Edited By: Ananya Khandelwal (UG 21)
Disclaimer: This article features WAY too many names of shows.
I won’t lie to you- I was immensely perplexed when I saw a docu-series titled Don’t F*** With Cats recommended to me when I opened Netflix. That was until I read the next line- Hunting an Internet Killer. The three part docu-series is absolutely unnerving, difficult to watch at times, and promises to keep you on your toes, because no one could guess what would happen next. With no spoilers, it is largely the story of how a few people came together online to track down, well, an ‘internet killer’. As someone interested in behavioural psychology and business strategy, I soon found myself thinking about what collective action means in such a case and what strategically putting out documentaries says about Netflix’s own business strategy.
Don’t F*** With Cats is one of the darkest documentaries put up by the online streaming service in 2019, which was followed by a huge response. It makes you ask a lot of questions about the power of social media in encouraging people to post disturbing videos and then playing a part in solving the crime, but it raises a larger question of what kind of behaviour we have normalized by our obsession with online interactions and social media, and truly how dependent are we becoming to these devices? Based on a true story, this documentary pulled in the interest of a lot of viewers following in the footsteps of other Netflix original content documentaries such as Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, based on the failure of Fyre Festival, The Great Hack, based on the Cambridge Analytica scandal of swaying elections in the U.S and Conversations With a Killer: the Ted Bundy Tapes. All of these documentaries feature popular or controversial topics which are very likely to pull in high viewer counts due to the coveted behind-the-scenes expose style nature of the content. However, not all of Netflix’s original content makes it to the subscriber’s recommendations or catches on. Unless, of course, they are romantic comedies.
Taking a deeper look at the content put out by the streaming service and their seeming business strategy, we see that Netflix has put out what seems to be a new rom-com original movie every week (33.33% of which star Noah Centineo), and almost all seem to be different permutations and combinations of each other. Netflix might as well be producing the most formulaic and generalized content we know of, but in our habitualized digital consumption led tendencies, we do not mind sitting through these movies (and criticizing them later) because the other option is decision fatigue, where we spend hours scrolling through the app but never end up watching anything. They are drowning out great original content with barely mediocre off-hand shows which show no original concepts, writing or even good acting. As for the shows which do get the critic’s approval, unless they get as popular as Stranger Things, they will most likely not be renewed beyond the second season. Sense8 was cancelled despite great reviews and fan support for no apparent reason.
Except, there is a reason. For Netflix, shows only pull in a new audience upto their second seasons, beyond which the generated audience for the show remains the same and does not pull in any new subscribers for the streaming service. Hence, they do not see it in their interests to produce these shows beyond their second seasons, unless they grow to be wildly popular. (Multiple articles have been published on their habit of cancelling shows prematurely) Operating as a true business, Netflix’s primary focus is on producing more and more original content to gain subscribers. This leaves the strength of their selections very diluted with great content like The Marriage Story and Bojack Horseman put up next to Insatiable (a failed attempt at wokeness according to rotten tomatoes) and The Goop Lab with Gwyneth Paltrow (No, I did not put myself through watching six episodes of Pepper Stark playing with psychedelics, don’t worry). A new trend I have noticed with Netflix is how they are producing shows on every imaginable subject of interest. They have recently released Next in Fashion, a reality show for fashion designers, Cheer, a show on cheerleading, Spinning out, a show centered around figure skating, and recently, Yeh Ballet, a Netflix India original. You’re also likely to find more than one show on many popular themes.
Despite so many of their original shows getting rave reviews from fans and critics alike, Netflix is extremely dependent on all-time favourites such as Friends, The Office and Grey’s Anatomy among shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Gossip Girl. These shows have dedicated audiences who not just watch, but rewatch these shows in their own time. Netflix in fact paid a huge sum of money to keep Friends streaming for another year, only for it to shift to HBO Max along with a reunion special this year. In the past year, HBO also released Euphoria and Chernobyl, both of which blew up upon release and featured stellar scripts. Amazon Prime’s streaming service is too notoriously catching up with Netflix with well-produced original shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the Night Manager and Jack Ryan. It is difficult to imagine how Netflix will continue to keep such a large audience dedicated to it with well-received original shows being cancelled left and right, and even though it is consistent with great production value, low quality writing and repeated concepts make customers disinterested after a certain point. Netflix is releasing a storm of true-crime documentaries and romantic-comedies which dip not more than one toe into the pool of uniqueness, clearly hoping that the success of previous popular original content will carry the rest ahead (Read: Netflix has assumed that it has to push similar content to you and you will watch it regardless).