The TikTok trend that has DVD and VHS collectors looking for hidden treasures

Interest in old-school video is up at the Teen Challenge Super Thrift store on St. James Street. (Source: Zachary Kitchen, CTV News Winnipeg)

Everything old is new again, as a popular trend fuelled by TikTok has VHS and DVD collectors combing through thrift stores, searching for hidden film treasures.

"Loving movies certainly helps," said Justin Tunny, who has been collecting films his entire adult life. But he says his love of VHS tapes goes back to his childhood.

"We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so we would record movies off of TV," said Tunny. "We would watch it during recording, and even stop during commercials so that we could use as much of the tape as possible."

That was the lightbulb moment for Tunny, "It dawned on me you could tape it and then just have it," he said.

It's a similar origin story for Matt McCarthy, who has nearly 8,000 films in his collection of VHS tapes, laserdiscs and DVDs.

"We were trying to tape 'Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, the Muppet Christmas special, and we did it wrong," said McCarthy. "I remember watching the very beginning of it – it was already past bedtime, and so I just saw the very beginning. Went to bed, got up the next day, and it was just a tape of static. That feeling of not having it was just awful."

McCarthy says he can trace his love of videos to that moment.

"I loved taping things off of TV, or if there was a free weekend of HBO or Cinemax, taping movies, or like ordering something on pay-per-view and taping it," he said.

THRIFT STORES SEEING RISE IN DVD, VHS COLLECTORS

McCarthy has purchased much of his collection at thrift stores. "I enjoy stumbling across things," he said. "I just kind of go to the thrift store and find things I didn't know I wanted, that's the excitement for me."

Tunney says he's seen the film collector fan base grow over the past few years while working at Value Village.

"There are (movies) I've seen go out and then are leaving the next day, or the same day," he said. "I'm seeing a much bigger interest, particularly in cult films on VHS."

Interest in old-school video is also up at the Teen Challenge Super Thrift store on St. James Street, according to manager Sherri Hill.

"A gentleman came in and found the last two episodes of M.A.S.H., and it was his best day because he had been looking for them forever and didn’t want to go to Amazon or places like that," she said. "He was on the hunt for them and he found them here and he was so excited about them."

Another customer recently bought the entire collection of I Love Lucy episodes on VHS, "She was ecstatic, and the price she said was unbelievable," said Hill.

Hill says Disney movies remain as popular as ever, but DVD box sets of TV shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Office are also hot items.

HOW TIKTOK IS FUELLING THE TREND

McCarthy, an actor/comedian by day, has grown a following of more than 50,000 people on TikTok just by posting videos of his collection. "Last summer I spent so much time, I just put up one video and said, 'Hey, I've got seven or eight thousand movies, why don't you name one and see if I have it?' And then, gosh the floodgates were opened," he said.

McCarthy says young people are fascinated with his collection.

"Younger people on TikTok think like 'how much money have you spent?" and I'm like 'Well, I don't know," he said. "This is something that's been a couple of bucks here or there … the reason the collection got so big is because the hobby got cheaper and cheaper."

McCarthy says it's interesting to see the perception about physical media changing in the age of streaming video. He says people are developing a distrust with streaming services, where movies are added and deleted every month. Owning a movie in physical form means he can watch it whenever he wants.

He also prefers physically browsing through his movie collection "Scrolling through the text or the pictures on Netflix is very empty to me," said McCarthy. "Whereas I get to stand and look at this stuff … there's always something new to discover in my office."

Even with all the Hollywood movies in his collection, McCarthy's favourite type of VHS tape to collect are those that just have old TV shows recorded on them.

"Anything anyone has taped off of TV is potentially one of a kind," he said. "That somebody was recording that moment, that day on that channel. That is as close as probably I'll ever get to time travelling."