The Comfort of Physical Media

“Your library is your paradise.”

— Erasmus

JRR Tolkien's painting of Smaug
on his gold, with “invisible” Bilbo.

A host of recent news stories, think-tank surveys, and academic studies focus on the phenomenon of younger generations preferring physical media rather than the supposed cornucopia of digital delights. Many examine this trend in Generation Z (roughly those born from 1997–2012), though I can attest from personal experience old curmudgeons like me, relics of the last century, can also cling to our physical media like jealous dragons on piles of gold. It’s a strange phenomenon for those living in a century flooded with electronic media of all kind, often to the detriment of old, more reliable, more vetted formats (such as print magazines and newspapers). For some it’s resistance to, if not an outright revolt against, an increasingly corporate urge to sell subscription services rather than actual product one can own and put on their shelf; electronic products companies can withdraw for whatever reason, even after consumers have paid for them. For others it’s convenience of access. And some prefer the ability to display physical media in their spaces as an expression of their personal interests. Society keeps imposing on us to adapt to new developments and technologies — even if they prove detrimental to our lives and world, like data centers and artificial intelligence — yet preserving “the old ways” has its benefits on the individual level.

I’ve indulged in physical media since my youth, when everyday access to an internet was only a dream. I collected a host of media that engaged my interests: roleplaying game books, boxed board and wargames, sci-fi and fantasy novels, a few comic book series, records and audio tapes, VHS tapes, compact audio discs, DVDs, and computer games (remember ancient 5.25 floppy disks?). As technology has advanced my enjoyment has come to rely on devices to interface with the more electronic formats of physical media, such as record and tape players, VCRs, DVD players. Yet still I actually owned this media and the devices on which I accessed it. Over the years I’ve added to my various collections, some more than others; I’ve culled some of them as my interests changed, often finding used bookstores to trade in unwanted media for new, gently used titles. While I haven’t moved too often, I’ve moved enough to know packing and porting all that physical media, and the interface devices to use some of it, takes an awful lot of effort. But I know all this physical media is mine. I know where it lives on the shelves and can peruse it and choose it on a whim, without powering up a device to search for files, without needing any link to the internet, without waiting for it to become available on some streaming service.

Many in Gen Z grew up with and have an amazing fluency with electronic media, yet possess a greater affinity for physical media for a number of reasons, most of which I understand. They like the concept of ownership, of having control over things they purchase with no strings attached to corporations that seek to nickel-and-dime them at every turn for stuff they own. Many enjoy the tactile nature of the media, the ability to hold it, peruse it, control it directly. They may take pride in displaying it in their spaces, as a means of defining their interests or their selves. Some relish the hunt for it, visiting physical stores, used bookstores, hobby stores, and other places in their pursuit of media. Many have become weary and even sick of our current electronic age’s focus on immediate delivery and consumption of digital content...and the increasing, insistent cost of it.

Certainly access to electronic media and the internet have improved aspects of our lives. I rely on it for online game publishing. Artists of all kinds have a place to highlight their work. Social medial platforms have allowed creators to reach a wider audience. We bank online and pay our bills through internet interfaces. We seek out information, from silly memes and interesting recipes to job leads, living arrangements, educational opportunities, and world news. People can make friends and keep in touch and discuss issues about their interests with a speed and quality unknown before. Our connectivity to the outside world — to online chats, video conferencing, streaming movies, online gaming — helped our society manage through the covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and voluntary isolation, informing and entertaining us in uncertain times. But much of it depends on others to provide these services, others who quite often have more avaricious capitalist aims. I know technology has improved our lives over the past quarter-century, but with every improvement it seems we suffer more abuses and setbacks in the name of boundless capitalistic profit for the few.

The internet and online media continue running off in all directions as we stumble through the first half of the 21st century. The amount of content has only increased exponentially over the years, expanding our access to information and entertainment and numerous resources; but it increasingly overwhelms us and saddles us with frequent demands to pay for it all...like some insidious addictive drug. And still much on the internet remains fleeting. The websites and forums we enjoyed years ago have faded in the face of social media platforms. Documents we remember no longer exist in free online spaces. Platforms remove texts and songs and videos we want. It seems like it’s become an acceptable capitalistic practice to offer something for free, then, if popular or useful, pull it from public access and charge money for it, offering “the first does is free” in a bait-and-switch tactic preying on users’ developed reliance. These advances seem like a cornucopia of benefits and improvements in our live — and in many aspects they are — but with a layer of corporate abuse lurking just below the surface like some sinister Cthulhoid menace just waiting to consume our souls for a passing snack.

Am I glad online media exists? Of course, both as a consumer and a creator. Am I worried platform owners will restrict or remove access to material and services I like? Totally. That’s the devil’s bargain we make when we invest ourselves in ultimately ephemeral and temperamental online electronic media we pay for but don’t own.

In our exceedingly out-of-control Electronic Age we sometimes find comfort in the relative permanence of physical media: books, games, music, movies. As we find the online media we enjoy disappearing, or hiding behind subscription paywalls, we seek something more reliable, more permanent, more meaningful. Nobody distant, outside force can mess with our physical media, nobody can remotely track our use of it, nobody can alter it or remove it from our access. Yes, physical media has its own limitations and susceptibility to adverse conditions like clutter, flood, and fire, as well as the burden of hauling books and records and videos and CDs and DVDs around from one rented dwelling to another, until some of us lucky ones manage to afford a house with a mortgage.

I am often reminded, and recall in this specific instance, the writer Umberto Eco’s view of books — and arguably other physical media we own — as medications that help us manage through our increasingly difficult existences: “We understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment.” In these times we need all the help we can get; we rarely find it outside ourselves, so it’s up to us to provide for our own care.

Perhaps our preference for physical media is a response to, even a rejection of trends in society toward electronic everything easily accessible through the internet...until it isn’t. I’d like to claim my resistance to electronic media is my personal revolution against the abusive subscription-based future billionaire tech-bros are shoving down our throats. But really, it’s just who I am, an old curmudgeon left over from the previous century, ever-reluctant to adapt to the “progress” profiteers promote for their own benefit at the overall detriment to society.

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

— Cicero