Collectors Addiction: The Struggle We All Deal With At Some Point

[RustinCohle]

Hi, my names Rustin, and I’m an addict.

For the past ~18 years I’ve been buying blu-rays and for the last ~8 years primarily 4Ks. I started to realize that it was an addiction when more than half my collection was still unopened and I was receiving boxes full of 8-10 movies while I still had two or three unopened boxes also full of 8-10 movies. I was placing preorder after preorder sometimes in excess of $500+ per order.

I felt this need and this compulsion to keep buying. Something kept telling me that I needed to “complete” my collection, but realistically it could never possibly be completed because that would mean I’d have to own every single Blu-ray and 4K disc that has ever come out. I would look at my orders before submitting them online and think to myself “that movie is dumb, I’ll probably never watch it, but it’s part of Shout Factory’s line and I need to complete that..”

I had every single Kino, Criterion, Arrow, Shout, etc. 4K release and the majority were still sealed. I was buying 10x faster than I could watch. I was picking up 4-6 movie per week at stores (when stores still carried them.) My collection was in the thousands and I was watching maybe 3 discs a week on average while a box full of 10 more came in. I had doubles, triples, and occasionally quadruples of releases.

Then I met a new friend at work who also loves movies. We talked collections and he asked me “why do you buy things if you don’t watch them? You need to spend more time watching movies than buying them and managing your collection.” No one ever asked me anything like that before and I thought about it for awhile. I did spend WAAAAY too much time focusing on my collection instead of just watching stuff. I got home and looked at my shelves. I took a step back and thought to myself “which of these movies will I honestly watch again?” and it wasn’t many. I slowly started pulling movies off my shelf under the condition that I had A) already watched it at least twice or B) would definitely rewatch it. If I had never seen it, or if it was one I had seen and wouldn’t rewatch, it stayed on the shelf. This process took WEEKS. Hours and hours of moving movies back on and back off the shelf. Fighting with myself “no you won’t rewatch that…yes you will…no you won’t.”

I ended up with roughly ~500 movies pulled off the shelf as “definite rewatches” with several thousand still left, and that 500 is generous. I probably won’t even rewatch all those 500 again. I started selling. FB Marketplace ended up being my friend. I found a handful of repeat buyers who ended up buying my whole collection (minus the 500) and over the past 6 months or so, took my collection from the thousands down to a solid 500.

This collectors/completionist addiction is real and I’ve seen many others in the same boat. I’ve talked to others that feel the same way. One of my buyers on FB told me he opened up a new credit card to buy a larger portion of my collection. I tried making sure he was okay with this and he said “I actually watch most movies digitally, but I want to have discs just in case.”

I’m not against physical media, but it’s safe to say that I’ll be going from previously buying 300-500 discs per year to now only buying maybe 5-10, and it feels great.

Call 1-800-blu-rays if you also struggle with this addiction.

[Member-839946]

My purchases break down like this:

* Old favorites I still don't have on physical.
* Upgrades to existing content (new transfer / 4k / etc)
* Stuff I saw once, liked, and would like to watch again.
* Stuff I would like to try (usually something that has positive chatter on this forum).
* Stuff by actors I know I like, but I haven't seen.

It's those last two that I waste the most money on. Blind buys sometimes work out, but not usually.

[RustinCohle]

Originally Posted by ReedSolomon

My purchases break down like this:

* Old favorites I still don't have on physical.
* Upgrades to existing content (new transfer / 4k / etc)
* Stuff I saw once, liked, and would like to watch again.
* Stuff I would like to try (usually something that has positive chatter on this forum).
* Stuff by actors I know I like, but I haven't seen.

It's those last two that I waste the most money on. Blind buys sometimes work out, but not usually.

I somehow went from never purchasing blind buys to almost exclusively purchasing blind buys.

[Watershipdownisgood]

Originally Posted by RustinCohle

Hi, my names Rustin, and I’m an addict.

For the past ~18 years I’ve been buying blu-rays and for the last ~8 years primarily 4Ks. I started to realize that it was an addiction when more than half my collection was still unopened and I was receiving boxes full of 8-10 movies while I still had two or three unopened boxes also full of 8-10 movies. I was placing preorder after preorder sometimes in excess of $500+ per order.

I felt this need and this compulsion to keep buying. Something kept telling me that I needed to “complete” my collection, but realistically it could never possibly be completed because that would mean I’d have to own every single Blu-ray and 4K disc that has ever come out. I would look at my orders before submitting them online and think to myself “that movie is dumb, I’ll probably never watch it, but it’s part of Shout Factory’s line and I need to complete that..”

I had every single Kino, Criterion, Arrow, Shout, etc. 4K release and the majority were still sealed. I was buying 10x faster than I could watch. I was picking up 4-6 movie per week at stores (when stores still carried them.) My collection was in the thousands and I was watching maybe 3 discs a week on average while a box full of 10 more came in. I had doubles, triples, and occasionally quadruples of releases.

Then I met a new friend at work who also loves movies. We talked collections and he asked me “why do you buy things if you don’t watch them? You need to spend more time watching movies than buying them and managing your collection.” No one ever asked me anything like that before and I thought about it for awhile. I did spend WAAAAY too much time focusing on my collection instead of just watching stuff. I got home and looked at my shelves. I took a step back and thought to myself “which of these movies will I honestly watch again?” and it wasn’t many. I slowly started pulling movies off my shelf under the condition that I had A) already watched it at least twice or B) would definitely rewatch it. If I had never seen it, or if it was one I had seen and wouldn’t rewatch, it stayed on the shelf. This process took WEEKS. Hours and hours of moving movies back on and back off the shelf. Fighting with myself “no you won’t rewatch that…yes you will…no you won’t.”

I ended up with roughly ~500 movies pulled off the shelf as “definite rewatches” with several thousand still left, and that 500 is generous. I probably won’t even rewatch all those 500 again. I started selling. FB Marketplace ended up being my friend. I found a handful of repeat buyers who ended up buying my whole collection (minus the 500) and over the past 6 months or so, took my collection from the thousands down to a solid 500.

This collectors/completionist addiction is real and I’ve seen many others in the same boat. I’ve talked to others that feel the same way. One of my buyers on FB told me he opened up a new credit card to buy a larger portion of my collection. I tried making sure he was okay with this and he said “I actually watch most movies digitally, but I want to have discs just in case.”

I’m not against physical media, but it’s safe to say that I’ll be going from previously buying 300-500 discs per year to now only buying maybe 5-10, and it feels great.

Call 1-800-blu-rays if you also struggle with this addiction.

Honestly I go a bit too overboard once in a while this week I bought nine titles which while not terrible is still a bit much. That being said, most titles I want to keep, and many of them I’ll be watching more than once. Others are blind buys of genres of titles I’m actually interested in as I don’t want a huge number of titles, or heck even want to complete my collection. Still I need to cut back much more so I won’t be buying many titles the rest of this month, and other months going forward. I definitely don’t go that far as some boutique label titles are pricy case in point Criterion which I don’t buy many titles from as they’re quite pricy a lot of the time. Once their sale comes up for Barnes and Noble next month I’ll be just buying 6 titles total, and all not in one week, but in separate weeks.

[bonehica]

I'll let the great 20th century Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator, Umberto Eco, sum up my feelings about collecting and owning a large collection films. The quote actually refers to his massive library of 50,000 books, but I feel like it can certainly apply to us movie collectors:

"It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

"There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

"If, for example, we consider books as medicine, 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. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!

"Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."

I average watching about 10 films a week from my collection. Will I ever watch all of them? Highly doubtful. That being said, I believe in a strong medicine cabinet! Eco was also a huge film fan and wrote several essays over the years about particular movies, directors and genres. They are all worth reading

[Nailwraps]

Whenever there's a new edition that's better than the previous one(s) and all worthy extras are ported over, I just sell or donate the old one.

[StarDestroyer52]

Originally Posted by bonehica

I'll let the great 20th century Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator, Umberto Eco, sum up my feelings about collecting and owning a large collection films. The quote actually refers to his massive library of 50,000 books, but I feel like it can certainly apply to us movie collectors:



I average watching about 10 films a week from my collection. Will I ever watch all of them? Highly doubtful. That being said, I believe in a strong medicine cabinet! Eco was also a huge film fan and wrote several essays over the years about particular movies, directors and genres. They are all worth reading

100% this.

[The hitcher]

Boy I'm glad I'm not a completist.

Now that you've paired down, take my advice and give yourself another 500 movies with your newfound philosophy. You will rewatch them all

[Moviefan2k4]

I sympathize with your problem, though in all honesty I can't say I've really battled it the same way. There are a few movies that I've owned on multiple formats, such as the Back to the Future trilogy, the first six Star Wars films, The Lord of the Rings, and most of the Disney Renaissance. But in general, I tend to mostly buy what I know I will repeatedly watch, because otherwise there seems to be no point.

Regarding the nature of Blu-Ray versus 4K, I actually avoided both for a long time. When Blu-Ray first came out in 2006, I remember being very impressed with the visual upgrade, particularly with effects-driven fare like Pirates of the Caribbean. But HD-DVD also still existed back then, and I didn't want to spend tons of money on both, so I waited to see which side would win...and then after that, I waited even longer just to make sure another option didn't come along to upset the cart even further. As a result, I didn't buy anything in HD for 4 years, and my first Blu-Ray was The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - I still have it.

In the past 14 years since I started my current collection, I've amassed an impressive library of 375 films...and with the average price being around $20 a disc, that's a combined total of $7,500...which is pretty insane when you think about it. Most of my films are of the family-oriented or cleaner comedy genres, though I do have some R-rated fare sprinkled in like The Crow, My Cousin Vinny, and The Passion of the Christ. But overall, my tastes aren't particularly varied - I'm a fairly simple person when it comes to things like this.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by bonehica

I'll let the great 20th century Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator, Umberto Eco, sum up my feelings about collecting and owning a large collection films. The quote actually refers to his massive library of 50,000 books, but I feel like it can certainly apply to us movie collectors:

This is pretty much my stance, but I only ever buy movies I at least want to watch on some level. Quite different to OP trying to buy literally everything released.

[bigshot]

A library isn’t about books you’ve already read… It’s about the books you will read and refer to in the future. The same goes for videos.

Here is an article that explains it well… https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman...dont-read.html

[Gotho(redux)]

I have some pretty serious credit card debt thanks to my hobby. I try to cut back, but they keep pulling me back in

[RustinCohle]

Originally Posted by bonehica

I'll let the great 20th century Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator, Umberto Eco, sum up my feelings about collecting and owning a large collection films. The quote actually refers to his massive library of 50,000 books, but I feel like it can certainly apply to us movie collectors:



I average watching about 10 films a week from my collection. Will I ever watch all of them? Highly doubtful. That being said, I believe in a strong medicine cabinet! Eco was also a huge film fan and wrote several essays over the years about particular movies, directors and genres. They are all worth reading

Originally Posted by koberulz

This is pretty much my stance, but I only ever buy movies I at least want to watch on some level. Quite different to OP trying to buy literally everything released.

Originally Posted by bigshot

A library isn’t about books you’ve already read… It’s about the books you will read and refer to in the future. The same goes for videos.

Here is an article that explains it well… https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman...dont-read.html

While this is all understandable, I can always just rent a blind buy digitally for $3-5 rather than blind buy it as some boutique labels collectors edition for $40. If I like it enough at that point to determine I would rewatch it, I could then invest in a physical copy.

[koberulz]

If I had a nickel for every time I wanted to watch something that wasn't available on streaming, I could afford to double the size of my collection.

[jzbadblood]

I'm out of shelf space. It's time to start pulling stuff I know I won't watch again, want to show somebody, or reference. This leads me into a weird place of getting rid of big movies that SHOULD be in a collection, but I don't have interest in anymore. Stuff like Back to the Future got pulled. All time classics, but I beat them to death as a kid and I'd rather have more obscure stuff in my collection these days. I tend to only watch new stuff until I get through everything so it's likely I'll never get to the point of rewatching studio stuff like that. Punk Vacation is a movie I'd like to see again, but I think I'm good on Beetlejuice.

[thelwig14]

Very grateful my criteria for purchasing a movie for my collection is high.

Finding mint slipcovers now? That’s where I struggle.

[RustinCohle]

Originally Posted by thelwig14

Very grateful my criteria for purchasing a movie for my collection is high.

Finding mint slipcovers now? That’s where I struggle.

This is actually one of the things that helped kickstart my whole cleansing. Having to order everything online and gamble with condition. I even started receiving items from Diabolik and Orbit that came damaged.

[starman15317]

Honestly, I feel for you and I'm trying to just pause from buying discs for the most part. The amount of things that I've purchased in recent years, or upgraded to 4K and still haven't watched, is sickening. I have been spending outside of my means and I'm tired of it. Now I am making a rule to drastically cut back on my purchases and to wait for sales for any type of upgrade. Easier said than done sometimes, but I have so much to watch in the meantime.

[thelwig14]

Originally Posted by RustinCohle

This is actually one of the things that helped kickstart my whole cleansing. Having to order everything online and gamble with condition. I even started receiving items from Diabolik and Orbit that came damaged.

Even from the latter 2? Damn. I didn’t think they sent out damaged.

[themp3000]

I’m 5 1/2 years sober from a gambling addiction. I’ve always been collecting physical media but it didn’t get serious until after I got the help and assistance I needed to deal with my gambling addiction. After that, I had this massive influx of income. I needed to figure out what I wanted my hobbies to look like. And I was already amassing a nice blu-ray collection so why not, right? I was in my discovery era and there I was, buying anything and everything up to fill the void left by my gambling addiction. My brain was flourishing in all the right ways. I was happy and fulfilled.

Now fast forward to 2024, I’m really exhausted and tired of it. Too many boutique labels, releasing too many things I want to buy and discover (but fortunately streaming is really helping me here, you can poopoo it all you want, it’s saving me thousands of dollars a year) and I can’t keep up anymore (the list of things I wanna own is over 30 ok) which makes me question if it’s really worth going forward if all the hobby does to me now is keep me frustrated and disappointed. Sometimes sad too.

I think yesterday was the first time in a while where I felt so overwhelmed it made me cry. I think it culminated to that. Like, for example, I really want to subscribe to Deaf Crocodile for a year and of their 7 announced titles, I want 5 of them and 2 others I really don’t want. But I also love and adore their work and want to support them all the best ways I know how. Then you’ve got the Macross Plus ultimate edition being unreasonably expensive and the ShawScope vol.3 teaser. There’s a couple of other things I really would love to do but I just don’t have it in me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore and that’s a dangerous headspace to be in as a recovering gambling addict.

I’m in the best economic shape I’ve ever been in right this second and I am not thriving. I should be happy but I’ve just become some inundated with things I want and keep getting behind. It’s all too much and it’s hurting. I’m afraid if I take a step back, I’ll regret it absolutely. I already tried that once and I missed out on a few silly things because I put a leash on my impulses. I traded one addiction for another at the end of the day.