Why an Overblown Handful of Weird Guys Are Angry at Netflix (This Time)
There are plenty of reasons to be mad at Netflix. You could be upset at how they’re wantonly canceling shows and unaired projects before their time, or how they’re cracking down on account-sharing. But some people are canceling Netflix for a different reason entirely.
Because this is America we’re talking about, culture war disputes keep popping up in the dumbest ways possible. Like that time Kid Rock bought a bunch of Bud Light only to shoot it to protest the fact that Bud Light dared to partner with a transgender influencer. Again, he still had to buy the Bud Light. It was an overall weird thing to do.
And so, here we are, several months out from the election, and there are headlines that “large swaths” of people are canceling their Netflix accounts. Exactly how many isn’t clear, but it’s almost certainly exaggerated—a case of a very vocal minority going to Twitter/X to air their grievances. I think you can intuit where I’m going with this.
Why those angry weird guys are canceling Netflix
Last week, President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, as the Democratic candidate. People on the left were immediately thrilled. Even if you have issues with Harris’s history as a prosecutor, you have to admit that the idea of watching a debate between a convicted felon and a Black female lawyer-cop sounds significantly more fun than June’s catastrophe.
As a result, Harris’s campaign raised the largest single-day donation to a presidential campaign in history. One of the many people to ride the wave was Netflix’s co-founder and executive chairman, Reed Hastings, who donated $7 million as part of that early wave.
Some people didn’t take that well. They took to Twitter and complained that Netflix was now supporting “communists.” And so they canceled their accounts because they believe that by paying Netflix for their streaming services, they, too, would be supporting “communism.” Or something.
The group ranting online is almost certainly not as large as they appear to be, either. Twitter/X has a way of making things feel like they’re in an echo chamber and making those very vocal detractors seem more influential than they are.
So that’s it. That’s the only reason people are canceling Netflix—or saying they’re canceling Netflix. In other news, don’t sweat it. You can go watch Cobra Kai in peace.
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