Physical Media

I love the concept of physical media. But specifically, the act of busting out a boombox to listen to a rare recording exclusively on cassette is nostalgic. 

Growing up in the digital world of the mid to late 2000s, I never had many opportunities to interact with physical media, things you could hold and lose. Music was from an iPod, where you would buy and later stream songs from the iTunes store. Video games were on disks, but increasingly became downloadable. We sometimes printed family photos from a digital camera, but they quickly became a collection of 1s and 0s on a phone. 

I yearn for physical media in an anemoic way; nostalgic for a time that I've never really experienced. Maybe it's because I never dealt with the pain points, but I view VHS tapes, floppy disks, and camera film with a strange sense of affection. Tantalizing almost. I was robbed of this future. I'll never get to experience the novel inconveniences of needing to blow out the dust from my game cartridges or accidentally hitting the shutter and wasting an exposure. 

Maybe that's why physical media is so alluring to me. It makes you live in the moment. You can't simply swipe away a photo album or hit the skip button on a song you loathe. You have to go out of your way to get physical photos, or hit the fast-forward button on your Walkman to return to your favorite songs. You give your full attention to something, even for a minute, undistracted by digital noise and a never-ending scroll. I never lived in this world... but I often wish I did.  

Everything feels too perfect now. And maybe that's what I "miss" the most; the idea of permanence in physical objects, something that can be lost or broken. Physical media had weight; you could flip through old memories, feeling the texture of time passing. 

Maybe, instead of regret for what could have been, it's really a feeling of appreciation. Appreciation for the simplicity of enjoying things.

Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA

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