Ennui

Video killed the radio star.
And now video is dead.

The last VHS players are being made, possibly as I type this.
I actually bought a VCR about six years ago.  I bought a dual VHS/DVD-R player/writer.  I still have a pile of VHS tapes and I wanted to transfer some to DVD.  In the last six years, I've transferred exactly one VHS tape to disc.

Interesting prototypes and extremely expensive units aside, the first VHS VCR was available in the late 1970's.  It was probably some time in the early 1980's when I was introduced to the VCR; a friend whose family was more well-off financially had one on their relatively large television.  VHS was preceded shortly by the Betamax format, but I only remember one family having it.  Likely more actually did, and my boss in high school had a "Beta" player and a never ending stack of PG movies, many taped off of the TV with the occasional PG-13 that were still deemed acceptable.  Conservative ideology in movies may have played a role in eventual death of Sony's Betamax format, and it is entirely possible that is part of the reason my boss chose it.  Shockingly, the time delta from the last Betamax blank tape being made to the last VHS VCR being made is only a few months.

Jaws was one of the first movies I saw from VHS.  When VCRs first began to gain popularity, Movie studios were terrified they would kill profits at the theaters, and movies were priced astronomically high.  My memory wants to recall hundreds of dollars for recent movies, but perhaps it wasn't that bad.  They were, regardless, expensive.
Prohibitive movie costs meant that renting movies was extremely lucrative.  Every grocery store, pharmacy and gas station had a wall of movies to rent, competing with dedicated movie rental business that sprung up everywhere.  Many rented movies regardless of renter age which is how many of us were introduced to R-Rated movies.
Postal VHS Clubs sprung up where very poor quality movie tapes were given away to lure memberships which came with the "convenience" of new movies sent for cost every month.  There was no better way to spend a lot of money for movies nobody really wanted to see more than once.

Still, I'm left with a sense of ennui that the VCR has come to an end.  In a way, this is closing a door on a big part of the 1980's.  Another reason for Generation X to wince as the baby boomers hop over on the backs of the millennials.

We watched The Breakfast Club, probably the movie that better defines the 80's than any other.  It seems like St. Elmo's Fire should be a much later release, but it came out the same year.  Eventually things fell to Less than Zero, which worried some of our parents; they must have read the book.

Ferris Bueller took a day off, and just about anyone of a certain age will have to try not to smile when they hear, "Bueller, Bueller, Anyone, Anyone."

We watched Some Kind of Wonderful in the church basement, only to realize how fiction Fiction can be.

We watched The Terminator, introducing us to a future governor, followed by Predator, with two future governors.

We watched Red Dawn, assuming we could all kick ass as much as those kids.

We watched Rambo kick some ass, then watched First Blood and didn't understand it, only to find out Sylvester Stallone was - and is - an asshole.

We all wanted to become ski bums after watching Hot Dog.

We watched Eddie Murphy's Raw, but none of us could pull off a full body red leather suite (or tried, thankfully).

We watched Porky's and The Sure Thing, assuming that was what college was really going to be like.

I guess there is no reason to be either sanguine or melancholy about the protracted death of VHS.  The 8-track was nearly dead by the time I saw my first VHS movie and we'll always have Netflix streaming.
Or will we?