Buy it Tuesday

I don't really have a lot to write about today. So I'm going to pick one of the topics that I've been saving (I have several).

DVD's. They bug me. Specifically, the way they're marketed. Back in the day (I'm talking the early 90's here folks) not many people collected movies. If you had a lot of VHS you were a serious collector, a nerd, a freak if you will. Movies sold on VHS, but the lion's share of the profits were still made at the box office. Enter the late 90's and the DVD. All of a sudden, everyone has a large and conspicuous shelf of DVD's in their living room. Everyone has become a collector. And movie companies are making a huge chunk of their profits off the ever-expanding DVD market. You've seen the ads: "War of the Worlds: Buy it Tuesday". Fuck you, Movie Voice Guy. That wasn't a sales pitch, that was an order. I hate how release dates for DVD's has become common knowledge. The only reason to know a release date is so that you can buy it at the earliest possible juncture. And the reason these companies push people to buy movies as soon as they can is because they know that in 3 months, no one will care. And I'm not immune: I too bought "Kill Bill: Vol 1" the day it was released, and how many times have I watched it? 1. I plunked down $25.00 to basically add another notch to my "DVD belt".

Now, people making more money than me isn't what's bothering me (if it was, I'd be angry every day, all the time). What bothers me is how much money we seem willing to give to these companies. TV shows on DVD. Until about 5 years ago, TV was on TV, and that was it. You watched it, and enjoyed it, and maybe caught it in reruns. If you really liked a show, you might tape it to watch again later. But the idea of owning a TV show never really occurred to people. And we got along fine. I've never owned an episode of "Friends" in my life, and I was getting by fine. But now that it's possible for us to own a TV show, we feel like we should.

So here people are, spending hundreds (and let's face it, thousands) of dollars on DVD collections which for the most part gather dust. And everyone has that fantasy of owning a bunch of DVD's, and impressing people with their collections. You picture people coming over to your house, marveling at the size and eclectic choice of films. As if this showcase of our tastes will give people a window into our unique souls. "What, you own "Citizen Kane" and Season 3 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"! Truly you are a more enlightened person than I!". Every time we buy another DVD, we imagine the day when it will be exactly that movie that someone wants to watch, allowing us to whisk it off our shelf save the day with our superior taste.

But that almost never happens. 3 months ago, I sold off about a quarter of my movie collection simply because I realized I hadn't watched any of those films in 3 years or more. Nowadays, I really think hard before I buy a movie "Will I watch this over and over, or will the thrill wear off as soon as I've gotten my purchase home". Put simply, do I want to own, or do I just want to buy it?