Now Streaming: How Netflix Rose to Power in One Sitting
09 June 2018
Netflix is the cornerstone of contemporary popular and mass media culture with reaching effects far outside its own industry. Founded in 1997, the now-streaming service has altered the course of mass media, both within consumption practices surrounding network programming, but also within its original programming content and its use of the authentic voice. Old medias like film and broadcast television, new medias like YouTube and Twitch, and social medias like Twitter and Facebook have all been affected by the cultural and socioeconomic practices of Netflix. This paper will ask the question: To what effect has Netflix and its original programming impacted how viewers connect and expect content in and out of the platform and how other industry leaders have tried to replicate these practices?
The success of Netflix has solidified its consumption practices as new cultural norms. Regina Marchi, author of Hybridity and Authenticity in US Day of the Dead Celebrations, examined the concept of “hybridity” which can relate to this extension of cultural practices (Marchi, 2013, p. 274). Effectively, Marchi defined it as an interdependent relationship between two culture effects that creates its own identity – a third space of interactions (Marchi, 2013, p. 274). Hybridity works in relation to Netflix as the company pioneered new digital medias and economies, forcing old medias to compete in this new space, resulting in new identities, products, and markets. Marchi noted that hybridity typically occurs on the cusps of modernity, which is a gradual shift of norms (e.g. marriage for resources shifted to marriage for love and movie exhibitions shifted to Netflix streaming) (Marchi, 2013, p. 275).
Past examples of this Netflix hybridity effect included toys, books, fashion, and property by way of popularized sharing economies (Wang, 2014). A sharing economy is similar to that of rentals, where a single entity is distributed to users. Airbnb rents private rooms, Zipcar charges a monthly subscription to share available cars, and Spark Box Toys, Booksfree, Rent the Runway, and RocksBox charge membership fees for unlimited use and product shipping (Wang, 2014). These companies were created or reinvented to match the economic practices of Netflix’s, back when it primarily was a DVD rental service. Clearly, Netflix has grown since then, but it’s also worth noting the historical impact Netflix has left outside of the entertainment industry. The Journal of Industrial Ecology found that a two-mile drive to a video story used “a few hundred times more energy than shipping DVDs 200 miles away” (Wang, 2014). At its beginning, Netflix, alongside Amazon, inspired many companies’ socioeconomic policies to change inward and toward the home of consumers and away from retail stores, which saw job loss, physical consumer spaces boarded up, and the continuation of hyper-commercialization (Wang, 2014). This re-localization of goods was the start of Netflix re-shaping consumer culture to the confines of one’s home.
Current examples of this Netflix hybridity effect include binge-watching as a new form of consumption, the blend of journalism and entertainment, and the re-management of intellectual properties and streaming services. Binge-watching is considered to be viewing two or more episodes of a single show in one sitting; effectively, it encompasses hyper-consumption (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 522). Although it’s important to note that binge-watching didn’t originate with Netflix, it was still revolutionized by the streaming giant. For example, X-Files fans binged seasons in the 1990s; however, a season’s-worth of X-Files episodes weren’t released simultaneously, so binging became possible, but the inherent structure of content distribution by Fox wasn’t fundamentally different than other programs or networks at the time (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 522). It isn’t until Netflix released seasons at a time did the expectation of consumers change. Now many viewers (typically, under the age of thirty-five) even wait until network shows conclude their season before binge-watching on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 522). Consumers themselves are changing the distribution practices of old medias because of their habitualization from Netflix. Additionally, companies like BuzzFeed, Teen Vouge, and Variety have merged the ideals of journalism and entertainment into consolidated media in order to keep viewers on their site. They produce video series like “The Try Guys” and “Tinder Takeover” to lure viewers in, so they can then stay and consume their other, less-clickable content and ads. This idea of one-stop shopping is also similar to the cultural practices of Netflix and Amazon. It’s also the reason many networks like NBC and Disney are pulling their intellectual properties from Netflix and other streaming sites in order to host their own paid services.
Netflix doesn’t have ads because it’s a paid subscription; however, the site’s use of product placement has been fiercely contested. Greg Isaacs, chief product and marketing officer at Branded Entertainment Network (BEN) claimed 74 percent of all Netflix shows to have product placement, even though when Trinh Le, marketing director for Kellogg, was asked about Stranger Things’ use of its Eggos product, increasing the company’s sales, she said, “Netflix doesn’t offer any paid placements,” (Castillo, 2017; Wohl, 2017). Conversely, Isaacs with BEN described over 6,000 previous dealings with Netflix of paying $5,000 to $500,000 for any one product to be in a single episode of the site’s original programming (Castillo, 2017). This is seen in product placements for Dunkin’ Donuts and GM in House of Cards, Tincup Whiskey in Jessica Jones, and Jose Cuervo in Fuller House (Castillo, 2017). It’s clear that Netflix allows product placements on its original programming, and it’s something more and more showrunners are allowing (or forced into) to make up for loses of the decaying traditional magazine-style advertisements and decreased viewership on network and cable television. Netflix also utilizes its recommendation and ranking algorithms to isolate specific users’ interests, which, in turn, profiles what types of product placements should be featured in their original televisions shows (Amatriain, 2015, p. 394). All in all, the cultural and economic consumption practices of Netflix have dispersed to virtually all other media giants in some form.
But it’s not just Netflix’s consumption that’s revolutionized the industry, it’s also its content. This can be seen through television’s historically inaccurate representations, from mockery to morality, to Netflix’s broadened diversity in characters. The distinction between low and high culture is important to understand in this context. Low culture is typically considered for the masses – there are little to no barriers to entry to understand and participate in media of this category because it works out of economic necessity (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 7). Whereas high culture is typically considered as “pure aesthetic gaze” or something that evokes symbolism and form over function – there are high barriers to entry because it’s inherently rooted in higher education (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 7). What major networks have tried to do with broadcast and cable television throughout the twentieth century is appeal to this low culture – to the masses, because of its economic model: the more people watching, the more people to sell to advertisers and generate a profit. This has resulted in cultural representations that are stereotypical and harmful because networks generalize characters to be recognizable to as many people as possible (Raisborough & Adams, 2008, p. 10).
Jayne Raisborough and Matt Adams, authors of Mockery and Morality in Popular Cultural Representations of the White, Working Class, build off of Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of distinction of low and high culture, as previously mentioned; however, distinction of characters or class can be seen through disgust or “other-ing” (Raisborough & Adams, 2008, p. 1). In this respect, characters in television of lower income or socioeconomic statuses have been portrayed as Neanderthal-like and irrational, as most clearly demonstrated by the Conner family on ABC’s Roseanne (Raisborough & Adams, 2008, p. 1). By commodifying these characters as “comedic reliefs”, they become one-dimensional and misrepresentative of the larger communities that they are a part of. It also speaks to a lager classism at play (a reflection of American culture) that the things lower classes need in order to be “naturalized” into society are the very things that upper classes have a “birthright to”, and those can be inaccessible or extremely difficult to procure (Raisborough & Adams, 2008, p. 3). What Raisborough and Adams mean by this is that class is seen as a binary in these media fields – the haves and the have-nots, they can only exist with each other, and the suffering of the lower class can only aid the happiness of the upper class, and so what television tried to do was commodify the class distinction with stereotypical characters to make the distinction personality-driven and not politically (Raisborough & Adams, 2008, p. 3). Netflix has been working to defy this historical and cultural practice of generalizing and stereotyping with its original programming, which has seen other networks following suit, similar to that of its economic model.
Orange Is the New Black and Grace and Frankie are prime examples of this stereotypical defiance and journey to an authentic voice for Netflix. Both television shows feature complex elderly women with real-world desires and faults on the front lines (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 525). Studies have shown that “abysmally low percentage of African-American older adults and no older adults from other ethnic groups,” are seen on television, so the fact that Orange Is the New Black features older adults of various races and ethnic groups is crucial in reclaiming television content for an authentic voice (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 525). Jimmy, an 81-year-old inmate, is seen on Orange Is the New Black as having deteriorating dementia, yet the guards and health care professionals do nothing for her – the use of this authentic voice speaks to real-world prison conditions (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 526). Rosa, similarly ill, has ovarian cancer and the prison won’t pay for her surgery, so she’s left to die, explaining the hardships of acquiring compassionate release (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 527). Vee, Frieda, and Red are all elderly women of different races, each being depicted as strong king-pin-type characters, effectively providing a spectrum of abilities for older adults in contrast to Jimmy and Rosa. Red even uses a guard’s misunderstanding of older women (that they are frail and dying) to her advantage, playing the sympathy card to get more outdoor time (Silverman & Ryalls, 2016, p. 527).
Contextualizing these characters into a prison setting, issues like gun violence naturally comes up and, thereby, start a real-world conversation. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, said, “Guns are made for killing, and while nearly anything, including human hands, may be used to kill, only the gun is created for the specific purpose of killing a living creature,” (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2018, p. 15). One character is wrongfully shot and killed by a guard, resulting in a prison riot. The gun that all guards carry is seen through the perspective of the inmates, so that weaponized tool is a symbolic gross use of power for them. Dunbar-Ortiz discussed the higher rates of gun violence against the Black community in America, and Netflix echoed that when the inmate who was wrongfully killed was Black causing major plot points to directly attack the institutionalized racism that violently oppresses their community (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2018, p. 14).
Grace and Frankie also highlights strong women by having its two leads be 70-year-old-plus and surviving a trauma together. However, their intersectionality of race is less apparent than Orange Is the New Black. Anne Jerslev, author of ‘A real show for mature women’ ageing along with ageing stars: Grace and Frankie fandom on Facebook, collected over 3,000 Facebook comments on Grace and Frankie official Facebook page to gage the cultural and social impact the show has on viewers (Jerslev, 2018, 1). Jerslev characterizes the responses as “affective engagement” and “affective attachment”, as a majority of the comments are praising the show for its relatability and shamelessness to promote body- and sexual-positivity for women in their older years (a taboo for much of broadcast television) (Jerslev, 2018, 4). In both cases, the structure of the show is (older) women versus the world, so heavy feminist and female empowerment motifs are widely transparent and necessary.
Because Netflix is one of the first television programmers to take these steps for genuine and diverse characters (something broadcast hasn’t – and sometimes can’t do due to federal regulation), it is gathering a fiercely dedicated fanbase (Jerslev, 2018, 5). Effectively, this results in the cultural power that Netflix has. Users are supporting Netflix socially (through social media channels) and financially (through paid subscription and, more so, cutting the cable cord because of Netflix). Other networks and even other retailers are trying to copy these cultural and economic models, resulting in an American cultural revolution through Netflix (Jerslev, 2018, 5).
In conclusion, Netflix has acted as a standard for economic and cultural models within an era of new digital medias. It’s paid subscription fee for DVD delivery opened up the preliminary marketplace for re-centering consumerism within the home. As Netflix grew itself, it created for-internet television that did away with traditional magazine-style advertisements in favor for product placements that became popular for other streaming services like YouTube and Amazon Prime. This original programming also quickly changed consumption habits and expectations for many viewers, watching entire seasons within a few days – forcing other media companies to follow practices by demand. The format of the programming wasn’t the only revolution to a historic media empire, but the content itself started highlighting authentic voices and brought distinction not by mockery but through diversity. Netflix remains the cornerstone for media programming and popular cultural practices that other companies will slowly follow along to for years to come.
Works Cited
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