Humor
This Is Netflix, You Get What You Get
If your expectations are low, you’ll never be disappointed
Do you often find yourself scrolling through page after page of Sexy Beasts and Paradise PD on Netflix looking for something, anything decent to watch? Of course you have, we have absolutely nothing of value on the platform. It’s just Squid Game and forty five awful seasons of Ozarks.
Don’t come crying to me about the quality of our programs. Excitement? Not for me, not for Netflix. You say you want exciting blockbusters with tight scripts and emotional acting. Bullocks. You want what we give you and that’s Fuller House. That’s the straight dope from the platform that got rid of The Office because it raised the bar too high for the rest of our series.
Did you enjoy the popular TV show Lost? Same. That’s why I pitched a new show to our writers called Misplaced. It’s just ten hour-long episodes of a man who forgot where he parked at an Ikea in Poughkeepsie. Then the beautiful gig workers from Fiverr that we call our writers room got a hold of it and came up with something ten times as boring: House of Cards. It’s all of the stuff you hate about politics with zero impact to your life. Perfect if you, like me, preheat your ice so it’s not too spicy.
Yes, our documentaries are long and eventless. That’s real life baby. For every interaction filled with meaningful insights and perspective shifting revelations you get four thousand chats with a stranger on the bus rambling about how acai berries cured their cousin’s leukemia. Is it true? Who cares! It’s called What the Health, and it’s all that it needs to be: content.
Some of this is on you. You pay $10 a month for entertainment, what do you expect? We make shows without being slowed down by worrying whether or not they’re “good”. We’re the choose your own vanilla ice cream of streaming. That’s the pride and joy of the Netflix CEO, a man whose vacation is driving to the airport and immediately turning around. It’s like I tell my producers: the promise is more exciting than the delivery.
Could we buckle down and crank out feel good family friendly hits like Disney+? Certainly not. Could we make high concept, hard hitting dramas like HBO Max? Also no. Could we rehash the same old reality tv and tired sitcom concepts like Peacock? Yes, but that would break our rule. We have one mantra at Netflix and it’s that 1,000 monkeys smashing typewriters for eternity will eventually write Shakespeare. Of course nothing we make actually is Shakespeare, but you don’t know that until you’re three episodes deep on Umbrella Academy. At that point you have to finish just so you can feel like you’ve accomplished something. That’s the bait we rely on to keep this whole money wheel a turnin’.
I guess what I’m trying to say is lower your expectations. You already gave us your money, so we’re going to make what we want.
What are you going to do? Read a book?
Chris May is an engineer, writer, and comedian based out of Boston, MA and will sell out for pennies to work on literally anything Netflix puts in front of him.
