March 4, 2026 | Belen Ponce Leal | Lifestyle Editor
I remember sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car with my older sister. We had this circular metal thing that, when a CD was placed inside, we could plug in some headphones and listen to the songs that were on that disc. We shared headphones and listened to whatever we had available to us, my favorite being the soundtrack to a telenovela called “Rebelde.” Aside from my musical taste at the time, we also had a lot of DVD movies around the house. Every year, the collection would slowly get bigger. I got cartoons, my mom got comedy movies, my sister got the annual trendy flicks and my dad got those old cowboy films.
Then, throughout my adolescence, media slowly transitioned from physical discs to streaming services and subscriptions that wanted credit card information. It was kind of nice in the sense that we no longer had to make space for all the movies and music we wanted to collect and available on our televisions, laptops and phones. However, convenience isn’t always a good thing — especially when things can be taken away from the consumer at any time.
Generation Z, which I am a part of, has been part of a movement where many of us are gravitating towards physical media instead of digital. According to an article from the Los Angeles Times, physical media sales dropped 9% in 2025, which is much less than the reported over 20% drops that happened in 2023 and 2024. DVDs and Blu-rays have been a big purchasing point with many Gen Z consumers, which drives business for video rental stores. This trend has been a curious rabbit hole to discover and understand the reason for this remembrance of a want for physical media.
Cognitive Overload — Streaming services can be really nice to have, yet they don’t come without their negatives. Subscription-based platforms can vary in price, with the most expensive having more options. However, the infinite choice of all the available entertainment can be enticing. There are so many options and only a one-time monthly payment that could be the same price as buying one movie. So what could be a possible disadvantage?
With being able to have access to a large collection of movies and television shows online, it can lead to choice paralysis. Think of it as overloading the brain — there are so many options that it makes it impossible to choose something to watch. The YouTube channel Fuzz Culture said it best: “You open an app for a dopamine hit, and you end up doing mental admin work. You pick up your phone, scroll for 20 minutes, pick nothing and still end up drained.”
In comparison, when people would go to stores and pick out a movie to buy, it was a much smoother process. Someone looked through the giant shelves of movies, handpicking them and making the process much more personal since it was a physical decision to grab it out of all the others. The choice to watch it came when it was purchased, and it was much more likely to be watched after going home.
The emotional side — There is a sort of personal attachment one feels when purchasing and owning the physical copy of a form of media, whether it be art, music, books or movies. My mom always used to say that she could learn a lot about a person by their collection of cassette tapes and CDs.
There is also a nostalgia element in place here. There’s a sort of indie feel to a lot of stores that sell older forms of media such as vinyls, cassette tapes, CDs and DVDs. Many stores have this feeling to them, a cozy environment that brings a casual hangout vibe to the place. These types of places are a sought-after location for many post-pandemic people who need new communities. Bookstores, for example, are a good place to go because they are not only low-cost most of the time, but they also tend to have places to sit and gather.
However, it is much more than a simple trend Generation Z is following. We as humans bond with what we can touch. It’s intimate and tells a story about the person who owns these forms of media. Personally, there’s no greater smell than that of a freshly bought book or a video game disc. Being able to physically turn the pages of my copy of “Jane Eyre” or insert my copy of “Sour” by Oliva Rodrigo into my car provides me a sense of independence that I don’t have to rely on some subscription based platform to have access.
Unreliability of digital media — Many users of subscription services know the pain of realizing that the show or movie they enjoyed watching was removed from the platform without anything they can do. The streaming service can, at any time, remove something from the platform for many reasons. Usually, there is a license they have to get from producers or distributors of the movie or show. There’s some sort of money that both parties get from it, and should the content not perform well enough on the service, or even if they just don’t feel like having it there anymore, the movie or show gets removed.
The Los Angeles Times interviewed a woman named Lauren about her decision to buy physical copies of movies. She responded by saying, “If something gets deleted off an online platform, I will still be able to watch it because I have a physical copy. … It feels really precious to be able to own things physically and not be at the mercy of studios’ financial decisions.’”
It isn’t just streaming services that cause issues with digital media, though; the gaming industry has been having a big issue with digital games. In March of 2024, the servers for a popular racing game, “The Crew,” went dark and made all copies of the game, both physical and digital, completely unplayable. Two owners of the game sued Ubisoft, the publisher of that game, because they purchased the product believing that it gave them unlimited access to it. However, Ubisoft has gone on record saying that purchasing a game doesn’t give the buyer ownership rights to it. It is only a “limited licence to access the game.”
This situation then started a whole movement known as “Stop Killing Games.” This movement, launched by YouTuber Ross Scott, aims to “challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers.”
When video games are sold, they aren’t given a clear label or “expiration date.” They are sold the same way that physical game copies have always been sold, without a clear notice about the potential for the game to eventually stop working. This movement was based in Europe and ended up getting over 1.3 million signatures on their petition, which forced the issue to be considered by the European Union.
The current state of Stop Killing Games is that it is establishing two official non-governmental organizations, with one based in the European Union and another in the United States. While Scott has decided to mostly let Mortiz Katzner, a political strategist, take the lead of the initiative going forward, he will still be involved. Scott also acknowledges that he isn’t sure how much change the groups that are being created will bring, especially in the U.S. market, but he is optimistic about at least raising awareness of this issue.
Gen Z is a very nostalgia-driven community. All of us enjoy reminiscing about our childhoods and are often very anti-capitalist. Collecting physical media can be seen as much more than us simply following a trend — it is us as a generation reclaiming our individuality. Considering that we are in an area where digital media is not only unstable and inconsistent across platforms, there is also so much generative AI and brain-rot sort of entertainment that can really be mentally exhausting. So, I will be saving up for a DVD player and will be going home to collect all of the old Barbie movies sitting in the garage of my mom’s house.
Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu
