The Death Of TVC At Brick And Mortar Makes Me Sad

I've always been a technophile. I tend to be an early adopter, even when it's risky. I was in on both DVD and Blu-Ray before their respective format wars were settled. To think, I was this close to being on the Betamax side of the equation. When I was a punk teenager, I would extol the virtues of the near antiseptic clarity of compact discs. The old timers, who were younger then than I am now, would scoff. They preferred their vinyl with it's pops and hisses. They called it "warmth." I called it crazy. I argued it was just what they were accustomed to. There was no upside to an objectively inferior thing. While I still hold to that as a general axiom, I can kind of see their point now.

So many things are immeasurably better now than when I was a kid. Take streaming supplanting broadcast television, for example. When I was a young kid, if you missed something as it aired, you missed it period. There was no second chance. Later, VCR's came along to remedy some of that, but you needed to remember to set them, and a PhD to program them. Streaming is objectively better. To be able to watch what you want, when you want is the equivalent of the advancement from horse and buggy to the automobile. But we lost something in the exchange. There was something communal with broadcast television. Even though you and your friends all retired to your individual houses, you knew you were all watching the premiere of Airwolf, or Knight Rider, or The Dukes of Hazard, or Alf together. Then you'd all discuss it the next day at school or when you were out playing. Woe betide the kid who had missed it.

So things are better now, but it has cost us something. It's trite and easy to say that something is "humanity", but there is a spec of truth to it. With respect to the subject of this article, Family Guy has a great line about the takeover of online shopping:

Most of what America is now is just boxes going back and forth.

-Stewie Griffin

As with streaming, online shopping for our action figures is exponentially more convenient. With the recent Snowtrooper, I was able to log in from the comfort of my couch as soon as the pre-orders went live. I ordered my instant army in about three total minutes. Easy peasy. In the old brick and mortar model, it would have been daily toy runs to include weekends, many of which would be fruitless. Toy runs can be fun, but they can also slide into "chore" territory when you're hunting down that one thing day after day. This new model is so much better, and aside from not being able to inspect the paint apps beforehand, there's not much of an argument against it. But we lost a little something in the change over.

For me, and I think a lot of us, that "something" is nostalgia. Going to the toy store was one of the biggest thrills of my childhood. There was that amazing anticipation as you rounded the last corner before the Star Wars section to see if there was something new. And in the vintage Kenner era, there often was. Those "walls of figures" pictures you see on the socials were real. 48 figure cases helped that a lot. My go to store usually kept their Star Wars figures on a spinner rack. That shopping experience was such a thrill for me that, even as a kid, I would fantasize about having a spinner rack in my house loaded with mint-on-card figures.

As an adult, nothing brings me back to those feelings of my childhood more than finding the latest figures at my local brick and mortar store. Whenever I turn down the aisle and can see there are new figures on the pegs, my pace quickens with excitement (even when I know it's a dud case). Sadly, those days are getting further and further between to the point of being almost non-existent now. My stores are content to let the Vintage Collection pegs sit empty these days (this used to be considered the greatest retail sin). The brick and mortar model just doesn't make a lot of sense anymore, and there is very little to incentivize stores to invest in TVC. The new e-tail model is objectively (not subjectively) lightyears better, but it doesn't make me any less sad that the old ways are dying. But "it is what it is." It's time to move on.

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