The Ferret

Yeah I try to buy dvds for the same reason you do. I guess what i'm saying is directed to the others that do buy dvds as possessions and not for entertainment value or to save money in the end.

kms_md

i, too, took this as satire. joel stein is usually more obviously self-deprecating in his humor, although.

anyway, i like movies. i like to watch them when i have the chance. overall it is cheaper and easier to buy a dvd then it is to go the see one on the big screen. i agree, some of the cinema experience is lost at home, but that is a price i am willing to pay (pun partially intended).

kms_md

i agree with this 100%.

my friends know i have dvds and chances are i have a title they are looking for. very few have actually seen my collection. i keep it out of the way. i enjoy watching movies. it is my hobby.

toddly6666

HERMES,
It's not as black and white as you say. Just because someone does not have any bad habits, it does not make that person superior to the person with bad habits. Someone that spends money on DVDs instead of spending it car/gas or cigarrettes is just someone that is more physically healthy and more of an environmentalist - not "better"...you are cracking me up! Everyone has bad habits anyway, even Buddhist monks...

You are talking about this topic in a perspective of one being better than someone else. Superiority versus inferiority isn't an issue with DVD collecting.

I'm talking about collecting as minimalism versus consuming like mad...I consume like mad, but when I look at my DVD shelf, I wish that I was more of a minimalist and just owned a select few of DVDs. Just because one enjoys a movie, it doesn't mean I have to buy it. For me to be more minimalist, I would have to buy the DVDs that I really love. If I went by that, I wouldn't have more than 300 DVDs, but instead have...hmm...about 100 dvds..haha (shit, I don't think I could get under 30 dvds...)

By the way, if one has a DVD collection over 500, then that person should be killed, because that is just wrong and evil. The Bible says "Thou shalt not collect for man's pleasure. If though shall partake in excessive collecting, thou shalt burn in hell for all eternity."

kms_md

toddly is your last post missing some [sarcasm] tags?

vegasbaby

Sorry Joel ... missed reading your article. I was watching Porky's for the 7th time. Cant get enough of the peephole scene.

toddly6666

KMS, haha...nope I'm dead serious...people with big DVD collections are inferior and should not exist. Give me one good reason why they have a right to live? I'm against the death penalty, except when it comes to extreme DVD collectors, those damned pieces of plagued scum!









My Sinful Evil Collection - http://www.intervocative.com/dvdcoll...spx/toddly6666

hermes10

Actually, I'm not saying it is black and white. I'm asking questions trying to determine the extent of the judgements being made by people who are saying things about how other people spend their money like: it's a waste of money; or they are "over collecting"; or their collecting is "a bit much."

I was asking you to explain the basis for your own determination of what constitututes "wasting money." And I'm challenging some of your basic assumptions, such as the assumption that someone buying DVD's instead of gas or cigarettes is "more physically healthy and more of an environmentalist." These statements seem like quite a leap to me.

Asking about one person being "better" than another, based on your descriptions using words like "waste" or "bad" or "habit" or "compulsion," is just another way of challenging your assumptions about what is good or bad and and trying to find out if you mean what you say, or whether you're just being careless or sloppy with the words you use.

If someone tells me that I am "wasting my money" I don't think it's unreasonable to question whether or not they are making a value judgement, and suggesting that their own use of money is "superior," and that they, therefore, in whatever meaning you want to assign to the term, are superior. After all, there is a certain amount of self-righteousness in telling someone else that in buying this or that they are "wasting" their money. If nothing else, saying that someone is wasting his money is an assertion that you are a better judge of what constitutes a "waste" than he is, and hence, "smarter," or at least, without some other context, it is not unreasonable to take it this way.

kms_md

that's what i thought - i just wanted to be sure.
kms

The Ferret

Anyone who spends money buying dvds to look nice on their shelf deserves to be shot. They are wasting money and ultimately wasting precious air by living. If you buy dvds for possession purposes only you are without a doubt inferior to the rest of us who buy dvds to watch the movies. These people obviously do not have the ability to think logically and understand their stupidity. If the majority of people believe otherwise maybe I should be a dictator and lead this nation of morons. Don't even get me started on how dictatorship is better than democracy...

-Ferret A.K.A. Joel Stein wannabe

toddly6666

HERMES,

The act of collecting itself is already over-collecting and too much. Collecting and over-collecting are both the same thing...there is no such thing as under-collecting. If there was an under-collection, it wouldn't be a collection then!

I don't understand - isn't there an obvious physical health difference between DVDs versus Cigarettes? Do you question this theory due to the following situation:
a. someone that works out and exercises a lot, but smokes a pack of cigarettes a day.
OR
b. someone that buys a DVD a day, sits on their ass watching movies instead of working out, BUT doesn't smoke, drink, do drugs, or eat tons of food.

Who is healthier?

Money can be wasted without needing to compare it to how other people use it. If you live on a deserted island by yourself and throw your money into the sea, you are wasting money. Buying 100s of DVDs is wasting money. You are throwing money into the sea - no one is judging you though...If someone tells you, "You are wasting money." Then that's a judgement and that person thinks he is superior to you.

The reality of the topic is that people have money, they know they only live once, there are cool products out there, so people will feel they have to spend money to participate in life. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

I love this philosophical metaphysical conversation of DVD collecting..there should be a class on it! haha



DVD collectors are evil. All they care about is their DVD collections when there is suffering in the world such as in the Middle East and in Africa. A DVD collector is only a good person if he sends his DVDs to starving children in Zimbabwe...A DVD collector is only a good person if he sends his DVDs to Afghanistan. That's a true superior DVD collector.

meshershark

Exactly!

Whatever excess I pay per viewing compared to renting (calculated at disc-end-of-life or replacement) goes toward convenience and control. Those two things are neither inherently valueless nor inherently pathological.

Any money spent beyond necessities is by definition discretionary; if DVD spending encroaches on more vital expenses, only then could it be considered a problem. If you're eating baked beans every night and shivering in an unheated apartment but you buy 5 DVD's every month, that's probably unhealthy. If you have all the basics covered and buy 10 a month, I don't see much cause for concern.

As for DVD's as possessions, well, we live in a materialistic culture and place value on and derive satisfaction from owning. If you argue with that whole concept, then perhaps Marx and Engels should be the only authors on your spartan bookshelves. Not that there aren't negatives to our way of life, but if enjoying collections of material objects was such a problem we'd be in alot worse shape than we are.

rennervision

I probably own at least 600 DVDs (sorry, I don't count them on a regular basis as apparently some around here do) and I thought this guy's column was HILLARIOUS! How can I get mad and defensive when he has a good point? All I can do is sort of laugh at myself.

I mean, when my last shipment from DDD's summer 20% off sale arrived, I started to realize I was spending too much money on these things - DVDs that I would probably only watch once. (Heck, assuming I live long enough to watch all of them the first time. I'm starting to accumulate quite a backlog!)

I admit I like the convenience of being able to watch any movie I want whenever I want to, without having to drive to Blockbuster and rent it before someone else does. So I can justify it in that sense. But come on guys, this is why third-world countries hate America. We all live like extravagant millionaires compared to 80% of the world that would just like to have fresh water as opposed to a box of DVDs. (Before everyone jumps on me about the "validity" of my statistics, I'll admit right now I made them up.)

It's just a hobby. Plain and simple. It's supposed to be fun, and it's a shame when people take silly things like this guy's opinion so seriously they can't have a sense of humor about it!

Admit it guys. We're not going to watch "American Pie 4: Band Camp" enough times to break even in rentals!

hermes10

I'd never even heard of Joel Stein until I read this thread, and I couldn't care less about what he has to say about anything. My interest is in understanding the response of the people who posted in reply --people who come to a site focused on movies, DVDs, and HT. I find it interesting, if not alarming, to find that on such a site, there are people that actually think of buying or collecting things in terms of "right" and "wrong," have the idea that that buying more than a certain number of DVDs is somehow inappropriate ("a bit much" "a waste of money" "over collecting" etc), and are so plainly concerned with how other people spend their money.

As to how many times someone watches American Pie 4: it is irrelevant to the economics of purchasing DVDs. I don't have a "break even" with rentals based on how many times I watch a DVD. I buy DVDs that I don't even intend to watch --to take advatnage of a buy 2 get 2 free sale for instance. I usually sell the DVDs I don't want for something more than what I paid for the ones I wanted, with a net profit that makes my DVD watching nearly free. You're making assumptions about buying and renting DVDs that don't apply to anyone who pays attention to what they are doing.

gutwrencher

I see you have not been around here long. Brace yerself....this has been going on for years. I use to defend my library and the reasons and passions for having one. I don't bother much any longer because most people just don't get it. You're either serious about maintaining a private library of films...or you're not.

Steve Phillips

You should be spending your money on cigarettes, alcohol and gambling like normal people, not buying stupid DVDs.

xXBlackCrossXx

I agree with a lot of what he said, because I believe america is a pro consumerist society, constantly trying to make ourselves happy and entertain ourselves. However, I collect DVD's and always will. I feel guilty being such a hedonist, maybe that's what living in Los Angeles will do to you. Plus, renting sucks. I like having the convience of it. My dad is a book geek, he has tons and tons of books. I have more dvd's than books, but that's beecause I'm a film geek.

Someone should write him back and tell him you can make the same exact arguement for Books, because I'm sure he's a book elitist.

Yakuza Bengoshi

I don't think there's anything wrong with spending disposable income on DVDs or whatever other consumer goodies you like so long as you've set aside enough money for all your other needs (shelter, health care, education, transportation, food & clothing, retirement, emergency funds, etc.) and have no outstanding consumer debt. I just feel sorry for the poor saps who pile up credit card debt to pay for DVDs and other luxuries that they can't afford to pay off at the end of the month. Fortunately, I'm sure no one here is in that situation.

caiman

If I was living my life purely on necessity, I'd be living in a refrigerator box by an Arby's dumpster, wearing nothing but a potato sack and flaps of cardboard on my feet.

Luckily, that's not the way I'm living.

God bless DVDs.

xXBlackCrossXx

I found a used REAL GENIUS dvd in a Arby's dumpster. I love that movie! I also found a half eaten big montana.

jlm71176

My favorite is the part about selling off our DVDs on eBay. To whom, Joel? To whom?

Kinda undercuts the message of the piece since they're just getting bought up by someone else.

Anyway, I read the article and took it as 70% goof, 30% legit.

Toben

Used for what?

bunkaroo

I didn't take offense to the article, but recognized it's written by someone who is fairly clueless.

Like others have said, I have my collection for convenience. I have about 100 core films that I will always own no matter what, and the rest are there for when I don't want to watch LOTR again...yet. I also keep films around I haven't seen before. I always have something new to watch, so when the urge strikes, I don't have to wait.

According to this guy, when I feel like seeing an indie film from three years ago, I should go rent it at one of the B&M rental shops that probably won't have it, or wait a week for it from Netflix. Sorry, I find it much easier to buy it when it comes out (on sale), and have it ready.

To be honest, the biggest deterrent from watching films is TV on DVD. It's like crack.

I spent 3 days getting through Lost S1, where I could have easily watched 8-10 films in that time. Not that I regret it.

And I also think it is possible to experience some of the same feelings you had when first experiencing a film. I always feel something at the end of Shawshank Redemption. Watching LOTR is extremely satisfying, as I had the fortune of being able to spend two weeks in New Zealand last year. Star Wars helps me completely disconnect from whatever "adult" worries I have. What's wrong with that?

I guess this "twit" just needed something to write about. No one should care what this guy says. So what if people get off on buying stuff without ever using it? To each their own. I've always been a collector of something, from toys as a kid to cassettes to CD's to DVD's, etc. If you enjoy something, do it.

rmick

I don't take any offense to this article. As many people on this forum can admit, I'm an addict. My order from Amazon just arrived on Monday, which I have no time to watch a full season of Arrested Devolopment, Veronica Mars, The Fly, and Me and You and Everyone We Know, along with all the things in my collection I still haven't watched. And yet, I'm disappointed that my order this week hasn't shipped with Batman Begins, the Batman Anthology, and Land of the Dead. Do I need these discs now when I have absolutely no time to watch them? Of course not. Couldn't I just rewatch one of the other DVDs I own? Of course. And yet I continue to buy. Continue to watch my collection grow as the time I have to watch it shrinks and shrinks. In highschool, I had the time to watch every DVD I had along with all the extras. Now that I'm in my first year of law school, I'm lucky if I can watch a full disc in a week, let alone get through the extras. So why do I collect? Why don't I just rent when I have the time? Mostly because it's convenient to have what I want to watch when I want to watch it (unless I'm waiting for new releases). I like looking at my DVD shelf and knowing I have a collection of movies I like that I can watch whenever I want. Is it aesthetically pleasing? Of course. Do I like to show it off to people? Of course. Do I like lending my discs out? Only to my girlfriend. These arguments about health and habits? Who really cares. Some people walk on the treadmill while they watch. And who says DVDs don't pollute. We're all on this forum because we enjoy DVDs and want to share information, our tastes, as well as our collections.

DodgingCars

I think he makes some valid points. I've questioned my collection on several occasions. I purge it every so often because I know there are films in there that I don't really "need." I rent a lot more now (Netflix), but I still like to own certain titles because I want to be able to watch them when I want to -- it's about convience. I also like to share my movies with friends and family.

I also own several books. I buy books because it more convienient for me to buy a used book than to try to get it from the library. I often sell or donate my books after I had them for awhile and don't think I'll revisit them. I tend to hold on to "reference" works though.