Two years ago, a Saturday Night Live skit sang the praises of shorter movies. “Gimme that short-ass movie, a 90-minute movie,” Pete Davidson rapped in the pre-taped video with musical guest Gunna, actor Simon Rex and fellow cast member Chris Redd.
Netflix was only too happy to oblige. The following morning it rolled out a new category of bite-sized entertainment like “Happy Gilmore,” “Sixteen Candles,” and “Jurassic Park III.”
“Short-Ass Movies” was an instant hit with subscribers frustrated by marathon running times. “Yea Baby!!!!,” one commented on social media.
Netflix creates tens of thousands of catchy categories like “Short-Ass Movies” to help subscribers find their groove on the streaming platform. In fact, curating categories is one of Netflix’s superpowers. Netflix says categories slice through thousands of titles to recommend TV shows and movies that match the tastes and viewing habits of its nearly 270 million subscribers.
The categories range from the mundane – “Action TV” or “TV comedies” – to the intriguing – “Heartfelt Underdog Movies” or “Drug Lords and Mob Bosses.” Then there are the oddly obscure themes.
“When I started getting really niche category recs on Netflix, like ‘Critically Acclaimed Canadian Satires with Strong Female Leads,’ I was like, finally, someone gets me,” one Netflix subscriber wrote on social media, “and unfortunately it’s this algorithm.”
Categorizing content is a prime directive for Netflix. The more Netflix shows it gets you, the likelier you are to stick around.
It also has another subtle yet significant effect. Taking cues from Netflix on what to watch shapes and influences us in ways we might not always realize.
While 50 years ago, we discovered new music through friends or flipping through bins of vinyl at the record store, today we are more likely to be guided by Spotify’s unseen algorithms.
“The positives are obvious – personalized recommendations from Netflix and Spotify help us find exactly what we like in an incomprehensible number of options,” David Beer, a professor of sociology at the University of York in the UK, wrote in a piece for The Conversation.
Should we passively accept the recommendations of black-box algorithms and filter bubbles that hew to our tastes and biases? Bespoke categories can become limiting, even harmful, by insulating us from new voices and different perspectives, Beer says.
“The question is: who decides what the labels are, what gets put into these boxes and, therefore, what we end up watching, listening to and reading?”
At Netflix, a 20-person team led by Mansi Patel is responsible for adding new categories that show up in neat rows on the home screen, navigation menus and search.
“It’s the cornerstone of how we organize and bring all of our titles together,” said Patel, a director of product management at Netflix.
She says Netflix began creating categories back in its DVD days. “Categories on Netflix are crucial to helping members find the right series and films for them,” she said.
On average, members watch movies and shows from six different genres every month. With the help of algorithms that analyze viewing habits and underlying data that tags movies with snappy descriptions, Netflix categories can make highly customized recommendations, Patel says.
Its "Pop Culture Now" category features rows based on trending pop culture topics.
A recent addition is "u not been watching baby reindeer? whats going on" referring to the Netflix limited series "Baby Reindeer," based on creator Richard Gadd's real-life experience being stalked.
Patel's team created a "because you watched" row using the tone of stalker Martha as an Easter egg to recommend similar films and series.
Popular appeal is not a prerequisite. What’s relevant to one person won’t be relevant to another. Some categories have big followings, others not so much. The goal, Patel says, is to create genres that reflect Netflix’s broad cross-section of viewers, from Afrofuturism to Out, Proud & Authentic.
“We want to be constantly thinking about our different members in terms of who they are and making sure our categories reflect that,” Patel said.
In weekly meetings over Google Hangouts to brainstorm new categories, her team obsesses over the latest in pop culture and mines internet search queries, trending topics and buzzy hashtags.
They also draw on their own experiences logging into Netflix in search of that next great series or film. That’s how “Watch in One Night” (for people who want to stay in and binge) was born.
Other brainstorms include: “Swipe Right,” (romance in the digital age); Need for Speed (adrenalin-pumping adventure); Love in Any Language (romance from around the world); Truth is Stranger than Fiction (real-life events so bizarre they could only be true).
Some ideas don’t pan out right away. “Choose Your Superpower” took a while to create, Patel says. “Some of these categories, we will have the idea and we need to work toward it as new films and series are launched,” she said.
One of Patel’s favorite categories is “Badass Moms.”
“Someone came into the room and pitched the idea of thinking about moms as superheroes in their everyday duties,” she said. “I’m a mom and the idea of having a category based on how badass we all are, that was a really fun one.”
Each row of themed suggestions is calibrated to an individual’s taste. So, too, is what shows up at the top of a category.
For example, Patel watches a lot of Hindi content so “Masaba Masaba” – a scripted series starring fashion designer Masaba Gupta and her mother Neena Gupta – is a No. 1 recommendation for her in “Badass Moms.”
Some other titles included in the category are what you’d expect, from “Workin’ Moms” to “Good Girls.” But Quentin Tarantino's “Kill Bill”?
“‘Kill Bill’ was an interesting choice,” Patel conceded.
That kind of zing has turned Netflix categories into a pop-culture phenomenon of its own.
The New Yorker magazine had some Netflix-inspired tongue-in-cheek suggestions: “Nature Documentaries That Will Make You Want to Save the Planet Until You Really Need That Thing from Amazon” and “Independent Art-House Movies That Will Make You Call an Ex and Give Yourself Bangs.”
Some poke fun but Netflix categories get mostly good reviews on social media.
“I watch so many horror movies that Netflix recommends them in several different categories. My favorite is this one, ‘High Brow Horror.’”
“Netflix does categories right. They have VERY specific stuff. "Buddy cop road trip movies with friends on the rocks" or "soft sci fi with fantasy elements for kids."
“Netflix categories make you laugh nearly as much as the comedy,” commented one person above a screenshot of “Politically Incorrect Stand-up Comedy” featuring Richard Pryor and Louis C.K.
In fact, sometimes the categories are so insightful, they unnerve Netflix subscribers.
“Nothing makes you take a pause like Netflix suggesting the category of Gory Movies Featuring a Strong Female Lead,” one subscriber said, adding: “Please note that I don't hate the suggestions.”
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