I love the DVD — the clarity of the image, the supplemental materials, and even the physical object itself. It’s such an elegant thing, a small, shiny silver disc that costs relatively little and takes takes up minimal space on my sagging, overloaded bookshelves. Even so, I was a late adopter of the format, and I haven’t entirely given up watching my old videotapes, either. My reasons for this insanely masochistic behavior are largely economic. You see, I have a huge financial investment in the outmoded VHS format, and I just can’t bring myself to flush all that money down the toilet just because there’s something better on the market, at least not all at once. I’m also philosophically opposed to our society’s wasteful paradigm of planned obsolescence and throw-it-all-away-for-the-latest-and-greatest consumerism; even though I always give in eventually, I hold out as long as I can before I upgrade. So, curmudgeon that I am, I keep on watching those inferior, deteriorating cassettes. But I also have to admit I’ve also got a kind of sneaky nostalgia for VHS tapes, especially the ones I recorded myself. I don’t think younger folks, who have been awash in home entertainment of increasing quality since they were born, fully understand what it was like to be able to bring home a movie or record something off TV for the first time ever, or why someone would still want to look at one of those horrible, lo-rez anachronisms today when there are so many flashier alternatives.
For the kids in the audience, Lileks explains:
