Jan 5 2009Tell Your Grandparents: VHS Is Officially Dead
Well folks, it's official: VHS is dead. Let your grandparents down easy. And also, try to hint about fumigating their place -- it smells like old people and socks in there.
Even though most of us probably thought it was already long gone, its death certificate was signed when Distribution Video Audio of Palm Harbor, Fla. -- the last major supplier of VHS tapes -- shipped the last of its salable stock. Distribution Video Audio made $20 million per year selling tons of tapes cheaply, but now the business has vanished.
*sniffle* God, it seems like only yesterday I was recording the scrambled Cinemax channel, hoping to catch a glimpse of a fuzzy boob. Ha, but it was, in fact, two days ago. Anybody wanna go through the tape with me?
RIP, VHS [msn]
Thanks to Bryan, whose dad bought 5 VCRs a few years ago because the man was smart enough to realize technology is cyclical.
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Reader Comments
1. Tricky Ricky - January 5, 2009 3:17 PM
First...I think ???
2. Mvivanc - January 5, 2009 3:21 PM
You doubted a lot. It is like this
FIRSTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3. Thumperchica - January 5, 2009 3:23 PM
Oh the irony, I was cleaning out my misc. crap drawers the other day and found 6 VHS tapes... I still didn't throw them out... It's only dead if we forget, NEVER FORGET
4. Greg - January 5, 2009 3:27 PM
OLD!
5. Captain Walker - January 5, 2009 3:28 PM
All of you born after the eighties - you missed everything. I can't imagine what that must be like.
6. known - January 5, 2009 3:30 PM
VHS isn't officially dead until every VHS player stops working, and I have about 15 movies on VHS that I won't get rid of until they're digitized on a plastic disc. None of it's pron either since you're probably thinking that, all of that is on my computer at work
7. gizmoduck - January 5, 2009 3:35 PM
i need to organize my VHS alphabetically tonight.
i'm so ronely
8. B - January 5, 2009 3:38 PM
But, I only JUST taught my grandmother how to use a VCR 5 years ago!
9. C-Basstian - January 5, 2009 3:41 PM
hell ya bitches its all about the mutha f***in laser disk!
10. Timbo - January 5, 2009 3:44 PM
Dvd is dead! It's all going to Ipuds and those fancy type media players.
11. Ollie Williams - January 5, 2009 3:45 PM
As long as 8-tracks don't go out of style, I'm good to go.
12. Thumperchica - January 5, 2009 3:54 PM
@6 - Mine isn't pr0n either, unless you count Orgasmo...
13. Gareth - January 5, 2009 3:55 PM
VHS may be dead, but I've managed to buy a huge number of video tapes in the last year. It's a great way to watch movies that I never made the effort to watch previously. I bought Fight Club, Billy Elliot and War Games for 25 UK pence each last week.
14. Douche McAllister - January 5, 2009 3:56 PM
@12 I remember fishing Orgasmo out of the $5 bin at Wal-mart. Damn, I really miss the super cheap VHS bin.
15. Robin Bonin - January 5, 2009 3:59 PM
Apparently VHS is still going string in Germany, so it's not dead yet.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=VHS
16. csomak - January 5, 2009 4:04 PM
hey, i dont know where to say this, but this site needs a random articles page, what generates random articles from archive every time.
i'm checking this site 5 times a day for a new article, so when nothing new is here, i would find something new or funny for me again :)
17. paineel - January 5, 2009 4:05 PM
looks like someone found my porno stash
18. Jake - January 5, 2009 4:08 PM
It's NOT dead...one LA Times reporter interviews one particular distributor and everyone on the web decides its law.
Still blank tapes being made, still titles being distributed, still decks being built, how is this dead?
Makes a story that everyone clicks on though...
19. Elmo - January 5, 2009 4:13 PM
I still have hundreds of vhs tapes, and I'm only a teenager
what the f*** am I going to play them on if my vcr breaks?! will they stop selling those to? now I feel even MORE lame....
20. known - January 5, 2009 4:37 PM
#19: Looks like you should start learning Deutsche so you can understand ads like this:
Wir reparieren VCR!!
Alle Marken, alle Modelle.
WIR REPARIEREN GEBROCHENE VCR SPIELER
M-F 0700-1900
(49) +01 82 9234920
GLOCKENSPEIL!!
21. gizmoduck - January 5, 2009 4:46 PM
boosh
22. enigma - January 5, 2009 4:58 PM
Hey Folks, hate to burst your bubble, but VHS stands for Volkshochschule in German, which is like community classes. Has nothing to do with plastic videos.
23. Elmo - January 5, 2009 5:31 PM
@20
I am not a German dou'shnbag
24. known - January 5, 2009 5:41 PM
#23: Then take good care of your VCR and collection of videos
25. Daisy - January 5, 2009 6:47 PM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete Photoshop job. You can tell its a fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene in the movie Never Back Down where Max drives 1800 miles to intercept a videotape that he mistakenly mailed to Baja.
26. Pew³ - January 5, 2009 6:53 PM
Well, I guess if VHS is dead, I'll start investing in HDDVD...zing!!!
Woops! Too soon?
27. Adri Leya - January 5, 2009 7:49 PM
Damn, that's weird. Our generation is finally seeing the disintegration of what used to be a fixture of our childhood! And let's face it, some of BEST movies are VHS - my Back to the Future Trilogy, for example. And my 70's pron collection.
28. Spam Artist - January 5, 2009 11:07 PM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete photoshop job. You can tell its fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene from the movie Tender Dracula where Dracula buys people's experiences so that he can watch them with a neat pair of glasses. One disk he buys has a bunch of over dubbed french people being murdered by some cops, Dracula throws up and then meets with a strong woman who beats him up.
29. Angel Mass - January 6, 2009 2:39 AM
VHS what? what was that, do they find a cure for AIDS?
30. ha - January 7, 2009 9:44 PM
way to rip off a 30 Rock joke. The Pager King.
31. Brenda - January 13, 2009 11:52 AM
Well, you've managed to generate quite a conversation here and I do not for a minute doubt that there are rooms like the one in the photo! (Actually, I have seen similar photos on sites like Flikr.)
I do think VHS is dead, in a sense. Once they stop making them...people have to collect them though! I have actually written a page about the care and collecting of VHS tapes at http://www.squidoo.com/rareVHStapes and it receives a small but steady stream of visitors. I also sell rare titles on eBay those ones going mostly to people who want a title that is not and may never be available on DVD or Blu-ray. Occasionally, I think I sell a couple to someone who is simply taking advantage of the affordability of VHS or who has not upgraded to DVD yet.
Brenda