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The lost civic life of movie rental stores

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Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#221

Post by matwood »

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…

> The end of interest-based 3rd places

A good jiujitsu gym is pretty amazing for this. It's a melting pot of people from all socioeconomic and political groups. It's great exercise, can be done at any age, and at any level. It also cannot be done alone. After you spend 5 minutes trying to choke someone and them you, it's hard to not have a conversation after.

Unfortunately, because it's become so popular it's gotten expensive, sometimes >$100/month.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#222

Post by vladvasiliu »

Loughla wrote: post #165
ohyoutravel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not sure if you're joking, but I think it was implied that OP called the people.

Right. I think the underlying question is, how do you get to know these people in the first place?

Isn't this the whole point of the discussion? How do you initially get to know people?

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#224

Post by hdgvhicv »

pseingatl wrote: post #60
everforward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t match my experience if your bar is really as low as “won’t throw you out for not buying anything”. Obvious anecdata, but within an easy walk or bike radius of me (a couple miles) there are 3 public libraries, something like half a square mile of parks, a few public basketball courts, a few public tennis courts, a public baseball field, a bar over the baseball field that welcomes children (it’s one of the…

Consider yourself very lucky if your public libraries are not daycare for the homeless.

Depends entirely on your country. Your country may have that, but I don’t recognise that from any of the 4 libraries I’ve been to in the last 12 months or the additional 4 I’ve been to in the last few years.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#225

Post by inigyou »

BjoernKW wrote: post #133
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…

> The end of interest-based 3rd places Whatever happened to pubs and the shared interest of drinking beer (and getting drunk in the process ...)? ;-)

Beer got replaced by TikTok as the primary form of escapism. No joke.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#226

Post by sublinear »

joe_the_user wrote: post #210
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…

I was around for many of these things. At different points in my life from the 70s to the 90s, I'd hang around arcades, the local coop bike shop, a hobby shop that specialized in D&D and occasionally an alternative video rental place. It was honestly miserable. Shops seldom facilitated socializing but when that was it, some people did it. (religious groups are in a completely different category, I think and one didn'…

Thank you for saying this. I'm in my late 30s, so I only experienced the tail end of it.

I remember everyone was stressed out all the time. Attitude was sorta: "I did not drive all this way just for you nor to be told...". Karen was not just that one lady. It was everyone. Customer service was objectively worse in most places than it is today. Hearing screaming babies and feeling carsick all the time was just a fact of life. Food was worse. Cars were ugly and slow. Disgusting smells were inescapable. People had no shame and were not shy with the vulgarities.

I suspect the audience pining for those days is split between the would-be perpetrators of the unpleasantness and younger people not knowing what to expect.

I implore those young people to search for "peopleofwalmart" and then imagine overhearing the worst parts of reddit in real life.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#227

Post by inigyou »

steveBK123 wrote: post #7
panzagl wrote: post #3

Article should be titled 'The Lost Civic Life of Mom and Pop Stores'- no kid making $4.50 an hour is cultivating a third space atmosphere at Blockbuster, whereas any Mom and Pop place can do that, no matter what they sell.

I was thinking about the loss of local shops a lot recently. There's definitely a confluence of factors at play, and it's not just price economics vs online & big box. One thing I think is that theres just never enough time. Everyone is so over-scheduled. The white collar work day really has expanded vs what I remember my dad doing 30-40 years ago. There's more two income households than in the past. Parenting is far…

It's rent. We are all working so hard to pay the rent. Which always expands to take any money available and then some. It's stack-ranking us on working hours.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#229

Post by Broken_Hippo »

ryandrake wrote: post #189
Loughla wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Join a club. Lions, Masons, knights of Columbus, Oddfellows, woodworkers guild, something like that. They're dying for lack of youth membership and they're still around.

Unfortunately, these clubs sometimes (knowingly or unknowingly) sabotage themselves when it comes to attracting young members. A lot of these organizations, you go there to share an interest, and you walk in and they're not really talking about their interest. To be blunt: a lot of them are just a bunch of old men griping about old-man things, making old-man jokes that were acceptable in the '80s, bringing up (ahem)…

Some of the organizations mentioned have never welcomed me - the first hurdle to some of these is simply being female. Freemasons only accept men IIRC. Knights of Columbus? Catholic. Oddfellows acceptance really depends on the individual lodge, despite what the literature says. These organizations aren't always in smaller areas either, so you aren't joining if you are in a small town an hour's drive from the nearest meeting place.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#230

Post by beloch »

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…

Stop using Amazon and see what happens.

I stopped using Amazon early last year (because Canadian). I was forced to find local shops for the stuff I was getting online and, to my surprise, a lot of those specialty retailers are still out there. Some are a bit more expensive. Some are, surprisingly, not. At many places, the staff are still a fantastic resource.

There's a world beyond Amazon that's still out there, alive and kicking. All you have to do is stop making Amazon your first and last place to look for things.

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