No one will remember the shine of Netflix

I have a friend who feels empty if she gets the first recommendation on the carousel of releases produced by Netflix.

Like someone who regrets eating a McDonald's, she says that after wasting half an hour foolishly in front of something that she knows she won't continue to see, guilt invades her.

There she goes another night contemplating other predictable content to satisfy the dead moments of our frantic cultural consumption.

She's not the only one who thinks so.

A few weeks ago, essayist Haley Nahman described a similar feeling caused by what she calls the “Netflix shine”, or how we are mired in a universe of productions with a particular disturbing aesthetic.

They are expensive and professional-looking series and films, like a good Instagram ad, but they leave us with an aftertaste of impersonality due to how polished and perfected they are.

Nahman graphically compared the mythical orgasm sequence from When

(“Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are in a

of New York that really exists.

The image is grainy, there is daylight, and they look like normal human beings.

The table and the kitchen are crooked: charm wins") against another scene between two future lovers in a bar in a recent

forgettable Netflix

There, she says, "everything is contrived and perfect, strange and surreal, dim and bright at the same time with yellow and blue tones, as if they were put through a face filter."

Unlike Sally and Harry at the Katz, they won't be remembered.

I guess that's why my friend feels empty after putting on a series that, aesthetically, is so perfect that it seems like another one.

It will be easy to see, but easier still to forget.

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