68 — I bought some DVDs

Imaginary setting crafted with AI

I never thought I’d see myself typing this sentence in 2025, but here I am: I bought some DVDs. The purchase didn’t happen as a statement of some anti-tech movement I’ve joined or to declare how cool I am now that I’m relying on this tool from the 90s. I made the purchase out of frustration.

I remember exactly where I lived when I watched Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present on Netflix. I remember its key art. I also remember it being prominently featured on the streamer’s homepage for a long period of time. ‘It must still be available,’ I reassured myself when the bug to watch that exact title came up in recent weeks.

I searched on streaming platforms as well as for digital purchases and rental options, but I was met with the reality of licensing agreements. The 2012 documentary is not available in Sweden. First-world problems, I know. The same happened for Grey Gardens, Cathedrals of Culture, Ghost World - sometimes you just want to watch something specific - but one thing was clear: my current geographical location and the licensing agreements between streaming providers did not align with my preferences.

Written in my notebook, a few sentences from an interview with Brian Eno¹ feel very relevant.

“The most important question you can ask yourself is: what is it that I really like?”

“The whole history of capitalism is designed to tell us the answers to those questions and those answers, of course, always involve buying products, consuming; consuming particular things that producers happen to make.”; “We might know what we dislike. It's easier to register the dislikes, but to know what we want, what we treasure, is much harder to discover [...]”

I remember exactly how it felt to build my movie library back in the early 2000s. Intentional. Filled with love. It relied on care and pride. It also relied on physical space, lots of it. There was nothing convenient about DVDs (even less with VHS), but when you got to hold in your hands a physical copy of a movie you loved, with included special features, perhaps even additional interviews, and a director’s cut - you felt joy. (With books, it is exactly the same, just as much as I’m sure it is with records.) There have been movies that saw me through heartbreak, on repeat, like a warm blanket to soothe the soul, and others that pushed me to explore the world outside my hometown like a tingling feeling in my belly. Understanding one's likes required patience and dedication; no shortcuts available.

“Ownership isn’t just about possession, it’s about investment; and when people stop investing they also stop caring. [...] Physical media isn’t just about entertainment; it’s an investment cycle. [...] Every time a friend scans your movie collection, they’re going to ask about a title and, boom, you’re recommending it. Compare that to streaming today; nobody sees your collections, nobody sees the spines of your books, and everything is buried in an algorithm that’s not sitting in your actual world. They killed off all this physical media, and now they have to spend billions of dollars on advertising just to remind people that their content exists. [...] Whenever you buy a book, a CD or a DVD you are not just watching/reading/listening to it once and then forgetting about it like we do with streaming; you are investing in it, you’re looking at it every day - you have a stake in its significance, you own the story that you get to pass down in your legacy to somebody else.” Says animatedly a creator working in Hollywood.²

Over the past decade (if not more), I slowly got carried away by a river of convenience. I haven’t just let go of owning physical media, but I’ve also let go of my investment in making choices because, somehow, going for what you’re supposed to watch/read/listen to has been much easier and friction-free compared to the oftentimes disappointing search for alternative content.

I’ve got this burning desire to continue making algorithm-free choices. I want to be able to watch Agnès Varda’s movies, “One of the Gods of Cinema” as Martin Scorsese refers to her, but also the light-hearted TV series that weren’t commercially successful to understand why, like Camping, for instance, created by the talented Dunham right after the hit success of GIRLS. What made it non-commercially successful? Will I like it? Or will I view it as a palate cleanser?

I remember when the studies³ came out about using an e-reader (like Kindle) vs paperback, where the users of a digital device were far worse at recalling what they’d read than paperback readers. Is it the same with streaming, where between casual viewing and recommended popular content, we’re watching to then forget about it?

I am no longer sure if this essay is about choice, taste, the death of ownership of if it just expresses frustration, so I apologize if I’m taking you along with me on this rollercoaster of a journey, but I know that it’s when we don’t stop to make these reflections, and decide for ourselves that things get foggy - or at least they do for me. But I will tell you one thing: making a choice, followed by an action, like opening a DVD case and sitting down to watch something with intention, is a very different experience from settling for something that has been chosen for us all at this very moment.

I guess the ones who still listen to records have been onto something - who knew.

1. Brian Eno and Yanis Varoufakis — The most important question to ask

2. Remember when Amazon removed the book 1984 from everyone’s library

3. The Guardian — Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper, study finds