As you will already be aware, one of the downsides of the streaming era is decision paralysis. In times gone by, people would watch television by simply turning their television on, watching whatever was showing at that precise moment and then complaining about it. But now, as you find yourself forced to pick from every single film and series ever made, you feel overwhelmed. You spend entire evenings scrolling through submenu after submenu, glazing over as your inability to find something to watch ossifies into dissociative panic.
The challenge for the streamers is how to effectively curate this infinite content. In the past they have done this by prioritising new releases, or showing you what everyone else is watching, or sharpening their algorithms to second-guess what you want to watch based on what you have already watched. But finally – finally – Netflix has cracked it. And it has achieved this with science.
Sorry, not science, bullshit. Because this weekend Netflix officially launched its Astrology Hub. Now, after all these years, subscribers can at last pick something to watch based on a loose collection of personality quirks determined by the position of the planets at the time of their birth. Doesn’t that sound great?
So, for instance, I am a Leo. And this means that, when I enter the Netflix Astrology Hub and scroll down a bit, I am informed that “Leos have main character energy”. And as such, it means I should watch The Crown, or The King, or Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, or Emily in Paris, or The Kissing Booth 2, or that Cilla Black biopic that ITV made a few years ago. And I think that, as a heterosexual 45-year-old man, Netflix has absolutely cracked it.
Sure, I have already watched most of these for work, and I flat-out disliked almost all of them. But if Netflix says that every single person born within a specific window has the exact same personality, then sure. Tonight, after flopping down on to my sofa at the end of another long day trying to locate the right balance between quality family time and the financial imperative to work, I will watch Emily in bloody Paris. And I will like it, because Netflix told me that I would.
Now, the naysayers among you will point out that all these choices seem geared to appeal to young girls, because young girls are statistically the demographic most likely to believe in the zodiac, and so the Netflix Astrology Hub is essentially just a bit of a grift designed to push content at one specific group. And you might even go further, by pointing out that astrology is a pseudoscience that has repeatedly proved itself to have no scientific validity whatsoever. To which I respond: of course you think that, you’re a Virgo.
And anyway, if there is any message at all behind the Netflix Astrology Hub, it is this: just be grateful that you’re not an Aquarius. Because while the other signs get off relatively lightly – Sagittarians (“bring adventure”) get Indiana Jones and the Spider-Verse, Capricorns (“activate boss mode”) get Hostage and Blackberry, and Virgos (“always hustling”) get Beef and Oppenheimer, the Aquarians are left to mournfully sift through the scraps.
Aquarians, according to Netflix, are “otherworldly” and that means their recommendations include the worst Men in Black film, the terrible Battleship film, a bizarre South Korean drama about a gynaecologist who falls in love on a space station and, of course, Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire. Does this seem like a deliberate decision on the part of Netflix to alienate a full 12th of its subscriber base? Probably, but maybe Aquarians lap this stuff up. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know.
But, still, here we are. Netflix has access to an almost unparalleled set of highly tailored data points about every single one of its subscribers. It knows what you watch, when you watch it and for how long. It knows, with granular precision, more about your viewing habits than you ever will. It changes the image for each piece of content it has, based on your specific desires, to better maximise clicks. By harnessing this universe of data, Netflix is able to individually drip-feed shows and films to you with such dead-on accuracy that it feels like magic. But, in a way, isn’t it better to just blankly state that all Libras like Peaky Blinders and be done with it? I am willing to say yes it is.
Source link
