Recently I had the pleasure of watching a video recording of Jackson Browne and his ensemble performing "The Load-Out" and "Stay" live in concert. And while it was thoroughly goosebump worthy, as it should be, it did throw me off a bit.
According to the caption the video was recorded in 1978, which majorly shifted my understanding of our cultural history.
You see, there's the line in "The Load-Out" about how on the bus they have "Richard Pryor on the video". And while that didn't seem all that significant while listening to the song in the 80s and 90s when VCRs were everywhere, knowing now that Jackson Browne had a VCR on a moving vehicle in the late 70s and not sometime in the mid 80s like I always thought is a little more surprising.
Because if the song was older than I thought that meant so were VCRs.
By like, a lot.
Well a lot in tech years, anyway. We all know how fast that stuff moves.
I had questions, so I did what any nerd does in those circumstances. I looked up the answers.
1976.
While there were other video home video recording devices available earlier, the first home VCR as most people know them became available the same year America turned 200.
It wasn't an American product, but we sure adopted it pretty quick. By the mid 80s they were so ubiquitous that they were standard parts of TV sitcom plots and comedians were making jokes about Boomer parents needing their 6 year olds to work the controls for them.
And then just like that, they were gone.
The first DVD player was released in 1997, just over 20 years later, and it quickly took over. Some folks held out for awhile and others had both, but by 2010 VCR sales had steeply declined. Production of VHS format VCRs stopped in 2016.
40 years.
While VHS tapes and tape players still exist and collecting them is even kind of a hobby thing now, the commercial production of home VCRs and VHS tapes only lasted 40 years.
It seems so strange that something that ingrained in our lives came and went that fast, but it did. Lots of Gen X folks, not to mention the Boomers, were born before VCRs even existed and are still here now after they're gone.
And we didn't even notice it happening. The days just flew by and then one day we looked up and realized we hadn't even seen a VCR in years.
And now we're pretty close to the same thing happening to the DVDs that replaced them.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
What other changes are going by unnoticed? What else is slipping away as we battle traffic and groceries and worry about the light bill?
Maybe it's time to slow down a little and take a look around at what's still left.
Because we might not have it much longer.
Image is of a Sanyo VCR circa 1984 taken by Andy Himmer Cincinnati and provided by Wikimedia Commons