Vinyl collecting and the "Generation Z"

So I wrote this bachelor thesis about the vinyl consumption of the "Generation Z" (birth years 1995-2010). The topic was that of, why music lovers of said generation are buying vinyl records in high digitized times like these. I'll spare you the details, but I'd like to point out one aspect that surprised me to a certain degree. The "research" was based around the three motives "material" (pure collecting passion, the physical experience and the haptics), "social" (befriended record collectors and scene belongings) and "spiritual" (basically everything emotional, from the perceived status and history of vinyl to feelings like joy and comfort to all the little rituals taking place around the consumption). Somehow the "spiritual" motive turned out to be the most important to the 13 participants...

...I've also touched on music streaming and streaming services and the participants' habits of consuming them besides being a record collector. Everyone of them is using some sort of streaming, and 11 of them have a subscription with Spotify or Apple Music. 10 out of the 13 said, that streaming is their favored form of music consumption and roughly half of the vinyl enthusiasts told me, that their passion is more about the collecting and less about the actual consumption. That wasn't surprising to me, as I could relate to that. Despite being a heavy collector for 10 to 15 years, vinyl never was my main source of music consumption. It's for special occassions but that's similar to its status twenty years ago. I'm also not that shocked about the popularity of streaming services, with the latest numbers from the US. Streaming services garnered 85% of the whole market already and that's a fucking lot!

The major takeaway of the whole study was the fact, that young record collectors are cherishing both -streaming and vinyl- and that there isn't any cannibalization to be spotted. They use it for different reasons and -as the numbers prove- both of them can peacefully grow alongside. It's CDs and downloads that get more and more redundant. 

My personal takeaway was that there is no "gatekeeping" or miliant attitude to be found on the beaviour of these guys. They're definitely scene people throughout and knew what they were talking about. Some of them are part of the wider scope of this blog, but most of them are members of the "Midwest Emoposting"-group on Facebook, and two or three of them are active in Screamo-groups. So it was basically all HC/Screamo/Emo. 

In a provoking fashion I also asked them if it's "unethical" to solely stream music and never buy any physical records and... not one of them agreed with me! Most of them hinted at the "unspoken code" that you should support bands and artists you like with your money, but not one of them would point the finger at a "scene person" that actually never supports the scene financially. And that kinda surprised me, cause I have the feeling that it was different "back then", in my days of collecting. Sure, I streamed (via Bandcamp foremost) some and downloaded lots of stuff, but I also bought records with the last of my pennies and would've "cursed" people for downloading stuff only. I get the feeling that some kind of "attitude change" happened in the last ten or so years but I guess it's owed to the sheer dominance of the streaming services or digitization in general. I mean, you rather get delcared strange for NOT streaming nowadays then the other way around. It's just too common and too normal. The market share was way different back then. Even when downloads and streaming became important in the 2000s and early to Mid-2010s, they never were able to kick physical records off the top spot when it comes to revenues... until Spotify rose...

That aspect was really interesting to me and all around, the whole thesis was and for that I have to thank all the participants. I don't know if I'm in the position to give any advices, but for the ones doing something similar in the near future, I got this: Pick a topic of something you really love. You get way too deep in it and it helps big time if you're kinda passionate about your own reasearch.