THE SLOW DEMISE OF NETFLIX

I was a Netflix groupie of sorts. Back in the day. Contemporary history is comprised of weeks rather than decades. Our ADHD culture, fueled by dopamine acquired from smart phones, tablets and laptops, can blind us to what is happening in the actual world. If you sit in a dark room with your screen on, you can imagine it is day when it is night.

I bought my first Roku device just about 10 years ago. It was a liberator from the chains of cable TV and postal drudgery of Netflix DVD technology. Its comparatively lower cost and high quality were instant hits with me. This began my regular use of Netflix to stream. What a joy! Suddenly I had catalog access to international productions. Click and watch. No on-demand fees, no mailing, no getting scratched or broken DVD's of something I was looking forward to watching.

My romance with Roku evolved. I am now on my 4th-generation device. I would say I have been a loyal customer. And I am a fussy one. I have no complaints with Roku. Netflix is another matter.

I have ventured into the dark realm of Amazon Prime. Unlike Netflix, Amazon Prime charges $100 annual service fee for the privilege of watching their B-quality content. They then seduce you into on-demand fees for the good stuff. You know, like those killer apps which work great except for the hijacking commercial screens on your Android device. After enough harassment, you might plunk down the $2.99 just to get rid of the advertisements.

So, I got rid of Amazon Prime after a trial. Jeff Bezos doesn't need my money for nothing special in return. Been there and done that with cable TV.

Back to Netflix and my waning enthusiasm. After rejecting dozens of Turkish soap operas one evening, my frustration with the content was building. As a gay man, I am not going to patronize the media of a nation which is sliding back to orthodox, homophobic religion of any variety. I looked for French content. What was available was disturbingly Hollywood-TV rip-off. The Spanish content was the same. Cheesy detective plots interlaced with frustrated cop-on-cop romance. I assume some algorithm has projected high female viewing stats for these. The men are quite attractive, I'll admit. 

The Asian content ranges from predictable martial choreography to Chinese imperial myths to fairly accurate imitations of Hollywood 1950's cine noir. The South Korean productions outrank the Chinese in my opinion. They are gritty and fatalistic. The Mainland Chinese productions tend to an unrealistic morality, hardly reflected in the real nation's attitudes toward human rights. 

The demise of Netflix's ground-breaking quality of content is most evident in American and British offerings. The slow creep of neo-feminist and Far Left ideologies into the writing is less than subtle. In fairness, perhaps no more evident than it is in Hollywood-generated cable TV. But the edge is blunted in most of the content. It strikes me as fitting that the superhero genre is one of the last hold-outs. It appears it takes a superhero's pitch to get anything on the air which does not smell of political correctness from the Far Left perspective. 

Perhaps the smartest content comes from Norway, Germany and Denmark. Tykwer's Babylon Berlin is an encouraging return from the hideous Sense 8 with its sappy pseudo-religious globalist message. When a gay man like me cannot bear to watch something with the stunning men of Sense 8, you know it's a troubled project. Norway's Occupied is an extremely intelligent representation of modern global politics, controlled by corporate interests. Denmark's Rita is one of the most intelligent sitcoms I have every seen. Its simplicity and emotional honesty are exemplary. 

Mediocrity invades any wonderful human process eventually. This is accelerated by human greed. There are more uneducated and immature consumers than intelligent ones in any market. Just spend some time reading the ingredients of most food in your local supermarket. The very rich minority don't eat packaged bread. They eat in Michelin restaurants and have their own chefs at home. They also go to Broadway, Cannes and Sundance for the best entertainment experiences. Being intelligent and not very rich as a media consumer is becoming a descent into the mediocre by default. Perhaps this is how all great cultures eventually die.