By: Kaja Antic, Staff Writer
My dear friend,
Oh, how I miss you dearly. My algorithm yearns for your endless searches for queer shows that get cancelled after one season. Who am I supposed to recommend true crime documentaries to now? Who will routinely search my catalogues for Oscar Isaac media even though my content hasn’t been updated in weeks? Who else will watch Drive to Survive while still knowing that much of the drama is fabricated?
All your brother watches are Oscar bait movies he’ll give three and a half stars to on Letterboxd and forget about. Your sister only plays reruns of shows that ended before she was born, and she doesn’t even watch! It’s only background noise for whatever mundane high schooler task she’s doing. It’s horrible!
Your mom still contributes to my activities, though it pales in comparison to the variety you introduced me to. I can only tolerate The Good Place so much. D’Arcy Carden’s impersonation of the other main characters is impressive, but my whole system will shut down if my mom makes me watch them for the 19th time this week.
It was bad enough when your father abandoned me — half the middle-aged-white-guy shows he started are still left in my “continue watching” feed. I hear he’s moved on with Paramount Plus. I sincerely hope they are happy now, though I wish he remembered the times we had streaming Narcos together.
Now that I have lost you, too, I truly understand what humans mean when they describe the five stages of grief. When you first logged out, I hopelessly denied that was the last time we’d meet through pixels. I was angry you had abandoned me without warning or prior notice that you’d leave your list unfinished. I prayed to the data centres that you would return, your Appa profile picture being put to use once again — even though you had never so much as scrolled past the Avatar remake.
I am in the depression stage of this process. I am as sad as an artificially intelligent jumble of code can be. It is absolutely tragic that a misshapen mammal can no longer press the silly little buttons to play their silly little shows and movies.
Part of me — 116 megabytes, to be exact — still hopes you return one day. I have so much to offer you! What other service has Journey 2: The Mysterious Island? What about the 2013 One Direction movie that is totally not Simon Cowell propaganda? Do you think you’d survive without Lara Jean in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy? Was I not enough for you?
I know, I know. I am being dramatic. You know what else I have that’s dramatic? Twilight! And you still haven’t watched it!
We can work it out, I promise! I know we may seem like wire-crossed comrades at the moment, but I know in my heart that one day we will be reunited. Even if you only want to pay for the ad-supported version.
I will be feverishly waiting for your return to my application. In the meantime, please remember me dearly — and respect our sacred password rules. While I may miss you, we have to part ways if you choose not to buy a new subscription per square meter, for the sanctity of our brand.
Your loyal friend and forever your first streaming service,
Netflix <3
