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Ten years after the last video recorder manufacturer ceased production, the first straight-to-video movie for two decades – This Is How the World Ends – was released this month. The resurgence of vinyl began long ago; sales are at their highest level for over 30 years. But record buyers enthuse about the warmth of their sound and the generous visual expanse of album covers. In contrast, the new movie is shot in HD; the director acknowledges that those watching it on video will see a cropped, fuzzier image. The point of the exercise – beyond creating a buzz – lies not in the inherent qualities of VHS, but the effect of its rarity on the viewer.
When everything is available in high definition with one swipe of your screen, cumbersome physical formats that must be hunted down appear both nostalgically inviting and strikingly fresh. Last year, Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl was released in multiple physical formats, including cassette and CD – technically digital, but also enjoying a revival thanks to its retro feel. The title track of her previous album, The Tortured Poets Department, mocked a lover’s attachment to his typewriter, notoriously favoured by hipsters.
Older adults may yearn for their past (as in last year’s BBC drama Mix Tape). Younger consumers are seizing on formats that are new to them and the novel allure of an offline world. These media are often “presented as the remedy for our digital ailment” – in contrast to new technologies depicted as “addictive, unnatural, unhealthy and harmful” – writes the communications lecturer ARE Taylor in The Analogue Idyll, a new book that he has edited. This year’s vogue for the “analogue bag”, containing items such as physical books and craft materials, is all about cutting screen time. Weekends away are marketed as digital detoxes. In the US, parenting influencers have boasted of turning back to VHS, not only to avoid inappropriate algorithmic recommendations, but also to teach patience.
In the age of AI, the yearning for the tangible, the imperfect and the human is especially potent. Unease at big tech’s exploitation of consumers is evident not only in the desire to own rather than lease songs, movies and books, but also the broader revolt against relentless optimisation and convenience. Vinyl “was more fun precisely because it was less efficient”, says David Sax in his 2016 book The Revenge of Analog. Listeners must cherish the easily damaged format and can’t skip or rearrange tracks without hovering over the record player. The music commands attention instead of fading into the background.
Yet businesses have found fresh opportunities in the backlash to the new and shiny. In 2023, Kodak released its first Super 8 camera for over three decades – with an LCD display and SD card. Apps make iPhone photos resemble old Polaroids. And This Is How the World Ends will ultimately be streamed.
The remark by the film’s director, Robert dos Santos, that for now “you need to be part of the club to watch this” will suggest to some a refreshing willingness to make demands on the audience and embrace the weird – rejecting the beigification of culture. Others will hear the old desire to distinguish oneself with rarefied consumption. There is plenty to enjoy in the analogue. But as Dr Taylor’s new book reminds us, old-fashioned formats are no more “authentic” than the digital ones – and individual consumer choices to retreat from the online world won’t fix its problems.
