The opposite of Netflix is Wireboox, probably.
I’ve a lot of time for Netflix, approximately two hours a day before bed, if we’re counting. As a streaming service, it’s positively sufficient. A lot of the movies are very much what you’ll find in the £2 bin in most supermarkets, but some of their original series are damn perfect.
I want more from Netflix, I want it smarter, more intuitive and if possible, removing the necessity for me to have to use my brain when I’m using it. Choosing something to watch is too difficult. I simply won’t do it anymore.
Introducing:
In an ideal world, Netflix will detect your mood using advanced eye scanning technology and some other form of science that is simply too complex for our fragile minds to comprehend.
Once that’s been done, your viewing pattern will be categorised into one of ten different areas.
1. Drunk You
You’ve just got home after your fill of a night with booze, banter, bopping and bootleg jeans. Having pushed through dangerous levels of tiredness with the aid of four Jägerbombs several hours before, you’re now in a position where you’re wide awake and beyond tipsy.
At this point, Netflix will restrict your choice to Paul Blart Mall Cop and Paul Blart Mall Cop 2. Before you know it, you’ll be marvelling at the cinematic prowess of Kevin James and his segway, and sleep by sunrise.
2. Wide Awake You
It’s been two hours and your eyes still feel like they’re attempting to break the Guinness World Record for longest gaps between blinking. You’ve tried counting sheep, successfully reciting the alphabet backwards and categorically going through every argument you’ve ever had in a bid to create some better responses.
Allow Netflix to send you into a deep and satisfactory slumber by playing a documentary about how cow farts are destroying the world. You’ve already seen it so the second time round is sure to have you fast asleep within minutes. Tomorrow, you shall brag to your friends that you shunned the societal norm of counting sheep to get asleep and instead counted cow farts. 4,587 in total.
3. Hungover You
You drank more liquids than is medically or parentally advisable last night. Luckily, your brain decided to wake you up a concise four hours after you fell asleep, thanks to the copious amount of energy drinks you stupidly decided to use as mixer.
Step aside pal, as Netflix instantly opens a new browser for you, with Step Brothers fully loaded and ready to go. Afterwards, you’ll watch Aziz Ansari Live, followed by Dumb and Dumber To and The Fundamentals of Caring. Relax and enjoy decaying in your own filth for several hours until you’re mentally competent enough to order Domino’s.
4. Sad You
After witnessing a frail old man eating dinner on his own in a restaurant opposite a framed photograph of his wife, you can’t shake that feeling of the fragility of life and how we’re all going to die eventually. No amount of dank memes is going to pull you from this introspective day, so you choose to embrace it.
Not to worry, as your favourite streaming service is here to help. After detecting a slightly more watery eye socket than usual, Netflix instantly plays Still Alice, providing you with the perfect excuse to expel some much-needed tears. Afterwards, a pick-me-up will be prescribed in the form of P.S I Love You, so you can laugh at Gerard Butler’s appalling attempt at an Irish accent.
5. Pretentious You
You’ve just finished reading an article in the New York Times, so you’re feeling particularly educated and superior to all other human beings. Rather than suppress this unfounded ego trip, you decide to push it further with some educational viewing. To Netflix, immediately.
Get lost, Louis Theroux, your celebrity status is a deterrent for all ostentatious folk. In this instance, Netflix will line up Minimalism: A Documentary About The Important Things. This will hopefully knock this pretentious streak clean out of your system as you come to the realisation that you’re a material possession hoarding animal at your very core.
6. Procrastinating You
Spade a spade, you’re in dire need of finishing an assignment before your university wises up to the fact that you’re a disgraceful human being and most definitely a massive waste of space. You’ve still got another year to go and yet here we are, 24 hours before a deadline ‘surfing the web’ like some socially awkward teenager.
Netflix gets it. Netflix understands. Within minutes of logging in, you’ll be treated to Bee Movie, a heartwarming tale about one bee’s thirst for justice regarding honey theft. The aim here is that halfway through, you’ll take a long and hard look at every decision that has led you to this moment. Scared stiff of being the failure your parents deep down consider you as, you’ll return to that assignment. You’re welcome.
7. Sick Day You
You’ve hit the employment jackpot by successfully convincing your employer to allow you to not turn up to work today. Regardless of whether you’re sick or not, you’ve just realised you’re essentially housebound for the day because someone from work might see you out and about, then rat you out to the boss. Jen from accounts, probably.
Relax, Netflix is here to make your day off feel incredibly worthwhile, taking you back to your childhood with Matlida. You’ll be laughing at Lavender’s adorably stern quips within minutes as you mentally regress to a time when sick days were actually fun and not burdened with aftercare and hiding yourself from the world. As Des’ree sang, life, oh life, oh life, oh life, doo doo doo dooo.
8. Lovesick You
Some arsehole’s only gone and broken your precious little heart and you’re struggling to find any true purpose in the world. You’ve been listening to an uncomfortable amount of James Blunt and decide that it’s time to turn to the big screen before you transition into a teenage girl whose first boyfriend has just called her ‘too needy’.
Netflix instantly launches Brooklyn, which puts your shitty little problems in perspective as you watch poor Saoirse Ronan having to emigrate to find love, only to potentially have that taken away from her when she moves home. You’ll be inspired to book a holiday to New York and hopefully pull yourself together after catching your reflection in the screen as a solemn tear rolls down your cheek at the end of the movie.
9. Lonely You
All of your friends are being boring and won’t hang out with you. A thought crosses your mind that perhaps they’re all secretly having a large amount of fun somewhere after purposely excluding you, so you need to nip that in the bud immediately before you start finding actual evidence of that.
Let Netflix be your friend, with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. You’ll be a Brony by the end of the first episode as you learn how a group of brightly coloured small horses created a wonderful support system among themselves to make life happier and more fulfilling. Alternatively, you’ll hate it, join a book club and make some new friends. Either or.
10. Frugal You
It’s two weeks before payday and your bank account is showing minus figures, which is both impressive and deeply worrying. Rather than feeling shit about your temporary misfortune, you decide to take things easy for a while and learn how to successfully rob a financial institution, just like the generation before you.
Netflix endorses such behaviour and will boot up American Heist so that you can learn from the mistakes of these criminals and use it to prepare yourself for your foray into the world of crime. Be sure to take notes on the ideal attire to wear, language to use and institutions to target. Also, the defence ‘Netflix made me do it’ is unlikely to hold up in court, but try it anyway!
