Some kids call 3.5" floppies "save icons" because they've never seen them in any other context

That’s what I call them and I was born in 89...

The icons or the physical item?

Why was that bad?

It isn’t about tension. In order to display a paused image, the head must continuously rotate and scan that section of the tape. You can literally overheat and wear the tape out in that spot because there is a spinning piece of metal against it. Only specialized VCRs such as high end professional/broadcast or security recorders have something like a framebuffer.

I remember being told as a child that it "wears out the tape," but I'm going to guess it's specifically because the same section of tape stays wrapped around the capstan (the metal cylinder it loops around to be read) when it would normally be passing through. Keeping the same section of tape under tension for a prolonged period presumably weakens or risks distorting it.

It was worse than that. The head drum continued to spin throughout the entire duration of the pause, rubbing against the film at high speed. That's because the VCR didn't have any "memory" to hold the entire frame¹, so the lines of the frame had to be read from the tape over and over again.

¹ It was actually an interlaced field, not a frame, but that too much nitpicking.

So kinda like riding a clutch... ok maybe not that bad.

More like a burnout vs launch control, with infinite tread and it's the road you really care about.

I believe because the tape will stay under tension