Netflix data reveals our bingeing habits

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/12/2017 (2318 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Netflix has released some year-end numbers this week and, spoiler alert, we’re all going to die from blood clots.

In 2017, users worldwide streamed more than 140 million hours per day, or more than one billion hours per week. That’s a lot of Netflix.

Canada ranked second globally for most members to binge Netflix every single day. Canada also had the most “binge racers” — folks who blow through an entire series within 24 hours of its arrival on Netflix — globally in 2017. The most popular day for streaming in Canada was Jan. 1. How did those “watch less TV” resolutions work out for you?

But the most eye-catching stat was this one: some intrepid Canadian watched The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 361 times in 2017. Netflix did not disclose this person’s identity, so I was unable to ask any of my pressing follow-up questions, including, “Why?” But it seems every country has its statistical Netflix outlier.

In the U.K., someone watched Bee Movie, the 2007 animated film featuring Jerry Seinfeld, 357 times over the past 12 months. Whether these numbers represent genuine viewings or are part of an elaborate joke is hard to determine, but, either way, the level of commitment is impressive.

Netflix has recently received some backlash for releasing these kinds of numbers for laughs (and headlines). Earlier this week, Netflix U.S. tweeted, “To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: who hurt you?” It also changed its profile bio to read, “One of the 53.”

To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?

— Netflix US (@netflix) December 11, 2017

A Christmas Prince is a Netflix original movie about a journalist named Amber who goes to a made-up European country on assignment and falls in love with her subject, a prince whose nickname is His Royal Hotness. (Also, it’s Christmastime for some reason.) In other words, it sounds like both an objectively terrible movie and a salve for these trying times.

Many people felt that this cheeky tweet was both “shamey” and “creepy,” and a gross violation of privacy — even though it would be all but impossible to actually identify any of the 53 users. It’s naive to think Netflix wouldn’t keep track of our viewing habits but, other than being potentially embarrassing, it’s hard to see what would be so incriminating about a personal Netflix history should it ever be leaked. How many times an individual person has watched Friends doesn’t actually reveal that much about them. The real issue here is that people don’t like the idea of their personal viewing habits being played for laughs.

It’s the broader numbers that say more about us than the hyper-specific ones. And even those big, anonymous numbers have the power to shame us, depending on how we personally feel about our own binge-y behaviour. I mainlined the entire second season of Easy on Saturday and, even still, my reaction to Netflix Canada’s end-of-year data was, “Dear God, Canada, read a book.”

Bingeing, in most other contexts, is not used to describe positive behaviour. And yet, despite being similarly deleterious to our health, binge-watching doesn’t carry the same negative connotations as, say, binge-eating or binge-drinking, perhaps because it’s more socially accepted. After all, we’re all doing it.

Binge-watching isn’t a new thing; Netflix was just the first to capitalize on it. And we’re not just binge-watching, which has become the standard. Now we’re binge-racing.

Part of this phenomenon is fuelled by anticipation, but part of it is also fuelled by the fear of missing out. Everything moves faster these days, TV included.

If the new season of, say, Master of None drops on a Friday, it’s safe to assume everyone will be talking about it on Monday. Social media is one giant spoiler alert. And the glut of programming means we can endlessly feast.

That’s not to say spending a Sunday in your PJs watching your stories isn’t restorative; for me, it can be tremendously so. But, like too much of anything, it can also feel bad. Seeing the number of hours we collectively spent on Netflix this year has made me reflect on my own behaviour.

I often feel like I’m dog-paddling to keep up on culture. Having too many shows on my Netflix queue or a full PVR stresses me out because it feels like yet another to-do list. PVR-zero has become the new Inbox-zero, a near-impossible goal. I talk about watching TV in terms of productivity; I talk about whether I am “caught up” and “feeling behind,” when what I really mean is, “I feel left out.”

If watching Lord of the Rings or A Christmas Prince every day makes you feel good, then you do you. If it doesn’t, it might be time to explore what moderation in the era of Must Binge TV looks like.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti