What was renting from Blockbuster like?

What was renting from Blockbuster like?

Other urls found in this thread:

simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
youtube.com/watch?v=3TrPwOrf4sM
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
youtu.be/V092fX76FLI
youtube.com/watch?v=RYbe-35_BaA
youtube.com/watch?v=4ayKGypTtAI
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Like warm bags of sand

>open the door

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

>Go in pick a you movie you like
>Head to to the counter and rent it buy it
>Go home and watch the movie
>Forget about it
>Get a late fee
>Bitch about how Jewish Blockbuster is
>Repeat

>rent video
>don't rewind it

>store upgrades to DVDs
>they put a sticker on the inside ring that says "be kind, rewind"

Honestly though I'd say it was better than flipping through the infinite rolodex of unwatchable shit Netflix and Amazon are serving up.

>go in
>pick what I want
>get told no because it's an 18 and my dad is a dick
>pick something else
>sister vetoes
>she picks something
>I veto
>repeat several times
>eventually say I'll agree if my dad lets me rent a playstation game as well
>agrees because we've been at this for nearly 20 minutes and he wants to go home

The annoying part of it was that if you were a weekly customer like me, 4/5ths of their catalogue would be old stale movies/games, and the New Releases were frequently rented out of stock

Pretty great feeling going to the New Releases wall for a movie you've been anticipating and snatching the last copy left

Idk just felt like going to any other store to me

Good as a kid, shitty as a young adult.

It was great, like a mini-event of its own.
Everything was better merely 15 years ago.
I don't know how and why but western society and life in general turned to shit, like if a parallel universe was ripped open and we got all thrown into it, living now feels odd.

9/11 happened and suddenly everyone was afraid

Local video store in my town just now shut down a month ago

We're at least 8-10 years behind the rest of the world

I hadn't been there in at least 10 years, but it was always fun buying snacks and candy for the movie, and seeing the hot chicks that worked there, and every movie or video game I rented there didn't feel like a throwaway because I actually had to go somewhere and do something to get it, and didn't have it instantly at the click of a button.

This, new movies were never there. Fucking infuriating

I agree and I don't think anyone can convince me otherwise.

Social media and normalization of narcissism happened

We had a Jumbo Video. It was amazing.

Free popcorn. You'd get yourself a bag and then walk around with friends, debating what to watch that night. All around you trailers for new releases played on the mounted tube television.

Watching a movie was an event. You invested time in it, so you weren't texting or gabbing when the film was on. You turned the lights on and paid attention. Now people just throw on Netflix in the background while they play candy crush, and claim not to ""get"" actual good films.

This. It was magical as a kid but blew as an adult. It's with good reason why people were more than happy to tell blockbuster to fuck off and go streaming.

Nah, that's not it.
It's more of an eerie dissonance feel that something is amiss in how the world ticks these days.

I still have a video store down the road. Pretty great except some faggot rented Beetleguise around Halloween and never returned it.

>Check out Aladdin with and watch it at friend's house.
>Card tied to my dad's name
>Friend goes on vacation for two weeks and accidentally brings the video with him
>Blockbuster calls and harasses my dad every day for a solid two weeks
>He's needless to say pissed off and takes away my card
.

damn should have returned it on time lol

Watching kino has always been a personal experience. 1 on 1, you and the screen.

Nothing wrong with texting or playing an app while a flick blares in the background.

When you had to work to get something you enjoyed it more. Even if it meant just getting in your car and driving 10 minutes down to the shopping center to rent a movie rather than simply having any movie you want at your fingertips.

The internet is both the greatest and worst invention ever.

...

it was good fun looking at all the movies they had in the store and getting candy/popcorn in the checkout line but the system we have now is objectively better

also did anybody else go to Hollywood Video more often then Blockbuster?

Post your own rental kino. Blatant money laundering front.

Yep, there was always some frazzled dipshit there arguing about late charges.

My mom also took us to the library a lot so we were always aware of possible late fees. There was a sense of pride in returning the tape(s) on time and allowing some other user kino pleasure.

>People used to pay for free things
Lmao

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Scoping the return bin counter area first thing when you walked in like a hawk.

It was more expensive irc and they were not as lenient on late fees.

yep this a thousand times

the past was waiting to borrow one of 12 copies of a big hollywood movie you may have seen already at the cinema for a kinonight with friends that probably wasnt on the shelf and paying for it

today i am endlessly torrenting unkown films and music instantly and being constantly blown away for free

dont romantisize the past too much

JUST

It's true bro. Something has felt off for several years.

If anyone is bored- or wants their mind blown wide open- check out simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

We are Sims Earth for some alien kid.

youtube.com/watch?v=3TrPwOrf4sM

Which PlayStation? And what game?

Why would it be just one alien controlling every thing? If any thing it's probably like a giant video game for aliens and each one gets a different character

That's when Netflix had the DVD-in-the-mail business model only. Tfw you could tell Netflix the DVD got lost in the mail and they believed you.

Can still rent video and music here

It was just a bad example dude.

People believe in their "God"- yet no one asks who created the creator.

Earth obvious has intelligent design but we have all experienced slips in reality- deja vu and what not.

Another trippy topic, on the same line of thought with compupter simulation, is multi-verse. Stephen Hawking believes this.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

Going to the video rental store with your bros as an 8 year old was the shit.
Everyone would pick out a movie or video games, get some snacks and some Micky D's or KFC and you were set for a sleepover.

>go to bb
>movie you want isn't there
>second choice not there
>fuck it get whatever
>snacks at movie theater price
>get home
>movie scratched
>fall asleep crying
>return it at 5:59 am next day
>cashier tells you that you broke it and have to pay for it
>now 6:01
>pay 10$ late fee

>blockbuster was right next door to the Round Table Pizza
>every Friday night my family would go out to eat at Round Table, we would play one of the three arcade games (Rush: San Francisco, The Simpsons and TMNT) then go next door to Blockbuster to rent movies
>that fucking smell that every Blockbuster had

I miss it so...

The good movies and the kinos were all already rented so you need to wait or go to another less know rentarama.

Northern California?

youtu.be/V092fX76FLI

They still have them here in Alaska, it's pretty good.

you could only rent the newest movies for one day. it was ridiculous and a complete scam to fuck you out of money.

Sacramento yes

where did we fuck up?

I want this back now

where?

everyday we stray further from God

youtube.com/watch?v=RYbe-35_BaA

I lived in a college town 10 years ago that, to this day, still has a pretty thriving independent video rental store. They do new releases, but the main appeal was that it was run by a family of nerds who painstakingly converted hundreds of their 80s direct-to-VHS movies to decent DVD rips. Five non-new-release movies, five days, five dollars - it was an amazing deal.

The other place you still see successful video rental stores tends to be in rental vacation destinations like the mountains, beaches, etc., since a lot of rental properties aren't going to invest in smart TVs anytime soon. Also helps that these places tend to have shitty internet at best.

It was like shoving a power drill dildo in your asshole and and getting fucked in the mouth by Tyrone and Ahmed while jizzing uncontrollably via prostate stimulation from the drill.

Shit was pretty cash.

I knew about that theory for years.
Funnily, it's just as legit as the Big Bang theory - which is, well just another fucking theory that raises more questions than it actually answers and is also by nature just hypothetical.

youtube.com/watch?v=4ayKGypTtAI

my I propose 2011 and the proliferation of the smart phone. I remember comfy af feels playing Halo 2 split screen in the mid 2000s

Yeah Hollywood video was way closer to my house than Blockbuster. They also had a section for buying games which turned into a GameStop. The main building was turned into a chipotle and a 5 guys.

I remember racking up late fees then having to drive to a store further away to avoid paying them, i'd rotate around.
Then i'd bite the bullet and pay about 16 dollars to rent a movie and get squared up.

People started confusing the media with reality, and then more generations came along and it got worse. Until now, where media forms reality.

I still get DVDs from Netflix
Night of the Creeps comes in tomorrow

>tfw remembering all of the kino movies and vidya I didn't rent as a kid because the box art was shitty/off-putting

>blockbuster was right next door to the Round Table Pizza
Weird, I went to school in Taiwan and the neighborhood blockbuster was next door to roundtable pizza as well.

The update to this is pure depression

>young kids here will never know what it was like looking through all the VHS tapes in the horror section after your parents finally agreed to let you start renting the scarier stuff when you were still far too young to and it felt exhilarating and oh so "adult" and eternally KINO

Sorry, lads. It really was the best though.

>Not going through the returns pile
>Not calling ahead to the local kinobrary to reserve a copy
Step up your rental game sempai.

>Be me
>Parents take me to rent videos
>Always picked Batman Returns

>gamecrazy
That store gave so much more cash for trade ins than gamestop. And they actually sold retro shit and didn't force you to pay obscene prices

>owner and employees of the store are still white
Pleasantly surprised

an inconvenience people tolerated only because it was the only option

I remember all the shitty movies we rented because of the badass box art. Since the death of rentals movie posters and cover art has turned to dogshit.

Fuck, me too man that's cool. Wonder if we went to the same one

Sheeeit I got 2 copies on vhs for xmas that year. Best batman, frank's origin story, and the vinyl fetishist's catwoman of choice.

Blockbuster was great it wasn't just about getting a movie and that's it, it was the whole experience like going to the movie theater with family or friends as opposed to torrenting a movie and watching by yourself. There was also videogames, and you could even rent consoles too.

I like how people were all upbeat and friendly. Wtf happened

I saw this kid on the news, didnt realize he still watches Barney and Elmo.

>it was the whole experience

This. There was an actual sense of wonderment to it. You would see movies there that you'd never heard about before. You really couldn't research a lot of this stuff. You had no way. So outside of major blockbusters you'd heard about at the cinemas the smaller releases you knew nothing about. A lot of the older ones too. So many that were waiting to be discovered. Sometimes you'd score the last copy of a new release in high demand and leave the store feeling like you just played every fool in the neighborhood.

Young user these days are hyper-savvy and informed about everything. Which has its merits, definitely, but you will never get to experience that perpetual sense of naivety and wonder. It's a shame.

teen sex candy

Kid has autism and dad built him a micro blockbuster at home after video rental place near them closes.

>ladbrokes
>lad broke

Is that a pawn shop?

I knew that but thought maybe he'd be into shit like star wars not sesame street

betting shop/bookmakers

I think he's on the extreme side of the spectrum. Star Wars mild violence might cause tard rage.

kid's got the tism

>autistic kid is obsessed with movies

Is he, dare I say, /ourguy/?

>Rent see spot run from blockbuster
>forget to return it
>blockbuster closes down
>get to keep the movie and no late return fees to pay
who here /devilish/?

Tell me, Sup Forums.

What happened to yours?
What is it now?

What's wrong with Sesame St and Barney, bro? Don't tell me you're too pleb for that kino.

a bulk snack store

Costa

>>get to keep the movie and no late return fees to pay

have you ever looked at the movie section in a second hand store?

literally half of them have old blockbuster cases with the old store info still on the back

You sure?

I remember it the opposite way around.
I always thought that Hollywood was more lenient and cheaper.
Is my mind failing me?

Oh so that's where he worked before Overwatch

Dental office

I still have a copy of Space Jam somewhere in my house from Hollywood Video because of this.

Oreilys auto parts

Hollywood Video is a mattress store and a gamestop

No I don't because I don't get out of my house anymore because of netflix

Unironically yes. He is quite literally the embodiment of Sup Forums.

Y'all need to stop getting nostalgic over video rentals.

Shit was awful and overpriced, and they are dying for a good reason.

That particular blockbuster mustve been a big store

It has nothing to do with the movies themselves, or renting them retard.