Last weekend, I took a trip to Edinburgh. Amongst other activities, like suffering a humiliating defeat in minigolf, decided to wander into HMV. I didn’t really have any recent releases in mind that I desperately wanted to purchase but it’s always fun just to have a look. The experience was oddly refreshing. These pieces of art that for so many are confined to tiny PNG album covers on Spotify felt real here. In an age of doomscrolling and shrinking attention spans it’s nice to own a small slice of your favourite artworks.
For years, the prevailing narrative has been that physical media is obsolete. Spotify and Apple Music (and even Tidal) are killing the record industry, amazon is killing the local bookstore, and who can remember the last time they bought a Blu-ray? While it’s nice to ponder the possible future in which everyone consumes literary classics via the Kindle Fire™, it doesn’t have to (and really shouldn’t) be this way. While these services are undeniably convenient, it does begin to feel like we’ve lost something vital to the way we connect with art.
This is not to say that EPUBs and PDFs of books have no use at all. This can be especially true for academic purposes, when it is otherwise difficult to find a specific quote in a physical book that you only made a mental and not actual note of.
But sometimes convenience isn’t everything; trying to read a hundred pages of Middle English prose on a laptop on a Monday morning before a tutorial is more than a little tiring on the eyes. The art and media we consume can sometimes benefit from having weight, both physical and metaphysical. Visiting bookstores like Topping and Co., Bouquiniste and, yes, even Waterstones can be a welcome break from the mundanity of living, working and studying.
Credit: Augustina Anonyai.
Physical ownership can have other advantages as well. For a while it was believed that the internet would allow art to live on forever, long after their original canvases have rotted away, and manuscripts have gone out of print. This turned out to be false.
Take for example Disney’s penny pinching act of removing of shows like Willow from streaming, making it impossible to watch the show legally. Similarly, the BBC removed the 2006 Doctor Who episode ‘Fear Her’ in August on account of a poorly aged cameo from disgraced news presenter Huw Edwards. A redubbed version was promised but has yet to materialise, temporarily increasing the show’s number of missing episodes from its history.
Owning media can be more than a hobby, it’s a statement of identity, reflecting your own tastes and memories. In a world that feels like it’s spinning faster every day, and all we ever seem to be getting is and busier it can be reassuring to have something real to hang on to.
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