Forget streaming — I just want my Blockbuster Video back



I remember going to Blockbuster with my mom and dad. It was down the street in a strip mall that was shaped like a capital L. It was on the very end and the corner.

It felt far away from our house, though I’m sure it wasn’t. Everything feels far away when you’re a kid. I had no idea how we got there either — which streets we took, how many turns were made, how many miles away it was, or even how long it took us to get there. Ten minutes? An hour? They kind of blend together when you’re a kid, and I had no real idea about any of it.

Blockbuster nostalgia isn’t really about the VHS or the strip mall, the warm smell of the tape or the quiet in the room. It’s about a longing for limitation, our secret wish for less.

But I remember riding in the back seat, looking out the window as my parents weaved the car through what seemed like a dizzying labyrinth of concrete, ranch houses, and tall trees on the way to Blockbuster.

Strip mall arcadia

Blockbuster had a distinct smell. Soft, warm, plasticky. The Louisville sun beat down through the big, long windows, coming in over the black parking lot and then falling down onto the rows of VHS tapes and low-pile carpeting.

It’s funny to think, but the chain video store almost had the same feeling as the library. Rows of neat shelves adorned with a variety of titles. A hushed hum over the large carpeted room. Late afternoon in a sun-dappled Blockbuster, searching for the evening’s entertainment.

Now we don’t go to Blockbuster. They’ve been shut down a long time, and that flimsy blue and yellow Blockbuster card was thrown in the trash years ago. Now we don’t go anywhere.

We sit at home, fumbling around with the remote, clicking through seemingly endless options on Netflix. Everything “looks good” and is packaged up real tight, and there is more of it to watch than we have time. But nothing really is that good, or nothing really seems very good. Life’s not like it was at Blockbuster in 1998.

RELATED: 'All about the experience': Former Blockbuster and 7-Eleven CEO explains why we can't let go of the '90s'

  James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images

Please rewind

What is my nostalgia — no, our nostalgia! — for Blockbuster? Why go back to the clunky, “be kind, rewind” technology of VHS? Why would it be nicer to be forced to drive down the road and find something to watch rather than streaming whatever we want whenever we want from the comfort of our beds? Why do we want fewer options?

That last one. That’s it. That’s what the itch is. Blockbuster nostalgia isn’t really about the VHS or the strip mall, the warm smell of the tape or the quiet in the room. It’s about a longing for limitation, our secret wish for less.

We have so many choices today, we don’t know what to pick. Decision paralysis. Some of us suffer from it terribly, some of us less so. But we’re all aware of the problem. We understand the term. We all know that it’s easier to pick from three than it is from three hundred.

The problem of decision paralysis isn’t limited to what we are going to watch some Thursday evening. We see the problem with young people and dating apps. There is a sense there is always another one waiting. There are infinite partners out there. Don’t settle down; there might be a better match. Always another match. No one can make the decision to just be happy and just get married.

I’ve seen it when someone has a bunch of money saved. Too much time and nothing to do. They talk about going here or there, doing this or trying that. They hem and haw about it for months, and then years. I ask them, “What are you waiting for?” They tell me, “I’m not sure it’s what I want to do.”

Aisle be seeing you

The world is our oyster. We can do anything we want, we are spoiled rotten, and we can’t make a choice. We should be happier than ever, but we aren’t. Not really. We secretly, deep down, wish something would just take away our choices and make it all simpler for us. We would complain about it, but we would secretly be thankful for it. We can’t really do it on our own. Limiting ourselves voluntarily never feels the same as having reality do it for us.

Our problems today are, in a way, pitiful. I know our ancestors would probably mock us for our so-called decision paralysis. But they didn’t know this world. They only know the limited world. Their struggles were often physical. Ours are psychological.

That’s why we miss Blockbuster, or at least what Blockbuster represents or reminds us of. Less. Limitation. The life where we can only do so much, or see so much, where our world is a little smaller and we, in turn, feel a little greater.

Back at Blockbuster we would meander through the aisles, looking at cover after cover, occasionally flipping one over to see what else the back might reveal. After a while, we would make our choice, pay the $1.99 at the glossy counter, take the movie home, make some popcorn on the stove, turn on the TV, pop in the tape, press play, and see if what we chose was any good.

We had fewer choices, and it was fine. Actually it was more than fine, it’s really what we want deep down, even if we don’t want to admit it. That’s why we kind of miss Blockbuster in a strange little way.

Why Netflix Hit KPop Demon Hunters Went Viral While Disney’s Elio Flopped

KPop Demon Hunters knows what it is, producing an infinitely better story than if the creators had tried to push an agenda for a quick cash grab.

Netflix rebooting 'Captain Planet' to push pagan climate propaganda on new generation of kids



"Captain Planet and the Planeteers" was an animated television series produced by depopulationist billionaire Ted Turner, founder of the United Nations Foundation and CNN, and fellow climate alarmist Barbara Pyle, the co-founder of one of America's first legal abortion facilities.

The show, which aired in over 100 countries from 1990 to 1996, was a brazen work of pagan liberal propaganda that impressed upon American children various radical notions beyond just demonizing affordable energy, mining, Western industry, and capitalism. It had a hand in shaping the minds of some of those climate alarmists now involved in demonstrations, public tantrums, ruinous leftist policies, and vandalism.

With public concern about changing weather patterns down by double digits in parts of the West, radicals evidently feel it's time for a revival of the green-haired officer: Netflix is set to become home for a live-action adaptation of "Captain Planet."

According to Deadline, the series will be developed by Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way, Warner Bros. Television, and Greg Berlanti's Berlanti Productions. Warner Bros. Television, where Berlanti Productions is under a deal, will reportedly be the studio, reported Variety.

DiCaprio — the climate activist who downgraded last year to a $25 million superyacht and who suggested that a normal, recurrent weather phenomenon was an instance of "scary" climate change — will reportedly serve as an executive producer. The series will be written by Tara Hernandez, co-creator of the series "Mrs. Davis."

DiCaprio's involvement is a good indicator that the new show will pick up where the original left off: advancing a leftist worldview and suggesting to young Americans that human beings are harmful to the planet.

RELATED: The climate cult is brainwashing your kids — and you’re paying for it

 Ted Turner. Photo by Mike Pont/FilmMagic

Every episode in the original series opened with this narration:

Our world is in peril. Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, can no longer stand the terrible destruction plaguing our planet. She gives five magic rings to five special young people. From Africa, Kwame with the power of earth. From North America, Wheeler with the power of fire. From the Soviet Union [later changed to Eastern Europe], Linka with the power of wind. From Asia, Gi with the power of water. And from South America, Ma-Ti with the power of heart. When the five powers combined, they summon earth's greatest champion — Captain Planet!

There was nothing subtle about the agenda behind the show, which boasted vocal cameos from big-name actors including Jeff Goldblum, Tim Curry, Martin Sheen, and Sting, and whose titular protagonist threatened to "take pollution down to zero."

In one episode, the showrunners took a page out of the Chinese Communist Party's agenda and advocated for reducing the size of families, suggesting that large populations are unsustainable.

"Did you know the population of the world is now more than 5 billion?" Captain Planet asks one of Gaia's child soldiers.

"Wow! That is a lot of people!" responds one of the children. "And it's increasing by 90 million people each year," says another.

"So when it is your turn to have a family, keep it small," the Soviet and North American characters say in conclusion.

The green-haired protagonist emphasized to those viewers who would grow up to witness a catastrophic population collapse, "The more people there are, the more pressure you put on our planet."

This particular episode, "Population Bomb," borrowed its title from depopulationist Paul Ehrlich's magnum opus, a 1968 book whose faulty thesis helped inspire China's one-child policy, resulting in hundreds of millions of abortions. As with Ehrlich doom-saying about the population bomb, which never went off, his other major anti-human and anti-natalist predictions similarly failed to come true.

RELATED: Climate hysteria sets stage for suicidal behavior: Study

 Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP via Getty Images

Pyle told Good in 2016 that she made documentaries for years but found that those who watch documentaries are "smart people and also people who are already set in their ways," so she spoke to Turner about "alternative programming routes."

Turner, Pyle, and their fellow travelers apparently settled on kids' programming as the best way to advance their worldview and began pushing their agenda in cartoon form.

Pyle said in an interview with Grist, "We knew there was going to come a time when it would be necessary for an entire generation — your generation — to speak with one voice on behalf of the planet. In some ways, the entire Captain Planet series was about preparing us for this moment."

Gaia's five environmental child soldiers, who were apparently based on people Pyle knew, helped reflect her anti-Western prejudices over the course of the series. Whereas the Soviet character proved time and again to be a brainiac and the Brazilian character was an empathetic soul who could commune with animals, the North American character, Wheeler, was a mistake-prone redhead who apparently needed the most environmental coaching.

Netflix won't be breaking any new ground if its "Captain Planet" is race-obsessed, as Pyle indicated efforts were made the first time around to ensure that the pagan goddess at the center of the show wouldn't be mistaken for a "white Barbie doll," hence her portrayal instead as a "plump beige woman."

Unsurprisingly, the Captain Planet Foundation — the nonprofit founded in 1991 by Turner and Pyle — is committed to DEI.

Netflix declined to comment about the project to Deadline or Variety.

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Idris Elba's whitewashing of UK knife crime badly misses point



The new BBC documentary "Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis" could not have come at a more appropriate time. The number of knife-related deaths in Britain among ages 13 to 19 has increased dramatically over the last decade, from 56% to 83%.

Reports of such senseless violence have become commonplace.

Highlighting rising knife crime in Somerset, Bedfordshire, and Sussex — which are whiter and more rural — implies a trend without comparing absolute rates.

In early January, 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa was killed on a London bus after two machete-wielding attackers — themselves both teens — stabbed him 27 times. Weeks later, 12-year-old Leo Ross was stabbed to death in Birmingham while walking home from school; his alleged assailant was 15. In June, three teenagers were charged with the stabbing death of 14-year-old Ibrahima Seck in Manchester.

Actor Elba, who himself grew up in crime-ravaged East London, launched a campaign to eradicate knife violence in early 2024. Now comes this documentary, which follows the "Thor" star around the country as he talks to people behind the grim statistics.

A teachable moment

Elba interviews victims, offenders, and trauma doctors. Along the way, he meets politicians and senior police officers in an attempt to devise a new, more interventionist approach to law and order — a way to stop these young men from resorting to knives in the first place.

It's apparently also important to Elba to clear up certain stereotypes associated with stabbings. A pivotal moment in the documentary comes when the actor seeks out the sister of Harold Pitman, a white 16-year-old who was stabbed to death in London last New Year’s Eve.

Here, Elba can't help but turn the meeting into a teachable moment, gently reminding Tayla Pitman that the majority of knife-crime perpetrators are white. “When Harry was killed," Tayla confirms, "[people said] 'I bet it was a black person,' and it wasn’t — it was another white boy.”

Those surprised by the race of Harry's killer were doubtless also flummoxed by the recent harrowing Netflix series "Adolescence," which chooses to address this topical issue via the real-time arrest and interrogation of a fictional 13-year-old white killer.

"Adolescence" neatly sidesteps the issue of race altogether by making the killer's victim a female classmate, also white. The violence here stems from "toxic masculinity" and influencers like Andrew Tate, among other 2025 boogeymen.

RELATED: Netflix sounds an alarm with painful 'Adolescence'

  'Adolescence' co-creator and star, Stephen Graham. John Nacion/Getty Images

Misleading statistics

The Guardian's review of "Our Knife Crime Crisis" approvingly repeats a statistic cited in the documentary: "The film immediately tackles common misconceptions around knife crime as a problem within black and brown urban communities, when in fact 69% of perpetrators are white, and it is spreading fastest in Somerset, Bedfordshire, and Sussex."

But where does this statistic come from? A cursory search turns up no clear source. Dig a little deeper, and the closest match appears to be nationwide conviction data for knife possession — not overall knife crime. In that context, around 69% of those convicted are white.

Moreover, highlighting rising knife crime in Somerset, Bedfordshire, and Sussex — which are whiter and more rural — implies a trend without comparing absolute rates.

Urban centers like London, Birmingham, and Manchester still have higher overall knife-crime numbers. The regions named may have seen percentage increases, but from much lower baselines.

An uncomfortable truth

More pertinent statistics come from the London Assembly: "Despite making up only 13% of London’s total population, black Londoners account for 45% of London’s knife murder victims, 61% of knife murder perpetrators, and 53% of knife crime perpetrators." Moreover, the Times finds that the majority of these victims and perpetrators are under the age of 24.

Anyone who, like Elba, sincerely wishes to understand this issue, must first face an uncomfortable truth: Black teenagers are considerably overrepresented in knife-crime statistics.

That mentioning this truth in public is discouraged, to say the least, impedes any practical attempts to prevent knife crime.

Failure to police

Take the example of stop and search, which is generally seen as a highly effective method of removing weapons from the streets. London Mayor Sadiq Khan opposes the use of this operational strategy, claiming baseless charges of "structural racism" and racial profiling. As a result, the use of stop and search in the capital has decreased by 44% since 2022.

New data published in January reveals the arrest rate has dropped in part due to a dramatic reduction in the use of stop and search. Between 2018 and 2023, the number of under-18s arrested for knife offenses fell by 33%, yet offenses rose. The London Metropolitan Police conducted 118,688 searches in the year ending January 2025, roughly a quarter fewer than the previous year. Almost half of them involved black youths under the age of 24.

Given Khan's belief in the inherent "institutional racism" of his city's police force, it's hardly surprising that he would do nothing to reverse the capital's decline in law enforcement manpower.

Since 2008, the number of police stations serving the capital has decreased from 160 to 36, a 75% reduction. This is despite policing a city of about nine million people. This is expected to drop even further — to 32 (one per London Borough). Meanwhile, budget cuts have led to two-thirds of police stations closing in England since 2010.

With one station for every quarter of a million residents, it’s reasonable to assume that crime has increased. According to the Office for National Statistics, the police recorded 14,577 knife offenses in 2023, a 20% rise from the previous year. With officers constantly burdened with trivial work like recording offensive language as non-crime hate incidents, it is no surprise that knife crime — and all crime — goes unsolved.

Knives out

If policing is off the table, what's left?

Elba has a suggestion: Design kitchen knives to have dull points. Such a "solution" is in keeping with the Labour government's approach.

A little more than a year ago, the U.K. witnessed its most shocking knife crime yet. Seventeen-year-old Axel Rudakubana, a second-generation Rwandan immigrant, entered a children's Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport and began stabbing. By the time he was subdued, he had brutally slaughtered three girls: Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine.

News of the killings sparked furious protests around the country, fueled by erroneous online reports that Rudakubana was an illegal immigrant and a Muslim. The media was quick to denounce this "misinformation" as the sole culprit of the unrest, while failing to acknowledge the simmering tension built up by decades of unchecked immigration and failed assimilation.

In response to all this, the U.K. government announced a crackdown on knife sales — including a ban on doorstep sales and an age verification for online purchases. It’s part of Labour’s vow to "halve knife crime over the next decade."

RELATED: Protests and violent rioting continue to erupt across the UK over gruesome stabbing attack on girls at dance studio

  Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Token gestures

Here, it's perhaps worth stating the obvious: A knife has edges, and people die just as well from being slashed as from being stabbed. During the early 1900s, razors were the weapon of choice for many "razor gangs" throughout Britain. Besides, anything with a point can be used to kill someone. A sharpened stick, fork, corkscrew, or screwdriver can end a life.

A ban will do nothing. Newly manufactured safety knives will not only be ineffective, but no one will buy them, reducing the blade’s aesthetic appeal and function for the law-abiding majority. None of these suggestions will stop the use of weapons on our streets.

While politicians and celebrities make token gestures, teenage boys continue to die in record numbers. We must not fall victim to rose-tinted utopianism, which says we can remedy this problem with more youth clubs and pool tables. If we want to prevent young people from killing each other, we must first increase stop and search and fight the activist ideology that sees the police as a proxy for racialized state oppression.

Drill killers

Then, you must wage a genuine culture war: Go after the drill rappers. I am not advocating for the suspension of civil liberties, but anyone familiar with the genre will recognize that much of this music celebrates particular killings. Mdot, Hypo, and Showkey were all rappers killed between 2016 and 2022. Zone 2, another drill group, mentioned the killing of Sidique Kamara, a.k.a Incognito, in the song "No Censor."

Many of these murders are related to gang feuds, as they fight over territory related to drug distribution. As such, intervention starts at home. A strong father figure frequently serves as a role model, guiding a young son through his formative years. According to data, 43% of black African children in the U.K. and 63% of children of black Caribbean heritage in the U.K. are raised by single parents. As one reformed gang member told the Daily Telegraph, “I remember a member of a gang once saying to me, ‘If you are not going to raise your children, we will raise them for you.’”

Linguistic pedants have previously chastised me for using the term "epidemic" to characterize the issue of knife crime. It’s not a disease, I’m told. I would argue that young people killing others at record levels for petty squabbles, unpaid drug debts, and arbitrary boundaries on a map IS a disease.

Our cultural elites’ allegiance to these progressive nostrums is dangerous. They will be ineffective. Just like Elba’s suggestion, it’s missing the point.

'Too Much' whiteness in Lena Dunham's new Netflix show? Just look BEHIND the camera, says 'Girls' star



Actress, writer, and former leftist "It girl" Lena Dunham is back — older, wiser, and ready to confront the biggest mistake she made with the hit HBO show that put her on the map: It simply wasn't woke enough.

Dunham vows this won't happen with her latest venture, the romantic comedy "Too Much." The Netflix series comes more than a decade after the 2012 debut of "Girls," which brought instant acclaim — and near-instant backlash — for star and creator Dunham.

'The funny thing is that she would probably still be under fire if her cast was more diverse.'

"Girls" wrapped up its sixth and final season in April 2017; since then, Dunham has starred in or written one-off television episodes while acting in about a dozen films.

But after all this time, the legacy of "Girls" has returned to haunt her.

White what you know

While conservatives dismissed "Girls" for its self-indulgent depiction of promiscuity as "sexual empowerment," its harshest critics were arguably liberals.

As soon as it aired, "Girls" was heckled from the far corners of leftism for its apparent lack of "diversity." Dunham admitted at the time that the nearly all-white skin tones in the show were simply a reflection of her life, since she is "half-Jew, half-WASP."

This time around, Dunham is determined to affirm her loyalty to progressive ideology before anyone can question it.

In 2012, Dunham did damage control by going on NPR's "Fresh Air" to say she was trying to avoid "tokenism in [her] casting" and opted for her chosen actresses because she assumed the "experience of an African American girl and a white girl" were "drastically different."

You see, it wasn't indifference that made her exclude black characters — but respect.

Pre-emptive apology

While that may have worked almost a decade ago, it's not going to fly in 2025 — and Dunham knows it. That's why she's doing a kind of pre-emptive apology tour before "Too Much" even premieres.

RELATED: 'Superman' director faces backlash for 'racist' India mention; responds with heroic backpedaling

 

  Lena Dunham (Photo by J. Countess/Getty Images)

 

In a recent interview with the Independent, Dunham suggested that the real culprit in the "Girls" diversity imbroglio was the entertainment industry as a whole.

"I think one of the profound issues around ''Girls' ... was that there was so little real estate for women in television that if you had a show called 'Girls,' which is such a monolithic name, it sounds like it's describing all the girls in all the places."

Dunham added that she understands how it would be "really disappointing to people" if they felt the show did not reflect "a multitude of experiences."

The 39-year-old went on to explain that she did "like the conversation" about how woke her show needs to be and said it would not be a problem for the new Netflix series.

I spy ... DEI

To that end, Dunham revealed she has pledged her allegiance to diversity in both the production and casting of "Too Much."

Yes, like "Girls," "Too Much" puts white, affluent characters front and center, with little to no room for people of color. But Dunham urges viewers to think of all the non-whites working behind the scenes to bring this vision to the screen.

"The thing I have really come to believe is that one of the most important things is not just diversity in front of the camera, but it's diversity behind the camera," she told the Independent. "As a producer, one of my goals is to bring a lot of different voices into a position where they can tell their story."

RELATED: All in the family: Hollywood golden boy Pedro Pascal's loony leftist pedigree

 

  Lena Dunham (L) and Megan Stalter (Photo by Ben Montgomery/Getty Images)

 

Nice try

While impressive, Dunham's deft butt-covering may not be enough to satisfy a baying leftist mob always on the hunt for a new victim, warns culture writer Natasha Biase.

"The funny thing is that she would probably still be under fire if her cast was more diverse," Biase told Blaze News.

If anything, Dunham is trying too hard, continued Biase.

"I understand that we live in a diverse world, and film and television are supposed to be a reflection of that, but we are also often told to write what we know, and that’s exactly what Lena Dunham did."

Dunham bending the knee and "forcing herself" to write characters to which she can't relate would arguably be seen as "more controversial and irresponsible," Biase added, implying that Dunham is in a no-win situation.

"Our girl's about to learn that you can’t please the mob!"

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‘OceanGate’ Documentary Dives Deep Into The Deception, Disregard That Led To Sub Implosion

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-16-at-3.07.08 PM-e1750105685967-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-16-at-3.07.08%5Cu202fPM-e1750105685967-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]OceanGate's Titan submersible suffered, by different means, a similar fate to the ship it was intended to explore.

Jason Whitlock: Tyler Perry’s ‘Straw’ is ‘demonic’



The number-one film currently streaming on Netflix is Tyler Perry’s latest movie, called "Straw," which follows a single mother who faces “a series of painful events.”

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock and BlazeTV contributor Shemeka Michelle didn’t love the film, but they do think it revealed something about Perry’s audience.

“Initially, I was very upset with Tyler Perry, simply because I thought, you know, his greatest fan base, which he himself has admitted is black women, I thought it would go completely over their heads,” Michelle tells Whitlock.

“Spoiler alert, for those who haven’t seen it,” she continues, “he waited until the very last minute of the movie to really show that this woman was suffering from psychosis, which is a mental disorder based on being completely detached from reality, which is what she was.”


“I got even angrier when I got online and it was proven that it completely went over women’s heads, and I kept seeing them say, ‘Oh, I am Janiah,’ who is the main character of the movie. ‘I stand with Janiah,’ you know, ‘Janiah is me, this is what single women go through every single day,’” she continues.

However, not all black single women are walking around suffering from psychosis.

“This is not what single women or single mothers go through every day,” Michelle says. “And then I had to say it’s not Tyler Perry’s fault that his main group of supporters are intellectual midgets.”

“I’m just trying to figure out where to stand with Tyler, because I thought he just could have done a better job, but I think it exposes the psychosis in black women, the detachment from reality, the hallucinations, the bad behavior, because so many of them were just applauding this,” she adds.

After watching the film, Whitlock had a similar realization.

“Corporate media, the movies, Netflix: They’re all just dumping poison. You’re a victim no matter what you do, no matter how crazy you are, no matter how violent you are, you’re only doing it because this system is racist and because you’ve been mistreated,” Whitlock says.

“And this is where you and I disagree,” he tells Michelle. “Tyler Perry is the source of a lot of the delusion that black women have. His movies are there to create delusion among black women, to create a false reality.”

“His movies are demonic, and his movies are there to make black women think they can do no wrong, they’re a victim of everything, the world is against them,” he adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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Elmo-Wielding Hakeem Jeffries Hits House Floor Attempting To Stop GOP From Scraping PBS Funding

'Legislation that targets Elmo and Big Bird'

Netflix’s chilling new surveillance tools are watching YOU



There was a time, for a brief second, when Netflix felt like a genuine escape. No ads. No distractions. Just a moment of sacred silence before the next episode auto-played. YouTube, on the other hand, has always been the neighborhood hawker, jamming five-second countdowns and “skip” buttons between cat videos and clips of Candace Owens speaking with Harvey Weinstein. But Netflix? It felt different. Intentional. Entirely neutral.

Not any more.

We now know that YouTube, owned by Google (the company that famously deleted “don’t be evil” from its code of conduct), uses AI to analyze your viewing habits in real time. The company calls it Peak Points, a system that detects when you’re most emotionally invested. Not so it can recommend better content. No, it’s so YouTube can slice in an ad. A perfectly timed disruption — just as you’re crying, laughing, leaning in. Not after. During. Essentially, it’s manipulation dressed as optimization.

Soon you won’t be choosing shows. You’ll be chosen by them.

If Google pulling this stunt doesn’t surprise you, that’s because nothing Google does should surprise you. What should worry you, however, is Netflix quietly following suit, disguised beneath its polished UI and faux prestige. To be clear, this isn’t a case of algorithms nudging you toward rom-coms or action thrillers. This is full-blown behavioral harvesting, run out of what’s called “clean rooms," a fancy way of saying they’re still collecting everything, just behind closed doors. They promise it’s private. But they still track your habits, reactions, pauses, and clicks. They’re not watching you, they insist. Just everything you do.

Netflix’s ad-supported tier allows third-party data brokers — including Experian (more on this notorious credit score company in a minute) — to build a psychological profile on you. Your stress tells them what to sell. Your loneliness tells them when to sell it. Your late-night binge-watching isn’t just a pattern; it’s a profile. You think you’re relaxing, when in reality, you're participating in a lab study that you never signed up for. Not knowingly, anyway.

Netflix used to sell impressions. Now, however, it's selling intimacy — your intimacy. It's the kind of advertising that doesn’t feel like advertising because it’s been trained to mimic your tone, your mood, your hesitation. Mid-roll ads now talk back. Pause screens offer prompts and tailored suggestions based not on your genre preferences but on your emotional volatility.

Even rewinds are a metric now. Linger too long on one scene? It wasn’t just memorable — it was actionable. Every flicker of interest, every second you lean forward, becomes a flag for monetization. A signal to tweak the pitch, change the lighting, or modify the ad delivery window.

You’re not the customer any more. You’re the subject.

This is much more than targeted marketing. It is emotional extraction. Netflix and YouTube are conditioning you and your loved ones. The goal is no longer passive consumption. It’s emotive response mining. Once satisfied with getting your eyeballs, they now want what’s behind them.

And here’s the most worrying part: Their devious plan is working.

RELATED: Netflix shares blunt message to woke employees offended by its content: 'Netflix may not be the best place for you'

 ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP via Getty Images

You feel it when your pause screen suddenly knows you’re restless. You sense it when an ad knows you’re anxious. But you can’t prove it, because this isn’t surveillance as we used to know it. It’s ambient, implicit, and sanitized. Framed as “user experience.” But make no mistake, the living room has been compromised.

Netflix used to say, “See what’s next.” But increasingly, the real motto is “see what we see.” Every moment of attention, every flicker, flinch, or fast-forward, is a data point. Every glance is a gamble, wagered against your most vulnerable instincts.

Which brings us back to Experian. By partnering with the same data broker that helps banks deny loans, Netflix is making a statement. A troubling one.

Experian isn’t just some boring credit bureau. It’s one of the largest consumer data aggregators on the planet. It tracks what you buy, what you browse, where you live, how often you move, how many credit cards you have, what you watch, what you search, and what you owe. It then slices that information into little behavioral fragments to sell to advertisers, insurers, lenders, and now … to Netflix.

With 90 million U.S. users, Netflix has now integrated with a company whose entire business model revolves around profiling you — right down to your risk appetite, spending triggers, and likelihood of defaulting on a loan.

So while you're watching a true-crime documentary to unwind, Experian is in the back end, silently refining your “predictive segment.” Your favorite comedy special could now become a soft proxy for Experian to gauge how impulsive you are. That docuseries about minimalism? Great test case for your spending restraint. They don’t just want to know what you watch. They want to know what you’ll buy after. Or worse, what you’ll believe next.

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The future isn’t one of generic binge-watching. It’s curated manipulation. Your partner just walked out? Cue romantic dramas … with targeted ads for dating apps. Watching a dystopian thriller? Insert ads for tech “solutions” to the very problems being dramatized.

Soon you won’t be choosing shows. You’ll be chosen by them. Not because they’re good, but because they serve a data-driven purpose. If you're a Netflix subscriber, perhaps it’s time to consider whether it still makes sense to continue funding the violation of your privacy.

Play It Again, Spotify

Countless luxuries have become such commonplaces that we thoughtlessly forget them. We can control the temperature of our rooms with the click of a button, get deliveries of fresh food right to our door, and we have basically every song ever made, from every corner of the world, at our fingertips, ready to blast out of a crisp sounding speaker whenever we fancy. Gone are the days of illegally streaming music through a virus-filled desktop, or, God forbid, going out and buying a CD.

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