Entertainment and Togetherness
March 29, 2016
In my honest opinion (or IMHO as some say), Netflix has started something really important for our time.
Of course, there are many different outlets for watching and keeping up with movies and shows (Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.) Yet, Netflix has changed the game for everyone and everything, and as I sit here and think about it, I wonder why.
Then I come up with this idea – Netflix is very much about togetherness. It provides a selection of movies that is suitable and versatile for any group of people and their individual tastes. It houses thousands of episodes of shows that are important to people – shows that are part of who we are. It has a wide selection of documentaries about real life issues and situations that other streaming portals have not made available.
And if that’s not enough, Netflix is bringing back things that are nostalgic to us. For example, Full House is a part of my childhood that is unforgettable to me. I used to feel pretty validated in the fact that I’ve seen every episode of the show. All of a sudden, Netflix has brought it back to me in the form of “Fuller House”. Even if the cast is not necessarily filled with good acting and funny punch lines (as I used to think Full House was), I still appreciate that they are bringing me and my friends and anyone else together who used to watch the show. Now, we all have something that we experienced separately to reminisce about and participate in together.
Netflix has become so common that it is now used as a verb. Oftentimes, when asking someone what they did over the weekend, they reply “rested, Netflixed, etc…” With having entire series of shows and no commercial breaks, it is difficult to not become engrossed in shows, thus becoming a part of the show’s community.
As a millennial who loves Netflix, I examined what I enjoy about it so much so that I can see where else it fits into my life. And this is what I’ve come up with – Netflix is mostly meaningful because it involves us in something that other people are involved in, and from there we can all be a community. Taking this to my job and my life in general, I see how vital it is to life to be involved in communities. With community comes a feeling of belonging, and that’s what we all seem to be searching for when it comes down to it.
I applaud you Netflix, and thanks for all the movie nights you have supplied me with.