12 Reasons Why Video Stores Were The Best

Netflix be damned. Kids these days have no idea what they missed.

1. Physically picking out movies.

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As in, grabbing your top 5 (OK 10), rolling up to your parents with a shit-eating grin behind your teetering tower of VHS tapes and begging for all of them. It's just not the same to add them to a queue.

2. You knew which movies were coming out next.

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Because they were listed on the wall and if your video store was fancy they had a TV in the ceiling playing trailers. No carple-tunnel inducing scrolling.

3. Movie Posters.

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Those bins by the door were like the original $1 beer specials. "Mom! I neeeeeeeed this Romy and Michelle poster!!" A "FREE" sign often appeared when the only ones left were from failures like Tin Cup and Glitter.

4. Candy.

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And I mean WEIRD candy like wax bottles and gummy tacos. Video stores always had the newest, kitschiest candies alongside good ol' staples like Push Pops and Airheads. Also, DIY movie theater popcorn (that came with its own giant paper bucket) was the ultimate sleepover snack. How great were the days when you could pressure your dad into getting you Snowcaps and Redvines for dinner just so you'd stfu?

5. Running into your friends.

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There was nothing better than getting to scamper around a Blockbuster like a lunatic with another 8-year-old compadre before getting locked down into family movie night. Sometimes you could even con your parents into a playdate. Ah, playdates, the only thing you can't get on Amazon Prime.

6. Late fees were like library fees.

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Granted, you don't ever get fees with streaming because the movies vanish like Charlie Sheen from rehab BUT if you did want to share a movie, re-watch it, or forget it in the back of your Volvo station wagon it'd cost like $2 a week.

7. You had to interact with people.

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Which was good because sometimes they'd give you recommendations and bad because 99% of the people that worked at video stores were weird AF.

8. Sometimes there were free snacks.

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Like popcorn bathed in fluorescent butter. If didn't matter that you knew it would give you mild dysentery and some severely shriveled lips, it was F-R-E-E.

9. Getting the last copy of the movie you came for.

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And feeling smug as hell. Crazy to think that there were only so many copies to go around but MWAHAHA. YOU GOT LITTLE WOMEN BEFORE THAT OLD LADY DID!

10. Sales.

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$3 DVDs?? UM OKAY! And then you realized you had 1,000 movies you didn't even really like but you didn't care because you looked super cool to all of your friends until you became a grown-up and had to move and drag them with you like an asshat.

11. Video Games.

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Not just the ones to rent (which was AWESOME) because they had every format, but because some stores actually had entire video game sections where your older brother would post up while you scoured for "Milo & Otis" and "The Swan Princess."

12. They felt like space stations.

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They were big and bright with so many clashing colors and sharp corners, and they smelled like cherry cola and bleach! Video stores made us feel like we were autonomous, despite our parents being 10 feet away. We miss them, but at least we got to experience them before they went extinct.