Confession: I’ve been using someone else’s Netflix account for the past three years. I could have bought my own, its only ten dollars a month to start and if I stopped buying so many gummy worms I could definitely afford it, but I refuse to on principle. That principle being sharing and caring.
By giving out your Netflix account password, you are not only giving the gift of second rate movies and weird indie films to someone you love, but you can also see whatever trash they decide to watch. Last year I went through a series of documentaries with sexual themes (prostitution, sex ed in American schools, etc) that all showed up on the account I was using. Yes, it did bring forth an awkward conversation about my television watching habits, but sharing this Netflix account also allowed me bond with the other users over the availability of flavored condoms in America compared to Europe. Netflix brings you closer as a family.
If I want to rewatch season three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the fourth time, I use my mother’s Netflix account. So does my brother, my best friend from high school, our next door neighbor, and this one guy whose computer I logged my account onto once and has yet to log out. Were like a special kind of kin bonding over our love of film. Our bond means something.
You may ask yourself with all these people sharing one Netflix account, how many accounts are there really?
Here’s my theory: There are only ten Netflix accounts in the whole wide world.
Soak that in: only ten. Humans are sociable creatures and we are made to want to interact with one another. By sharing our Netflix passwords, we, as a society, are getting closer to a connective whole. A connective whole that sits in our rooms by ourselves eating ice cream and streaming Psych off our laptops. But that’s fine! The next day, when our collective whole ventures back to the outside world, we will have a new TV episode to talk about at the water cooler.
In the future when people only remember Kevin Bacon as that guy from Footloose who wore too much denim, were going to play ‘six degrees to someone’s Netflix account’. You will be able to connect any person you meet on the street to a Netflix account that someone you know uses. It’s a more fun version of this game anyway because I don’t have any desire to meet Kevin Bacon, but I do have a desire to watch every recommendation in the ‘coming of age dramas’ queue.
Gone are the times when it was acceptable to have never seen [insert riveting TV show here]. Get it on Netflix! I’ll lend you my password.
Sarah Beth Kaye is a contributor for the Rutgers Review.
