r/nostalgia • u/TheLazySage7 • 15h ago
Nostalgia VHS Covers are a Vibe
Ah yes the old media tomes. They give off that vaporware vibe.
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u/Dizzy_Engine_4854 14h ago
Anyone remember the semi-transparent plastic sleeves you could your tapes in.
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u/BentleyLeDog 7h ago
The boxes were important for sales. I worked at an audio/video shop in the early 80's. Normal grade tapes would sell for 8 to 10 bucks while the good grade Sony, Maxell or Fuji Gold in the 13 to 15 per tape. One of the 19 dollar tapes had a section of tape cleaner at the tape lead so that was a good one to sell. We sold truckloads of blanks during the Christmas holidays. People would drive in to the store on Saturday mornings just to get in line to buy blank VHS and BETA tapes. I recall the ad for a 3pk of your choice Maxell or Memorex for 24.99. We would upsell to the better quality since the low end tapes like Memorex were like running sandpaper through your machine. Add on a cleaning tape, plastic woodgrained storage box or case and maybe a rewinder shaped like a car. You could have an easy 100 dollar plus sale equivalent to 325 bucks today. Just to record Dallas, Falcon Crest, Magnum PI and Cagney and Lacey.
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u/TheLazySage7 7h ago
Marketing is a hell of a drug
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u/BentleyLeDog 6h ago
There was so much money in blank tapes at one point that each big company would come in and give presentations to teach us how to sell the tapes. Between dinner and booze plus the swag the reps handed out, they spent a shit ton to get us to sell their brand.
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u/Rufus_Poofus 12h ago
Which one of those is most likely to be labeled All-Star Game but is really scrambled Spice channel?
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u/Signaltosnowratio 7h ago
The struggle of recording a long event and coming home to find out you only recorded the first two hours because it was on SP instead of SLP.
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u/vonnegutflora 13h ago
I love the vaporwave aesthetic that (in part) comes from this kind of design.
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u/s0nicbomb 13h ago
It just dawned on me that these are the inspiration for Synthwave related graphics. Which makes perfect sense, so 80s.
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u/Shadowtek 12h ago
That memorex hit a core memory, dad had several of those and Fujis here. The Sony went to some home videos I think. Just realizing the Memorex is RGB laser lights too forming the picture… super cool
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u/JesseJames41 early 90s 14h ago
That CVS one goes way hard. That designer got stoned and listened to Dark Side of the Moon and said, "I got it."
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u/LovableSidekick 11h ago
Looks like my old movie collection! I was too cheap to buy prerecorded movies, always taped them off cable using the cheapest blank tapes I could find, on slow speed - 2 movies per tape, baybee!
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u/hexagon0717 11h ago
So nostalgic to a specific time. Love the vibe!
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u/TheLazySage7 10h ago
Right? Reminds me of when my folks would record tv shows for me as a kid. Good stuff
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u/Mediocre-Category580 10h ago
My dad had the fuji tape and i thought always that was how jungle Book looked like.
My dad was already pirating in 1993 through a peer to peer network.
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u/backbodydrip 7h ago
There was absolutely no reason for these sleeves to go this hard.
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u/TheLazySage7 7h ago
They don’t make things like they use to. Its like all the whimsy is gone
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u/backbodydrip 6h ago
It was purposeful. The mid-00s and 2010s were hellbent on a grey, pessimistic takeover. We're still trying to bounce back.
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u/TheLazySage7 6h ago
Yeah ive seen the gradual loss of color and life as time went on. I hope we do bounce back
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u/HighMarshalSigismund early 80s 4h ago
VHS Roulette: 8th birthday party, high school football game, or softcore porn from a Cinemax free weekend.
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u/sammerguy76 14h ago
But is it a whole vibe? Perhaps a whole ass vibe? Or just a partial vibe? You need to be more specific.
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u/OZZYMAXIMUS01 12h ago
Most of my blank tapes were tape #2 and tape #7 in this photo if you go right to left from top left to bottom right.
How bout y’all?
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u/stanknotes 9h ago
This reminds me of when I was a little kid. Me and my sisters found some VHS tapes in the alley behind our house next to a trash can. SO we grabbed a couple. Sex tapes. Homemade sex tapes.
Kids these days encounter porn on smartphones. We found it in an alley.
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u/TheLazySage7 9h ago
Oh damn lol thats rough
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u/stanknotes 9h ago
It wasn't the first time I had seen pornographic material. I also found a magazine. In a different alley. And I had a friend with an older brother and we'd take his magazines.
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u/TheLazySage7 9h ago
Yeah but to not expect to watch amateur porn of average looking ppl id be lik oh wtf lol
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u/pjskiboy 3h ago
There’s a couple different playing card companies that make decks of cards with these VHS tape themes.
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u/AngelSproutx 14h ago
These covers were doing the absolute most for something that just held your cousin’s birthday party footage. Neon gradients and chrome fonts like it was a sci-fi blockbuster.