would with the video store. Now sure, Netflix's user interface has greatly improved in recent years, and is still the standout provider in terms of how they display their libraries and the means of how you access them. While sometimes things get buried as you can only ever really see what it thinks that you want to see at all given times, you are able to find things on Netflix far better than on other services. I'm talking about you, Amazon Video. In the entire time I have had this service, I am amazed at how it is done. It's utmost due diligence to continue to be the shittiest streaming platform library on the planet. Sure, Disney Plus is pretty crap too, but it's still in its infancy stages. Amazon Video has no fucking excuse. It is horrible. Shit is buried on here, and it doesn't help that they also seem to allow anyone and their blind tone deaf uncle to put their movie up on here. Sure, it's great that people can put their film up on a platform more credible than YouTube or Vimeo, even if Vimeo was actually doing what I wish Amazon would do in terms of quality check. It's like the burning ground for every single terrible horror movie or independent movie is on Amazon Video, and while that shit is sometimes funny as hell, I realize that I've totally gone off message. You will never be able to see the entire library of Netflix on Netflix as easily and as conveniently as you would be able to at a normal video store. For those here watching who never experienced a video store, and I'm sorry, truly that you never got to, there were usually four sections of the store. There was of course the new releases, which usually marked the outer wall of the store because those were easier to access, and there was space to have all of the covers face up for easier viewing. Then you had your video game section, which was sorted by system. This was usually one rack by itself near the checkout counter, and then you just had your plain movie section, which was split into multiple mini sections for genre like horror, action, children, documentary, whatever. This was usually in the middle of the store and took up most of the inner racks that were surrounded by the new release wall racks. It took a bit longer to go through because it was organized via spine, so you had to hold your head at a 45 degree angle for a while, possibly even resulting in some eventual neck pain, but you know what they all had in common? They were all alphabetical, and it made finding the type of movie you wanted a goddamn breeze. If it was there of course. Sure, you could just go up to the counter and ask for the title if you knew it, but if you couldn't remember the title, you could at least find the section in a few minutes. Boom, you would have what you were looking for, while current U has been scrolling through Netflix for the last 10 minutes and will probably continue to scroll for the next 10 hours because let's be serious, we've all done that. And even if you didn't find what you were looking for, you might just find something of similar interest in that section for you to watch. But wait, I forgot to tell you about the fourth section. Well my friends, this was considered the dark zone, the mysterious place, the one where it had the very odd smelling and sticky beads covering the doorway, the ones where adults like your creepy loner uncle would go to on a weekly basis and the guy at the counter would have to wash his hands after every interaction with him. This, ladies and gentlemen, was the adult section. Now most blockbusters, at least up here in Canada as far as I was aware, didn't have them towards the end of their days, but many other video store brands still did. And to be honest, it's what brought them a large portion of their revenue in the earlier days and even towards the end. Before people could find all manner of dirty pictures on the interwebs, you had to bite your upper lip, embrace your shame, and walk up to the counter with your latest bank bank rental, while the family behind you are renting Michael Keaton's Jack Frost for the upteenth time. I was a part of that family. I used to spend hours at the video store just seeing what was new, updating my list of films to watch, and just seeing what was coming out. These things were still around when I was a teenager, so while I wasn't able to go to every movie I wanted to see in theaters, because I had this preconceived notion that seeing a movie in theaters by yourself in the theaters is what only weirdos would do, I had to wait for the rental so I could watch them at home alone without anyone making fun of me. I had a low opinion of myself back then. A lesser known brand of video store out here in Canada, called Movie Gallery, was right next to the safeway I used to work at, so I would often go there on my lunches and hit it up with the staff, see what was out, and just shoot the shit for a half an hour. It was because I was such good friends with them that I was able to take advantage of the system, so when ODST was five days away from release, I asked them if they had it and they could rent it to me. The store manager couldn't rent it to me specifically, but she could take advantage of being an employee and rented it out early in her name for me to play. I never knew that video store employees had such power. I had heard stories about people who worked at Best Buy and took home copies of Halo 3 early, but had to play offline otherwise their bosses would have found out, but what I was doing wasn't illegal. It was shady, sure, but it was totally within their power to do so. I admittedly didn't play it offline, and man was I the most popular guy on my Xbox friends list that weekend. But seriously, I would have abused this position so badly if I had ever gotten to work for a video store. I almost did at this same movie gallery in fact, went through the whole interview process with the manager and the district leader and everyone, but then a week before my starting date the store was told to shut down and had everything boxed up and out of there by the end of the day. And this actually wasn't an uncommon thing. Some stores got to go out swinging by selling all of their stock at discounted prices, but sometimes the hammer would just fall hard and everything had to go. Admittedly I imagine that the heyday of working at a video store had long since fizzled out by this time. You could see it on their faces where the stress from customers, the stress from a head office giving them unbelievable sales expectations, and the strange and usually disastrous promotional tactics they would try to stay relevant. I don't need a big production. I just don't like waiting for things. Then you'll love the new Blockbuster Visa card. I know it's long distance, but I also know you rent all your movies at that lovely Blockbuster video place and I heard they're giving everyone up to three hours of free long distance from Sprint just for renting two videos even if you're not a Sprint customer. The biggest blunder I can remember is when Blockbuster had a no late fees policy. Do you guys who still remember video stores remember this? Because I sure do and it was a disaster. But let me put it into perspectives for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. I'll use a video game rental for example as this was where I took full advantage of this exploit the most. When I rented Call of Duty 4 for the third time I initially had rented it for a week. In normal circumstances if I brought it back late I would be charged a day late fee for every day that it wasn't back in their return box. Sometimes these fees range from two to five dollars. So when you're already renting something like a video game for 10 bucks you don't want to really spend any more money on something and you've already spent $30 on just borrowing from a store. And video stores love this. Aside from having a corner at the time on the entire media market for the 80s and 90s and into the early 2000s late fees made up a huge portion of video stores revenue because people were lazy. They were making money off of those people who were the type in high school to ask if they could borrow your pencil and swore they would give it back by the end of class and they never did. Video stores love these saps. So when Blockbuster did this whole no late fee policy they had just given all these saps unlimited golden tickets to be as lazy and disregardless as they pleased. This was a pro-consumer anti-business move in all of the worst ways imaginable for Blockbuster. Blockbuster if you need an extra day or two with your movies or games you go right ahead. Take them relax, enjoy more time and less stress. So beautiful. The limitations of this system were absurd. After the first initial week they would give you this passive aggressive reminder call saying hey you still have our game so if you could return it at any time that would be great sure you don't have any fees but you know you would probably want to return that now thank you but you didn't have to. I kept this particular caught for rental for two and a half weeks because it wasn't until the third week that they would charge you the full price of the title unless you returned it immediately and even in some cases they would let people out of their punishment depending on how hard they caring the staff which led to a whole other set of issues that employees at these stores had to deal with. But this along with many other horrible decisions led Blockbuster and many other video stores to die out. And sometimes it wasn't even bad management that led to the end of these stores. There was a store near where I live called Save On Video that was run pretty well and always tried to keep on top of things and even when things started to get bad they went through some pretty extreme lengths to try and stay alive like sub leasing some of their building to other businesses to try and keep rent cheap for themselves. But eventually the owner of Save On Video did hang up his hat and he shut the store down before he had to declare bankruptcy. However there is one chain that has resisted everything that's come at it and no it's not the Blockbuster that's in Bend, Oregon. It's a store called Willow Video near my hometown. The store has literally outlasted everything. I think it will outlast the apocalypse itself which brings me to the main reason why I still love video stores. In terms of gaming I can go in and rent a new title to see if it's worth buying. Quantum Break looked like a sick ass game but why do I feel like it's not worth its full price? Oh it's because you can 100% it in less than four days. This ability to predetermine your full purchase decision has been and continues to be my favorite aspect about video stores. After having been duped into buying two worlds at launch by some very misguided friends I swore that I would never make the same ill-informed money-wasting choice again and I was only 16 at this time. Have I been able to keep to that promise entirely? No. But thankfully I have maybe made one bad choice every three to four years but it was because of Willow Video that I was able to make sure games like Greedfall didn't burn a 70 dollar hole in my pocket. It also allowed me to jump into new games like the Forza Horizon series. I would eventually go on to buy three of these games in the series. Of course renting a game every four to six months isn't exactly a healthy figure for any business and I understand that this store will too eventually go which brings me back to this place. When Blockbuster Canada announced that all stores in the country were going to shut down this store in my town had a going out sale that must have lasted two months. It started off with these small deals and eventually the discounts got better and better to the point where the shelves were so bare you were there more so for conversation than actually buying any movies. I don't know if any of the purchases I made are still in my collection as I bought a lot of DVDs like a dope but I've never forgotten the experience I had when I left it for the final time knowing that that store that part of my life was now over. It also helps that I get a reminder about it in my Facebook memories every year. So for some of you this might just be a whiny guy holding onto his nostalgia way too hard and maybe I am but I have a certain reason as to why I'm nostalgic about this. In my lifetime I've seen two major changes in media entertainment viewing. I started out with the be kind rewind VHS tapes then moved on to disc media with DVD and Blu-ray and then online came and blew it all out of the water. No one could have anticipated what the internet would be not just in terms of watching movies but in how it is an integral part of our everyday lives. The internet is the world's greatest creation while at the same time being the absolute worst thing ever imagined. I'm not gonna get anything about politics or debates or misinformation that's not what the point of this video is about. I feel like I've lost the point now anyways just circling the nostalgia drain holding onto memories that are exactly what they are the past. But on that incredibly dark note we're gonna end there hope you guys enjoyed the video if you have any cool stories or memories of video stories from back in your day please post them in the comments below I would love to see them because honestly these are really fun little memories to go back and look at and to clarify there are some different services now that kind of even make my whole renting video games kind of obsolete with things like Game Pass but I still even to this day will still rent games like for instance I rented The Last of Us 2 I rented Doom I was almost gonna rent Ghost of Tsushima but eventually I actually just bought it I already really gotta get a PS4 instead of using my roommates. So if you guys like this video please leave a like and if you're interested more subscribe otherwise see you guys next time