i don't consider myself a very nostalgic person. i don't think there's inherent sanctity in the video rental store or the mall or the nickel arcade or even the web 1.0 landscape that microwaved my pre-teen brain and turned me strange. i don't think any fond feelings i have for any of those things represent a lost cultural ethos or that their reproductions would be superior to their replacements...
but i DO think their replacements, through streamlining and centralization, have created an void of exploration and tangibility. i don't want to mistake my desire to go somewhere and hold something as a desire to have blockbuster video back. but i do, very much, want to go somewhere and hold something. and i'm not a sociologist, i'm just some guy, but i think it's normal for people to enjoy rituals of preparation. idk, like... making pourover from whole bean coffee.
we have less of those now. and i think that instead of trying to get the old ones back, maybe we should be persuing new ones. real or simulated.
some corollary thoughts:
-the public library, the indie movie theater, the record store, cafes, and tbh even the nickel arcade are still around and still wonderful places to go.
-vr makes streaming more experiential! me and my partner watched a movie in vrc last weekend, and it felt really special adding a (simulated) tangible space to a remote experience. i've watched twitch streams and had listening parties over vr and i always end those nights on a high. one of the things i really love about vr is that it turns interfaces into a place you go. i live for that shit.
-the first week of pokémon go was a uniting force between me and my neighbors. a new tangible experience brought us all to the town square. i haven't played it since, but it was magical.
-sits in my chair backwards like a youth pastor have you heard the good news about birding? people have been doing it for a century and a half, but new interfaces like ebird have made finding new birds, birders, and hotspots so much easier than it used to be. birding in the modern day is more exploratory and experiential now than it has ever been before, and having community science resources at your fingertips means that when you participate you are contributing to a free, evolving, publicly accessible global database. you are creating the modern range map. if you liked pokémon go, this is that turned up to 11.

