In positioning genre as a cultural operation and an indicator of zeitgeist, as Kackman and Mittell suggest, the polysemy of definition and delineation in categorization gets muddied. Both authors agree upon intertextual relations and cultural saliency as core factors in understanding genre, extending later to means of genre analysis. Mittell notes that when conducting such analyses, Genres are not intrinsically textual, but can be constituted by processes of “external” elements such as industrial and audience practices (Mittell, 8-9). Neatly situated within categorization of genre comes discourse, too. Indeed, discursive practices - such as the comments section under Kackman’s blog post on Quality Television, Melodrama and Cultural Complexity - offer themselves as both site of and as genre analysis.
The commercial and industrial reverberations of this are evident, notably in the way Netflix thumbnails target and evolve to meet audience needs and flow through cultural shifts. Particularly, the way they gather and utilize user data to echo these changes and metamorphoses to increase viewer retention and engagement. Netflix Investors (with the same self-explanatory domain name) claims that “We [Netflix] care about membership growth, but primarily focus on revenue maximization. As we work to monetize sharing, growth in average revenue per membership, revenue and viewing will become more important indicators of our success than membership growth…” (Netflix - Overview - Top Investor Questions). With the clear push towards revenue maximization, their means of enticing and maintaining steady viewership becomes the task at hand. It is this need for viewer retention that catalyzes a complex genre discourse in the way Netflix utilizes our data to keep us still watching.
One way in which this aggressive commercialization is felt in our everyday streaming practices is through the ever changing thumbnails that litter our screens. Just a quick glance at least two Netflix homepages might crosslist shows but look totally unrecognizable. While offering thanks to Vox’s 2018 video that not only offered insightful looks into these customized thumbnails, but also behaved as a site for an incredible comments section with people sharing their own experiences of being successfully marketed to. One commenter notes, “I actually quite like this. With so many options, I like that Netflix is trying to customize each movie/show to have it appeal to me specifically more. I feel like each time I'm scrolling through, I have this sense of "prove to me that you are worthy of watching" (Jordan Alejandro), whose silver lining take allows for a more optimistic read of the experience.
Apparently, Netflix only has 90 seconds to grab our interest, with approximately 1.8 seconds devoted to each thumbnail we scroll past while decision making. To create the ultimate user experience fraught with customization and aesthetically pleasing colors, they employ Aesthetic Visual Analysis to pick a frame that is most likely to grab the attention of your eyeballs. As an enjoyer of comedies, my homepage is often laden with bright colors and, more often than not, female leads (sometimes, even random female characters from the show to trick me into thinking they’re the lead!). The case of the average true crime consumer might provide for considerably different optics, as evidenced below.
This process of genre categorization, then, begs the question of its usefulness beyond corporate manipulation. To simply serve as an extension of a hybrid marketing & data science crossover tool, while cool (?), ignores its potential for a larger commentary on how television is being sold to us - whether we’re aware of it or not.
Spot on! I share a Netflix account with my grandmother and thanks to my viewing habits the platform has tagged our account as "queer." Whenever there's a new show, or perhaps even an old film, the thumbnail reacts accordingly: if there is even a slight moment of queerness in the text's plot, the thumbnail will emphasize it. Oftentimes, the shows presented to me as queer are decidedly not queer at all; naturally, however, I'm enticed by the images' homoeroticism so I click and, alas, disappointment follows. My grandmother, conversely, is now under the impression that all media nowadays is queer!
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