One form of (almost) obsolete media that played a large role in my childhood were VHS tapes. I still have an entire basket of VHS tapes of some of my favorite movies, mostly including Disney classics and Christmas movies. I remember them very vividly, including the act of having to rewind the full tape before watching, their cumbersome size, and their poor picture quality. My family even still has a VHS player under our television, although we rarely watch any of our VHS tapes. This form of media was replaced by DVDs, which are now being replaced by movie streaming websites, such as Netflix and Hulu. One common problem with these forms are media are that they can be easily tampered with or broken. However, Netflix and Hulu protect against this common problem, making these a more desirable and protected form of this media. I remember when my brother was much younger, he got into our basket of VHS tapes, and tore the tape out of the cassette.

Despite having a few ruined VHS tapes, my family continues to use them once a year. We watch classic Christmas movies, such as Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, together, as these movies are often hard to find on other forms of media. The VHS tapes also evoke a sense of nostalgia and remind me of previous Christmases spent as a child. Despite VHS tapes slowly becoming obsolete, their impact on the world of media has not. They made movies easily accessible, and made possible the creation of more advanced forms of media, such as DVD’s and movie streaming websites.