What Makes a VHS Tape 'Salty'?
I like a tape that looks like it had a life before it reached me. Not ruined. Not unplayable. Just well traveled. A little worn, a little faded, and carrying evidence that other people wanted it before I did.
That is what makes a tape salty to me. It was handled and watched. It was carried home from a video store, loaned to a friend, passed through a few households, or borrowed and never returned. Then, somehow, I came across it years later.
A rental sticker, a handwritten name, or an old price tag gives the tape character. Those marks are not interruptions to the object. They are part of it. They tell me this copy did not spend its life sealed away waiting to become collectible. It did the job it was made to do.
There is nothing wrong with a perfect copy, but perfection is not always what draws me in. I want to wonder where a tape came from, who watched it, and how many times it almost disappeared before landing on my shelf.
A salty tape has a story on the outside as well as the one recorded inside. I may never know the whole story, but the signs that it was loved, borrowed, lost, and found are enough.