“MIND VIRUS” KILLING NETFLIX?

 According to Elon Musk, the richest man in the world: “The woke ‘mind virus’ is making Netflix unwatchable.” Elon Musk, Twitter, April 19, 2022. 

Yes, I agree, a “mind virus” seems to have affected those who bring us Netflix.  Too many Netflix offerings these days  are more like social propaganda than entertainment.  One result is that the streaming giant lost subscribers for the first time in its history—dropping 200,000 just this last week (Tuesday April 19,2022).  

I was one of these folks—tired of paying an increased  streaming fee and finding little to watch.  With its unprecedented loss of subscribers, Netflix stocks took a steep hit and are down 35%.  The company still remains a giant in the industry with 200 million subscribers world-wide.  According to Britbart’s John Nolte, (20 April, 2022) “Elon Musk is Correct etc...” Netflix still pulls in $2.5 billion per month from its subscribers.  But a giant that is no longer growing, will in time be called something other than the world’s leader. 

Though there are other causes, one clear reason for this decline is certainly its determined and staunch “wokness”.  Being ‘woke’ (i.e. alert to injustice and racial discrimination) is commendable—to a point.  But subscribers exposed to such persistent, dogmatic themes to the near exclusion of everything else, come to realize that the Netflix experience departs radically from “entertainment”.  As a former fee paying member, yearning for entertainment, it became  clear that Netflix’s offerings in recent years were increasingly focused on  “woke, gay, white-guilt, male-bashing, anti-Christian, anti-family” fare (See Nolte: 04-29, 2022).  The experience often felt like a “Ground Hog Day”revival.   The Netflix executives, their authors, and editors were clearly involved in something  other than pursuit of simple ‘entertainment”, seemingly having taken up some kind of CIA-like “enhanced interrogation” or Chinese “re-education” program.   

It is interesting to note here, that although “woke themes” for our domestic audiences are prominent (some say 50% ) in the offerings of Netflix and other streaming services, these same themes miraculously disappear from the films and stories offered to the giant and lucrative Chinese audiences and those of the Middle East. Thus one can conclude that these social themes are not essential or integral to the story line.  They can and are regularly removed.  So why is Netflix targeting only American audiences?  Do they have some hidden political motive? 

These observation support Elon Musk’s contention that “wokeism” is making Netflix unwatchable.   Hence its loss of viewership and crash of stock prices.   Perhaps the “woke mind virus” affecting Netflix will soon have spent its force, and like  coronaviruses slowly evolve into a less lethal form which does not require the excessive level of political correctness and alertness to perceived injustices as practiced by Netflix today.