Netflix Thinks Global Domination is Funny
Netflix is in on the joke.
Netflix is currently waging a war on two fronts. The first is the much publicized spat with Cannes, which illustrates Netflix's unique standing in the entertainment and cultural space. Netflix is publicly denying it is changing the film landscape while simultaneously attacking the sanctity and very definition of film. It's an interesting flex on Netflix's part: deny, deny, deny while actively promote your business strategy's destructive capabilities.
One thing Netflix isn't denying is its second war. This is less of a war and more of a cynical charm offensive. The streaming/content empire has established a brand voice that falls between snarky and downright catty. Think Wendy's-lite. Its social media taps into conversations and delivers fun, if sometimes salty, reactions. It's a voice they've certainly earned though. Unlike Wendy's, which caught lightning in a bottle and ran with it, everything from Netflix's USP to its content thumbs its nose at convention and standards. When one of your surprise hits chronicled dick-graffiti and your marketing has ranged from selling weed to putting cocaine in bathrooms, your brand voice has a right to irreverence. Social strategists salivate at the core identity and the opportunity to co-opt "Netflix and Chill."
With all that being said, it maybe shouldn't come as a surprise that Netflix seems to be championing its own world domination. While C-Suites at all major enterprising and pioneering firms have long recognized the overwhelming control their brands wield, never has a brand so openly flaunted it. When Apple changed up its USB ports, forcing users to shell out more cash for additional dongles, the marketing campaign didn't openly mock the suckers forced to add another white, Apple-branded device to their arsenal. They praised the benefits of faster ports or something like that. Apple, Google, and Facebook all know they're on the cusp of world domination, but their benevolent approach to PR and branding suggest that they're looking out for the little. Netflix has dropped all pretenses of that. Netflix doesn't give a fuck.
The recent release of Seth Rogen's Hilarity for Charity is probably the most concrete and in-depth example of this. With jokes mocking the singularity and algorithm, Rogen seemingly relished the opportunity to mock the corporate overlords who were putting on the show. And Netflix went all in on the joke. From the outset, Netflix dredged the world control meme for all it was worth, promoting the show by purchasing not just the special, but literally acquiring Seth Rogen himself. While it played for laughs, there's an element to this joke that rings true. Ask any indie director, writer, or actor whose passion project got buried at the bottom of the algorithm. Netflix claims to be a joke, but is it still funny when it's in on and openly mocking the joke as well?
Perhaps it's Netflix's wide-ranging offering and broad appeal that allows it to so brazenly feed into this narrative, but its self-referential style of mocking the coming singularity speaks broadly about the evolving role of corporations in our daily lives. This week's biggest (I think) news story points to the current unease. The world guffawed as Mark Zuckerberg did a Westworld 1.0 imitation in front of congress. Much less was made of the circumstances in which billions of people allowed Facebook to become a crutch for social interaction. Even less was made of how regulatory structures and digital norms allowed for the unabated and quasi-unhindered growth of social media. We're certainly at or near the doorstep of those days of reckoning, but if the memes are our collective coping mechanism, then there's still a great deal of soul-searching to be done.
Netflix assuredly recognizes our coming to terms with the far-flung and detrimental impact that these corporate tentacles are having on our psyche. Netflix is an innovative and progressive company with a data analytics team that does far more than program recommendation engines for your viewing pleasure. Somewhere within their Hollywood office, a brand strategist and analytics manager looked at public opinion and realized the best way to control the narrative is to own it. So Netflix started laughing with (at?) consumer fretting over the public diffusion of corporations across all sectors of life. Jokes that were once made at Netflix's expense are now property of the company. It's becoming a story as true as time.
This is just a symptom of much bigger issues at hand for Netflix, film, entertainment, social media, and unchecked disruptive culture in general. Passive rebellion like calling Netflix, or other tech-giants, a globe conquering parasite hellbent on mind control may not count for much, but if those very same corporations are now turning those jokes back on the consumers who make them, then the cultural co-opting knows no bounds. Call it a reverse-Streisand effect. Call it the end of free-will. Call it whatever you want. But don't get too attached because Netflix will certainly be coming for it shortly.