This Mom Telling Her Daughter She's Not Getting Rid of her CDs is Awesome

As a 30-year-old, I grew up during the final days of physical media. If I try hard enough, I can still hear the pop of a plastic VHS case and the grind of the rewinding machine. New Year's Eve for the new Millennium I was at party at my mom's friend's house and was blown away by their DVD collection and big screen TV that was a solid two-to-three feet deep. Very impressive for 1999.

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Over the next few years, I grew my own collection. The first DVDs I remember owning were used ones from Blockbuster and other smaller independent rental places. For a brief moment, I switched to HD-DVDs (my dad got a free HD-DVD player with a 52 inch Sony Bravia in 2008) before they lost the format war to Blu-Ray.

For music, cassettes were still around, but definitely on their way out. CDs were king. Stunt by Barenaked Ladies is the first one I remember wanting and getting. I'm pretty sure I had two copies (s/o divorce). Of course, Hit Clips had their time (about 45 seconds). Like other kids my age, I had a CD case to bring upwards of 120 songs with me on a trip, but some of the real Richy-Riches of the early 2000s had full-on zipper-binders to store their CDs. If you were from the Rockefeller bloodline, you might've even had one with your DVDs for a portable DVD player on field trips.

As I got older, things progressed to streaming. I'm responsible for killing at least two laptops with Limewire for my video iPod which was my BIG Christmas '05 gift. In high school, I still used that iPod (until it got stolen), but with a mini-van that had an 8-CD changer that my dad installed when it was his, I still played CDs in the late 2000s and early 2010. Then in 2016, when I had my Grand Cherokee with a 6-disc changer, I had a little CD Renaissance. There's a copy of Currents by Tame Impala in a shoe box somewhere in the basement.

I still bought DVDs and Blu-Rays regularly until like 2018. I have two full storage totes downstairs that I haven't touched since moving into my current place, but I have zero intention of getting rid of them in case the internet ever goes down. Movies come off streaming services all the time. This way you have it forever. PIus, I'm a collector. I took pride in my collection of classic comedies, rom coms, and the occasional action flick. I'm not just gonna throw them away.

Now I'm fully on Apple Music. I respect people who want to support artists by buying vinyls, but I just can't get into it. Too much work. I like ease and convenience, and playing a record is a whole to do. I'd rather watch music videos on Youtube, but if you're a record person, that's your swag. I'm not mad at cha, but I do think it's a bit try-hard. I guess the sound quality is better? But the people/robots at Youtube and Apple Music do a fine job IMO.

I saw a video on IG today, which inspired this blog. It just hit home hard. Sure, I don't have a record collection. But I sure as shit still have a bunch of CDs/DVDs/Blu-Rays in Target totes that I'm holding onto because you never know when you'll need a copy of National Treasurer or Knocked Up. This mom already fucked up getting rid of her vinyl and refuses to make the same mistake! Those things are supposedly worth serious money now too.

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I like to think I have eclectic taste. This year, I've seen Tame Impala, Steely Dan, Cobra Man, Jimmy Buffett, and Florence+ the Machine live. My first concert was Mos Def and Talib Kweli. I love hearing other people's favorites that seemingly don't go together, and I don't think you could find a more opposite pair than Oingo Boingo and Anita Baker. Sometimes you need to physically touch something to remember all the emotions it made you feel or if that artist is still alive. Looking at a screen just isn't the same.

You can feel this mom's pain. She done fucked up before! "I'm not getting rid of this shit!" I don't careeee if I don't even have the means to play them. I'm stuck in my ways and no amount of logic is gonna change that. I feel you, girl. Do you (P.s. sup?). When people are stuck in their ways with shit like this, as opposed to restricting rights, it's harmless and fun; I say go for it. Let the mom keep her CDs. You can keep streaming shitty Machine Gun Kelly, she'll dust off her Color Me Badd CD, and everybody can be happy until the nuclear fallout.