Last month the last VHS tape was manufactured. Now, I’m not one of those guys who mourns VHS for kitschy value – god knows I have no love of poor image quality or having to rewind – but because of what it represents: thousands of films lost. These films were lost before VHS officially died in December 2008, but this draws our attention to the fact that an estimated half of all movies released on video tape are still not – and probably never will be – on DVD. VHS was a much more proletariat format,and many of the hidden gems (and hidden not so gems) will probably never again be seen.
The folks at Nakatomi – the new nerd shirt company formed by two Alamo Drafthouse types – have marked the occasion with this t-shirt, one of their first designs. So not only is this article a way to remind you to mark the passing of a format that once brought us thousands of off-brand, weird and bad movies, but also to alert you to a new shirt company for all of your self-branding needs. The shirt, by the way, comes packaged in a VHS clamshell.
Click here to visit the Nakatomi store.