Pete Davidson is pressing rewind with his new side hustle.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show on Tuesday, host Jimmy Fallon asked Davidson about his new hobby of flipping VHS tapes.
“I started collecting VHSs that were sealed in the box, like three years ago,” said Davidson. “In 2026, it’ll be twenty years since the last VHS was made, right? So twenty years goes by that’s enough time for people to be like ‘Oh, that was cool, remember?’ like vinyl. So I bought all the sealed ones that exist, 3 to five thousand tapes.”
Fallon then pulled out a photo of the stacks of tapes in different packages currently sitting at Davidson’s assistant’s house.
Davidson continued, “So as of a month ago, sealed VHSs are now going for like twenty to thirty grand a pop. Rocky just sold for like twenty seven thousand dollars … It’s my GameStop. Dude, I own all of them.”
The 29-year-old comedian has a back up plan if he can’t recoup the costs of his investment in the tapes. “If it doesn’t work, dude. I’m gonna be on the road forever,” he said with a laugh.
It’s easy to understand where the King of Staten Island actor is coming from. With streaming platforms like Netflix becoming the dominant way viewers tune in to movies and TV shows for one monthly price, DVD and Blu-Ray sales have declined significantly in the past few years. Vintage home media are now becoming popular collectables with online communities like r/VHS on Reddit, whom some of their users are criticizing Davidson for possibly drawing more flippers to this niche market. These relics, depending on their condition and rarity, are commanding hefty price tags on secondary marketplaces like eBay.
For example, a 2001 special edition VHS of Shrek reportedly sold for a whopping $101,420. A rare clamshell-case version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast went for $99,500. A copy of Disney’s 2006 Cars movie also made a small fortune of $16,280.
While physical media isn’t completely obsolete (vinyl sales have only seen upward growth), some distributors are seeing the writing on the wall.
In August, Forbes reported that Disney will no longer sell DVDs and Blu-Ray discs in Australia in New Zealand following the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 in August. The entertainment conglomerate ceased selling their physical video media in Latin America and select Asian markets. Although new Disney releases are still available in the U.S., it’s unclear if they will be phased out worldwide in favor of their Disney+ streaming platform.
Last month, Netflix mailed out its final disc as the streamer officially discontinued their DVD-mailing service.
