Physical Media Is Cool Again. Streaming Services Have Themselves to Blame

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On Aug. 4, fans of the HBO Max series Love Life were given a gift. The television show was added to Netflix, a reprieve from the three-year drought that left fans unable to access the Anna Kendrick and William Jackson Harper-helmed anthology series.
For creator Sam Boyd, having Love Life return to streaming has been a welcome change. In the time since its cancellation, fans have repeatedly reached out to ask the best way to stream it. For a while it was on HBO Max, then Amazon Video to rent, then, for a time, on Tubi, with ads. He's glad people who loved the show will have another chance to watch it again, but the experience has touched on why he started — and still does — collect physical copies of his favorite shows and movies.
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'I used to get DVD box sets of shows that I loved that had only been on [for] a season or two,' he tells Rolling Stone. 'That was a formative thing for me. There was just something that felt fun and special. It made you feel like you saw something that was missed.'
It's no surprise then, that at the same time Boyd is hopeful that a new batch of Love Life-heads are just a Netflix scroll away, television film collector culture is having a resurgence online. When streaming services first took off in the mid-2000s, they promised consumers a new world, where movie night didn't have to start with a drive to Blockbuster and pricy cable packages could be dropped without sacrificing your favorite shows. Almost two decades later, streaming has become the default, not the scrappy competitor. According to Pew Research, close to 83 percent of adults in the U.S. subscribe to at least one streaming service, the number of which steadily grows.
These days, consumers aren't entirely happy with the trade off. Licensing deals mean the film that was on Netflix for two years can leave and take a spin on a platform you don't pay for, older films can have controversial scenes edited out, or an original series can get cancelled and disappear entirely. For many of these series, like Love Life, box sets or DVDs have never been available to purchase, meaning streaming is the only way to see it. When it leaves a streamer, it virtually disappears for the average consumer. Physical media, on the other hand, doesn't have this issue. While streamers aren't necessarily losing customers, people who collect Blu-rays, DVDs, and VHS tapes tell Rolling Stone their trending culture isn't nostalgia bait. It's participating in the digital world while recognizing the value of holding something in their movie-obsessed hands.
Gina Luzi, 33, first started her physical media collection without even realizing it. She grew up going to Blockbuster with her father for movie nights, and has fond memories of strolling the aisles of Barnes & Noble for everything from books to CDs. But in 2018, she began to take collecting far more seriously. Her focus: cheesy 1980s Italian horror and murder mystery films — also known as 'giallos' — many of which aren't available on streaming platforms.
'If I can find something that only one place has ever put out, or a movie that has just been restored for the first time in 30 years, that's so exciting for me,' Luzi tells Rolling Stone. 'Living in L.A., we're so spoiled when it comes to physical media. We have so many old theaters, video rental stores that are still active, so many VHS-centered spaces. So my love for physical media is really tied into my love for Los Angeles.'
For Maddy Graves, her physical media collection started with a frustration with streaming. 'I got tired of paying for new streaming services,' Graves, 26, says. 'I can't justify having more than two or three. Why do I have to pay for Paramount plus to watch Twin Peaks?'
Graves has always had a stack of DVDs in her home, but her collection changed when she found an old fashioned tube TV with a built-in VCR. Now, she seeks out VHS tapes of her most watched films. (Her favorites are Rush Hour 1, Rush Hour 2, and Silence of the Lambs.) Graves thinks that the growth of physical media collectors comes from a lack of trust in streaming operations.
'I think the giant boom of physical media collecting is reflective of what's going on with the economy and also how people feel about media in general. It's nice to have the certainty and it's less [expensive],' she says. 'Having a film in your collection versus the void of the internet — it just feels more secure.'
Starting a physical media collection can be as easy as walking into a Goodwill and buying a Bring It On box set. But digital archivist K.D. Kemp says that there's a real knowledge gap for newer generations whose growth has been defined by leaping advancements in tech. On TikTok, Kemp shares her tips and tricks for those who are interested in both collecting old media and finding ways to archive their favorite digital entertainment — like YouTube videos or unreleased songs.
'I get a lot of questions of 'How do I get into this?' There's a lot of curiosity about things some older generations take for granted,' she says. 'Like, 'How do you burn a CD?' It's something that was common for us growing up, but that's knowledge that's being lost as everything is sort of transitioning to digital.'
The obsession over obtaining physical copies of films has been driven in part by popular digital properties like Letterboxd and Criterion. Letterboxd is a film-logging app where users can mark what movies they've seen, review them, and discover new ones they might like. Their TikTok interview series 'Four Favorites,' where celebrities are asked to name four favorite films on the spot, often goes viral. In a similar viral fashion, film company Criterion Collection has achieved massive success with their series 'The Criterion Closet,' which invites stars, directors, and writers to tour a closet stacked to the ceiling with DVDs and pick out their favorite films. The series was such a hit that the company now tours the Criterion Van — a mobile closet, essentially — where fans wait hours in line for a chance to buy discounted DVDs and film their own version of the interview.
Josue Arellano, 27, says that a lot of his physical media collection is made up of Criterion titles, because the company often re-releases or restores films he's been desperate to see but hasn't been able to find. When the Criterion Van had an event in June, he and a friend got there around 3:30 a.m. They were sixth in line.
'Even now, in the age of streaming, it's so important to be able to own your media, because you don't know what these companies can decide one day,' Arellano says. 'Even editing is a big thing, how streamers will edit movies to be more child friendly. It's censorship.'
What Arrelano is referring to is just one of several situations where digital copies of films have been adjusted to fit modern sensibilities. Since 2023, Disney has been accused of editing several versions of their historic films, including Fantasia, Lilo & Stitch, and Star Wars. The NBC streamer Peacock removed multiple comedy episodes that used blackface, including The Office, 30 Rock, and Scrubs. Streaming companies have called these changes important to remove inappropriate or hurtful content, but many collectors see the changes as essentially creating more lost media — and forcing audiences to lose out on important context.
'There's this false notion that everything is online and you can access anything. And it's just simply not true,' Kemp tells Rolling Stone. 'There's so much content that hasn't been digitized, that isn't available online. Or what's happening now that's more common is things that were only ever digital have been taken away. They've been taken off of streaming services. Licenses have been revoked. Something has happened that has caused that content to come down and now it's effectively gone.'
One of the loopholes that streaming services have taken advantage of in the past few years is the removal of original series and films as tax writeoffs — many of which were never released in physical formats. (The 2022 film Batgirl was filmed and edited but never streamed, instead reportedly scrapped as a tax write off.) It's a fate that Love Life escaped, which is why Boyd really likes the idea that physical media collection is a trend once again.
'There always are going to be people, and especially young people, who are curious about the past,' he says. 'Who are interested in the whole history of incredible movies and shows and albums. That's the kind of kid I was. So, it makes sense that those kids still exist. The idea that people would only want the new thing forever, just has never been the case. There's always going to be some people that want to zag.'
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