So Netflix is swallowing another giant, and everybody online is talking about stock prices and streaming bundles and whatever. I keep thinking about a very specific shelf in a very specific video store that stopped existing when I was about 14. 

You know the one. Not the New Releases wall. The other one. Horror. 

That was where I became a person. Picking up tapes based on nothing but vibes. Taking home things that might suck or might change my whole brain.

Now I watch this news and it hits like walking back into that store and seeing a big corporate logo where the "Staff Picks" shelf used to be.

These streaming services love to pretend they are doing us a favor. Look, everything in one place. One app. One bill. One giant brain deciding what you want tonight.

From a distance, sure, it makes sense. Fewer companies, bigger libraries, neat rows of tiles, autoplay trailers, "Top 10 in your country." 

Horror is the tape with tracking issues that your friend copied from a friend. Horror is that YouTube upload that looks like it was shot on a broken phone, where you are not sure if it is fake and the truth is... you don't want to know.
 
Horror is the DVD with commentary recorded in someone’s kitchen where the director admits they had five dollars and a smoke machine and hoped nobody would notice the neighbor’s car in the background.

When giants start buying giants, the first stuff to get squeezed is the weird middle and the tiny bottom. The experiments. The shit that does not test well. The thing that makes ten people obsessed and everyone else confused. That is the stuff that "doesn’t fit the brand."

I hate knowing that someone can press a button and just delete a movie. Purely because it saves them a little money on a spreadsheet.

There is a quieter voice in my head that says, "Be fair."

Big studios have always funded some incredible horror. Some of the movies on that old store shelf had major studio logos on the spine. A giant platform can accidentally shove a masterpiece in front of millions of people who would never go hunting for it. Some weird little film might actually get restored, uploaded, preserved.

That might happen. I hope it does.

But I do not trust anybody who calls movies "content" to protect the feral stuff. The sloppy, personal imperfect stuff. The films that feel like accidents or love letters. The ghost channels, the storytellers.

The suits might buy the catalog, but they do not care about that tiny horror aisle, unless it makes them a profit.

So here is where I am at.

I am not going to lie, I will still open the big red app. I am not pure. I like a good polished nightmare as much as anyone. I will watch it all.

But my heart belongs to the horror shelf.

It belongs to:

That is the spirit I want to live in. Not just talk about. Live in.

Sharing links like they used to hand you tapes over the counter. Writing about the little films like they are sacred. Boosting the creators who are running on donations and obsession, not marketing budgets.

Let the giants keep eating each other. Let them stack their IP into one huge, shiny wall. I still want the back corner, the buzzing light, the handwritten sign.

If this is the new "video store," then we have to be the weird staff behind the counter.

So if you read this:
Drop something small. The scariest short film you've ever seen. A ghost video that got under your skin. A movie that was so bad you can't help but love it.  Your favorite film that no one else likes.

I want to keep that section alive, even if the building around it keeps changing names.