How do you summarize your life with one aspect of technology?
Transitions
always seem to warp your perspective on time. While the transition of movie
format from VHS to DVD and beyond was not a shellshock, newsworthy momentshock
akin to 9/11, it still holds a valuable key in how children of the 1990s relate
to the progress of technology. My own connection with movie platforms stems
from my parents. While living in Dundee, Scotland during their university
years, my parents would rent a movie and have a “date night in” every Friday
night. This didn’t change even when my older brother and I came along. Every
Friday once my brother finished school, my mother would take us to Blockbuster
and let us loose. I would immediately run to my beloved Scooby-Doo, beg my mum
to buy me a sweet, to which she always replied with a firm no, and then spend
the evening in my parents’ room accompanied by Scooby and “those meddling
kids”.
The
concept of what I was watching Scooby-Doo never occurred to me until I was
older. It was my brother who first introduced me to DVDs. In fact, he made fun
of me for using video casettes because they were so old-fashioned and outdated.
Mind you, this was close to the Millennium when DVDs were gaining more ground
and we had just gotten a DVD player for Christmas. I, being a stubborn
nine-year-old, stuck out my tongue and grabbed my good old video casettes. I
only moved over to DVDs once Blockbuster stopped offering Scooby-Doo on VHS.
The story of blu-ray is similar. Even to this day I don’t see what is so great
about blu-ray despite the compliments my dad showers on it.
Psychologists
frequently point out hindsight bias, the tendency to go, Well, I knew that
before you said it; I just forgot.” Similarly, I never noticed the quality
difference between VHS and DVD until I had been watching DVDs for years. Now, I
sit and look at the flat picture of video casettes compared to the more 3-D
images of DVDs. I assume that this will also happen much more with Blu-Ray.
Currently, I only notice that Blu-Ray is sharper than DVD, but I expect years
from now I will be commenting on how flat DVD pictures look. This whole
relationship is relatable to most aspects of technology. People now look at
older cars and shake their heads, murmuring about chassis, motors, and
cylinders. The same thing applies to chalk boards, white boards, clothing,
music, and basically every aspect of human society. If our lives can be defined
by one constantly changing aspect of human culture, the evolution of movies and
my relationship with them defines my sense of self.
The close
relationship with movies that was fostered during my childhood radically
changed how I perceive movies. While I have talked to some people that view
movies as simple entertainment, movies, to me, mean bonding and consistency. A
lot of the time I spent with my father while I grew older was spent watching
movies because he didn’t know what to talk about with me. Watching a movie with
my family meant we all calmed down, sat in one place, and spent a chunk of time
together. Some people don’t see this as bonding because we would not talk, but
just spending time in the same room with someone can be comforting. Movies also gave me a sense of constancy and
routine. Watching a movie every Friday was the first real routine I got into as
a kid.
This association
with movies means I still look at movies fondly and seek out new ways to watch
films. The way we watch movies has changed drastically over the years. My
parents used to see movies mainly at the cinema in Scotland, whereas
beforehand, you had to stand up and praise the Queen Mother. The main venue for
watching movies that has changed along with movie formatting is movie
platforms. While you could play a videocassette in any VCR, you still had to use
a VCR. I remember when my brother got a Playstation 2 for Christmas. He loved it
because he could play games on it. I loved it simply because I could watch
Scooby-Doo while my parents were using the DVD player. It was the first
dual-format gaming station I remember. Now, you can play DVDs on multiple
gaming stations, not just the Playstation 2. My family doesn’t actually own a
blu-ray player, simply because we have a Playstation 3 which carries the format
for blu-ray. This made me think about our familys transition from physical to
electronic.
As
I have stated, my family had the Blockbuster ritual. This ritual was slowly
eclipsed by Netflix. When we first started using Netflix, you could get two
movies at a time through the mail with free shipping, while paying one sum per
month. For a while, Netflix supplemented Blockbuster, but eventually, with the
combination of other options like virtual streaming, Blockbuster was out. It
hit home when I saw the closing sign on my childhood Blockbuster. Now, Netflix
not only ships movies to your house, but they offer instant movies through the
internet and gaming consoles such at the Playstation 3. There is now no need to
go out to get a movie. Redbox is a recent phenomenon, the final straw that
pushed Blockbuster into bankruptcy. For Redbox, all you have to do is drive to a
kiosk and look through the options on the screen. While Blockbuster made their
money on late fees, Redbox only charges $1 for every 24 hours you have the
movie. Not only is there the physical movie market, but with the growth of the
internet, non-physical ways to watch movies boomed. There is an endless amount
of websites that stream movies, although somewhat illegally. Hulu provides this
option with no illegalities. They stream TV shows and movies for no fee, with
the consequence of watching about four or five advertisements per hour.
Overall,
technology is predictable and will follow the same general trend. More ways of
watching movies will develop, and more ways to obtain movies will develop. It
is unlikely that many technologies will ever break out of this cycle. The
question of whether or not we shape technology, or if technology shapes us, is
confounding. Did movies create who I am today, or did I create that bond with
movies on my own? Which one propelled the other? In this case, I would chance
to say that movies created who I am; the technology created the culture. I say
this because I was so young when I first started to watch movies and because I
don’t remember enough concrete facts. For instance, I cannot say that music
shaped my culture today, because music was never a big part of my childhood. At
this point in time, my own cultural choices have shaped what music I do and do
not listen to. Movies and I are too intertwined to separate like that. I
recently had to answer the question, “What song describes your beliefs most?” Only
while writing this paper did I realize that the song I chose was from a movie:
The Lion King, to be exact. Did movies have such a profound impact on me as a
child that my music taste today is influenced by the composers of those movies?
Should I attribute my current preferences to the hidden stars of those movies?
I lack the knowledge to decide this, but the idea fascinates me. My
relationship with films is certainly an intertwined and undifferentiated part
of who I am.
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