Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The lost civic life of movie rental stores

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 285 posts

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#121

Post by BeetleB »

jimbokun wrote: post #117
BeetleB wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an all-or-nothing. If you live in a society that really devalues everything you like, having that online outlet is the difference between giving up on life[1], and being passionate. Imagine being told you're broken because you like books, movies, and video games, and having almost every aspect of society reinforce that message. [1] Not in the suicide sense, but in the "Life will always suck" sense.

I was that kid. Going to a university in a city helped a lot with that. Long conversations about comic books with friends, going to the nearby comics store on new release day with lots of other nerds, etc. I’m no longer convinced adding the Internet to that has been a net positive. Maybe if we could have froze its growth and development at some specific point…?

It helps before you get to university, and once you leave. The place you live for work may have very few people with similar interests.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#122

Post by petercooper »

Shopping with my kids I noticed we kinda have a replacement here in the UK in the shape of HMV (originally a spin off of His Master's Voice). When I was a kid it was mostly a record store, but now it's focused on what I'd call geek/"fandom" tat: posters, figurines, comics, band merch, etc. Whenever I'm dragged into one, it's always full of geek/fandom types hanging out.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#124

Post by pavel_lishin »

pstuart wrote: post #32
afavour wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People with kids sometimes experience this via all the activities they take their kids to This is something welcome I didn’t expect to come from parenthood. Like many others I had thought to myself “how do you even make new friends in your thirties?!” and then once I had kids… bam. New friendship groups. For us the local park and playground are a great equalizer in terms of economic stratification. But when the wea…

I kind of experienced that but the relationships were more superficial than I'd have liked. If the "shared interest" is happy kids together it doesn't directly translate to the adults shared interests. But then again, maybe it was just me being me.

It's a good jumping off point, but becoming friends requires time and work.

When we're young, we have nothing but time spent together. As adults, who spend an hour at the local park with some kids, those relationships require more effort to grow.

We have a few friends we've made through our kid, and it definitely takes more work to maintain - but it's been very worth it so far.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#125

Post by mckee_plus_plus »

jimbokun wrote: post #117
BeetleB wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an all-or-nothing. If you live in a society that really devalues everything you like, having that online outlet is the difference between giving up on life[1], and being passionate. Imagine being told you're broken because you like books, movies, and video games, and having almost every aspect of society reinforce that message. [1] Not in the suicide sense, but in the "Life will always suck" sense.

I was that kid. Going to a university in a city helped a lot with that. Long conversations about comic books with friends, going to the nearby comics store on new release day with lots of other nerds, etc. I’m no longer convinced adding the Internet to that has been a net positive. Maybe if we could have froze its growth and development at some specific point…?

Discord has done wonders for gaming shops keeping people connected and organizing in between weekly game sessions.

Meetup could be superceded by the hitch/tinder model to organize activities with individuals over scheduled events ran by organizers.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#126

Post by ohyoutravel »

swat535 wrote: post #97
steveBK123 wrote: post #4

The end of interest-based 3rd places is one of the many things contributing to the compartmentalization / socioeconomic bubble of modern society. People used to frequent in person things like specialty retailers, arcades, hobby clubs, religious groups, etc. When you meet real life people in person based on shared interests, you make connections across socioeconomic groups. I just don't see nearly as much of this in t…

It's a societal problem, mainly in the West. Many cultures around the world don't have this issue. When I was living in Iran, we didn't need a hobby club to meet people, you just picked up the phone and everyone came over. I have vivid memories of going on trips with 5 cars filled with people When I went to Peru with my wife to meet her extended family, it was very similar. Heck you can just randomly talk to people a…

You picked up the phone and everyone came over, that’s cool. What number did you call? Was this a public service of some sort?

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#127

Post by wduquette »

The loss of 3rd places is a big deal; but it seems weird to wax nostalgic over the remarkably brief period that movie rental stores were actually a thing. Blockbuster Video opened in 1985, was overtaken by Netflix starting in 2000, and died in 2010. There were small movie rental shops prior to 1985, but not long prior.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#129

Post by zbikowski »

SoftTalker wrote: post #119
afavour wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t, really. If it’s the expected norm in your job then there’s a real chance you’ll lose your job if you don’t do it. And particularly the kind of jobs market we see today that’s a real risk.

Actually not for most people. This is a peculiarity mostly of the tech industry. Most people don't read their work email after 5:00.

I'm not sure what authority you have on this subject, but anecdotally speaking as a non-software engineer who would lump himself with "most people," when it comes to white-collar work, I have noticed that all of my colleagues are, at the very least, expected to read email during time off (weekend or PTO) if not respond.

This applies to adjacent industries as well. I semi-regularly get email from firms (in the same time zone as mine) in the 11PM–2AM range.

Again, I'm not purporting to have any more experience than you do, but you can't assert that this is a tech-industry-only phenomenon when I am sure applicable examples other than my own could be found. I wish I could go without, but spending the first billable hour catching up on email is not really acceptable.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#130

Post by dexterdog »

mcphage wrote: post #105
deadbabe wrote: post #61

Someone should make a coffee shop that is also like an old school rental place that has a few CRT TVs with VCRs around and people can take movies down from some shelf and pop them in and watch them on a communal couch. Very third place.

For the Modern American version of that—last time I was in an Urgent Care, they had a tv playing one of the Sharknado movies. The security guard there was excited to show everyone the bit where he was an extra in the film.

I hope he had a license to be broadcasting that publicly. I wish I were being sarcastic about this.
Post reply on HN