While I was walking yesterday, I saw a man with a t-shirt with the words “Be Kind” and I thought of
“Be Kind, Rewind.”
For anyone who grew up renting VHS movies, those words are instantly recognizable. They were printed on stickers attached to almost every videotape you borrowed from the local video store. If you forgot to rewind the movie before returning it, the next person had to wait while the tape slowly made its way back to the beginning.
Rewinding wasn’t just polite.
It was expected.
Today, those three words probably mean very little to someone in their twenties.
Movies don’t need rewinding anymore.
Many people have never even held a VHS tape.
The phrase has quietly disappeared, taking a small piece of shared culture with it.
It made me wonder how many sayings have slowly faded away simply because the world changed around them.
“Don’t touch that dial.”
“Roll down the window.”
“Hang up the phone.”
“You sound like a broken record.”
Once upon a time, every one of those phrases made perfect sense. Today, many survive even though the technology they describe has disappeared.
Language has a fascinating way of preserving history.
Sometimes we carry expressions forward long after we’ve forgotten where they came from. Other times, they disappear altogether because the next generation never had a reason to use them.
It made me smile thinking about how every generation has its own collection of phrases that future generations will probably never understand.
Maybe one day someone will ask why we used to say, “Google it.”
Or wonder what it meant to “stream” something.
Time has a way of quietly rewriting our vocabulary.
But perhaps the most interesting part of “Be Kind, Rewind” isn’t the rewinding.
It’s the kindness.
The technology may be gone, but the message still feels timeless.
Leave something a little better for the next person.
Take a few extra seconds to make someone else’s day easier.
Show consideration, even when no one is watching.
Maybe we’ve outgrown VHS tapes.
Maybe we’ve outgrown video rental stores.
But I don’t think we’ll ever outgrow kindness.
And perhaps that’s why those three little words have stayed with me all these years.
The tape may have disappeared.
The lesson never did.