Robolution

Blockbuster isn’t a thing anymore. The near-total collapse came on quite rapidly, frankly. Just as Blockbuster put numerous mom’n’pop video stores out of business by promoting new forms of media, so too were they put out of business by downloadable movies. Ironically, I can find at least three or four independent video outlets around town, while Blockbuster was replaced by a novelty store, which also closed down, and now sits empty, because of Obamacare, presumably.

The new thing now are automated video kiosks. There was a new one right outside Wal-Mart, so the creepy people who hang outside Wal-Mart can gather personal information about you like a hobo-facebook whenever you use it. I assume when your video is overdue, the kiosk will transform into a killer robot and hunt you down, which is probably more entertaining than the movie you rented.

A creepy thing about them is that they literally seem like they’re from the future. They’re chock full of movies that shouldn’t be available on disc, as they just premiered in theatres a few short weeks prior. I saw Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in one of them when I was sure it was still listed in the theatre schedule. With all the money spent promoting movies to get butts in sticky theatre seats, its strange to think that you can casually pick up a brand-spanking new movie while you’re getting baby wipes.

Stranger still is how they were obsolete before they were even made. Do people want to rent movies? Does physically renting something they’re forced to physically return appeal to people? Are we all sadists? I know a large majority of the population are fond of their DVD and Blu-Ray players, but this is 2012: Ice Age.

Why are we so attached to dead formats, aside from the obvious money invested in them? Are people still using Laserdiscs? I was trying to throw out our old VCR, but was told to keep it because we needed it to watch all of our VHS tapes, which we never watch, and also need to be thrown out. Half our collection is available on Netflix, which we can stream wirelessly to any room in our house. Still, we don’t watch the same old movies, because we’ve seen them a millions times.