On Tuesday 1 October, richest jerk in the world Elon Musk began a campaign to boycott Netflix. Musk, recently crowned most dislikable public personality in America, claimed that the online streaming service promotes a “transgender agenda”.
So, what exactly got Musk all riled up? Well, if you’d believe it, it’s a show called ‘Dead End: Paranormal Park’… which ended back in 2022. I’d call this a pathetic attempt to stay in with the MAGA crowd after his one-year bid at playing politician ended amid swirling rumours that even Trump thought he was an off-putting dickhead. However, ragging on a show that was cancelled three years ago seems like a weird way to stay relevant.
Dead End: Paranormal Park aired for one season of 20 episodes. It wasn’t a show about being transgender – it was a show about the supernatural adventures of two kids who work at a Dollywood-style theme park. One of the main characters, Barney, was a trans boy. He first came to the park because his parents, who were otherwise accepting, didn’t defend him when his grandmother was cruel about Barney’s identity.
Reading tweets so you don’t have to
Self-described “free speech absolutist” Musk began his crusade by retweeting a post from far-right brainrot propagandist Libs of Tiktok. The tweet, which Elon captioned “This is not OK”, read:
Dead End Paranormal Park, a show on Netflix, is pushing pro-transgender on CHILDREN. This show is advertised for 7-YEAR-OLDS
He also retweeted one former Netflix customer who announced that they were cancelling their subscription. The poster stated that they didn’t want to support:
someone who celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk and makes content that pushes pro-trans content on my kids
Dead End creator Hamish Steele allegedly criticised Keir Starmer for his tweet mourning the death of professional bigot Charlie Kirk. Libs of TikTok shared a screenshot of a tweet in which Steele appeared to say:
Why the f— are you even commenting on this, d—head…a random nazi gets shot and it’s a public statement.
On Wednesday, Musk tweeted an image depicting Netflix as a Trojan horse. It concealed the “transgender woke agenda” outside a castle labelled “your kids”. He accompanied the picture with the caption “Cancel Netflix for the health of your kids”.
Libs of TikTok also tweeted an image of sci-fi thriller Leave the World Behind, with the caption “Why does Netflix hate white people?” Musk added “Good question”. Leave the World Behind came out in 2023 under Barack and Michelle Obama‘s Higher Ground Productions banner.
His tweets continued along these lines for several days – feel free to check them out if you can make the search function on his ridiculous social media platform work.
Whatever will Netflix do?
Several news outlets reported on the dip in Netflix’s overall value after Musk began championing his boycott. IMDB stated that Netflix lost $20bn in value over the last few days. This sounds like an eye-watering sum, right up until you remember that the streaming giant is currently worth around $487bn. That’s a dip of almost 4%, which we might compare to the 80% dive that Twitter took immediately after Musk bought it.
To show that data another way, lets have a look at some graphs. Here’s Netflix’ share price over the last 5 days:
Can you spot where Musk started tweeting? (Hint: it’s hidden among an overall decline caused by the backlash to Netflix’ use of artificial intelligence, rising subscription prices, and dreadful redesigns).
Now here’s the last year, for comparison:
And here’s Netflix’ entire lifetime to date:
I don’t think they’re going to miss a few cancellations from people who’re getting worked up over a cartoon with a trans guy in it, do you?
Please, Netflix
But wait – this gives me an idea.
Netflix, my darling, as you’ve seen over the last few days, all of the MAGAs who used to give you money have promised that they’re leaving. You no longer have to play both sides by making comedy specials starring washed-up transphobic comedians.
Your far-right audience is gone, you’re free; they took their 4% of your share price with them. It’s tough, but you’re going to make it through this. As Disney recently demonstrated in spectacular fashion, bowing to the whims of sad little fascists can only hurt your brand anyway.
Instead, Netflix, you could show how that you’ve turned over a new leaf by giving Dead End a second season. Maybe even a little movie? Go on, it’ll be really fucking funny.
P.S. Until such a time as Netflix caves to my totally serious demands, do go and check out season one of Dead End: Paranormal Park. It’s beautifully animated, the voice cast do a great job, and the storyline has some fantastic twists in it. Oh, and I hear it has a trans character, if that makes any difference to you.
Featured image via Unsplash/Dima Solomin
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