SNAPlab

I read an article today that is closely related to an idea for an experiment I had. Adam Ganz pointed me to the text and some of the ideas from the article were mentioned by my colleague Šimon Kulík.

The author of the article tries to argue that most of the movies on Netflix look like “garbage”, but that no one really cares because viewers only half-watch Netflix (have it running in the background) or don’t watch it at all.

There are two passages in the article that I find noteworthy. First, a summary of observations on the style and narrative of movies on Netflix. It would certainly be worth examining these further and validating them through formal analysis.

The other notable idea of the article – expressed only implicitly – is that Netflix is not where it is because of its work with data. That has only come with time. Netflix’s greatest asset is that it can exploit human nature and weaknesses. If in the beginning it was irresistible to rent a DVD without having to return it by the next day (or else one paid a fine), today it is convenient to play Netflix in the background while doing something else.

But I don’t think this necessarily makes Netflix movies look like “garbage” as the article suggests. Certainly that’s one possibility, if we look at the matter from the filmmakers’ point of view. But what if we look at Netflix from the viewers’ point of view?

In the past, I’ve repeatedly asked my students how they watch movies, and they’ve admitted to turning on Netflix while watching TikTok. (This two-screen viewing should be the subject of the experiment mentioned at the beginning of this blog.)

From the perspective of the Casual Viewing article, the cinematic quality of movies on Netflix is deteriorating because viewers aren’t paying attention to them anyway. But then how is it possible that they pay attention to even more garbage on TikTok? (Personally, I wouldn’t say it’s garbage, but if we apply the same criteria to videos on TikTok as we do to Netflix, the conclusion is clear.) How is it possible that we are turning away from low-quality movies on streaming platforms to even lower-quality videos on social media? This kind of viewer behavior doesn’t make sense to me.

A possible reason is that viewers choose to watch audiovisual content on two screens in parallel for other reasons. The reason may be our desire to absorb information easily, it may be different types of viewing (a background story on TV and a different type of information on a phone). Or there may be other reasons. But I would be careful about saying that Netflix may be deteriorating in quality just because no one is watching it. In fact, we may be witnessing Netflix and TikTok succeeding in exposing our weakness without us even realizing it.