It’s late. My eyes are bleary, bloodshot. My thumb aches with regret. I’m tired of this life—this endless scrolling, bouncing from show to show, all to stay one step ahead of the Netflix autoplay feature where they show you an incredibly irritating trailer if you stay on the tile for more than a second or two.
I’m scared, but I have to keep moving. To stop is to die, or, worse, to be force-fed a clip of Ricky Gervais saying words. I need a new show—and fast.
Oh, boy, does Netflix have ideas: “Emily in Paris,” “The Upshaws,” the “Knives Out” sequel, which was nowhere near as good as the original but was still kind of fun. I’m overloaded, burned out—but there’s no time to blink. I need to stay vigilant.
How did I get here? Things used to be so simple. I was watching “The Great British Baking Show,” letting one episode bleed blissfully into the next, creating this little fantasy in my mind where maybe I learn to make baguettes, when suddenly it all unravelled. The season ended, the credits rolled, and I was tossed into the abyss of inessential programming.
Damn it, Netflix, give me a second to think!
All right, let me hole up in “Stranger Things” for a minute to get my head right. O.K., I think it’s all gonna be fine. Time to microwave some popcorn and regroup. Wait, hey, no, I don’t want to see “Damsel.” I’m not even a Millie Bobby Brown fan! I only watch “Stranger Things” for the goofy kid in the trucker hat!
I can’t stay here. It’s not safe.
I don’t deserve this. I’ve always been an upstanding viewer. Never shared a password. Not even with my mother when she told me that she wanted to watch the new John Mulaney thing. Sorry, Mom, but it was for your own good. I couldn’t inflict this agony of endless scrolling on the woman who gave me life. (But you’re right—he does seem like a “nice young man.”)
Shit, “Grace and Frankie” is on my tail. I’m gonna try swerving my cursor into the “Goofy Comedies” row and see if I can lose those two aggressively lovable ladies. Hey, you stay the hell away from me, “Dinner for Schmucks”! I’ve got a mute button and I’m not afraid to use it!
I thought the scroll would make me feel better. Make me feel whole. But I’ve been ruined by this life of flipping from one trailer to the next, just as my boomer forebears once flipped from channel to channel in the unknown wilderness of sitcoms, news broadcasts, sporting events, and infomercials which I’m told once constituted a thing called “television.”
My heart is hammering, my eyes darting, my thighs and back now biologically indistinguishable from the couch. I’m so alone. My wife got taken out by the “Beef” finale and went to bed. I glimpse my reflection in the screen and don’t recognize the viewer I’ve become.
I should have cancelled my subscription long ago, but I am a coward. Instead of facing my fear of not being entertained for literally a single second of my life, I ran and ran until I came to a depressing streamer on the outskirts of relevancy. That’s right: Paramount+. I thought that if I got off the grid and disappeared for a while into a second-rate service, the autoplay wouldn’t be able to find me. But it did, and it tried to get me to watch “Tulsa King,” whatever that is.
Late-career Stallone project where he’s not an Expendable? This is truly rock bottom.
I’m so hopped up on teasers that my face is numb. I feel dirty, but I’ve fallen so low that I welcome the degradation. Use me, Shonda. Abuse me, Ryan Murphy. Hit me with further extensions of the “ish” universe, Kenya. I don’t even care anymore. Give me tepid legal dramas. Mystery-box shows with no payoff. Sitcoms with a younger Sheldon than I would prefer. I am yours. Punish me with lesser Steve Carell projects because I just watched “The Office.” I savor the humiliation when they pop up in my viewing history.
But I warn you, trailers: give me just one taste of Gus Fring, and I’ll rush back into the loving embrace of “Breaking Bad” for a fifth time like a terrified newborn calf returning to its mother’s udder, having learned the painful lesson that the streaming landscape is a cold, unforgiving wasteland of pandering vanity projects and soulless I.P.
I mean, it’s that or read a book. ♦