I’m apparently that weird guy at the office who doesn’t have Netflix. Not because I’m making some grand statement about corporate media or anything like that – honestly, I’ve got three other streaming services I barely know how to use. It’s just that Netflix is one technology bridge too far for my 58-year-old brain, and frankly, I’m exhausted from learning new platforms every six months.
Last Tuesday, I’m waiting for coffee in our break room when Sarah from Payroll asks me, “Did you catch the new season of Stranger Things?” I tell her no, and you’d think I just admitted I don’t own shoes. Her face went through this whole transformation – first confusion, then pity, like she was looking at some tragic figure who’d been living under a rock. “Oh Paul, you really should watch it,” she says with that tone people use when they’re trying not to hurt your feelings. “It’s amazing.” Then she hurried off before I could explain that my lack of Netflix wasn’t a judgment on the show, just another casualty of my ongoing war with technology.
This happens constantly now. Linda and I went to our neighbor’s dinner party last month, and everyone’s talking about The Crown, Tiger King, some chess show – basically having entire conversations in what might as well be a foreign language to me. I’m sitting there nodding along, trying to figure out if I should just lie and pretend I’ve seen these things. Would that be worse than admitting I’m completely out of the loop? For a minute there, after my second glass of wine, I actually considered making up plot details. Thank God I went with honesty instead. “Sorry, I don’t have a Netflix account,” I said during a pause in the conversation, and the table went dead silent. You’d think I announced I don’t have indoor plumbing. Someone actually asked if I was “okay” – like not having Netflix was a symptom of some deeper problem.
Here’s the thing that really gets me: not having Netflix means more than just missing shows. It means being locked out of entire conversations, cultural references, even memes that my daughter sends me that make no sense without the context. I feel like my parents must have felt when I’d reference movies they’d never seen, except this is happening to me at work, at social gatherings, basically everywhere I go.
I remember when TV was something you watched together, you know? Back in the day, everyone saw the same episode of whatever show on the same night, then talked about it the next day at work. There was something nice about that shared experience. Now everyone’s watching different things at different times, but somehow I’m still the odd one out for not being plugged into the Netflix machine.
What really strikes me, having spent thirty years watching workplace culture change, is how streaming services have basically become the new small talk. Used to be we’d discuss the weather or sports. Now it’s “What are you watching?” And apparently your answer says everything about who you are as a person. Watch true crime documentaries? You’re intellectually curious but maybe a little morbid. Watch weird indie comedies? You’re quirky and artistic. Watch nothing because you don’t have the platform? You’re… I don’t know what that makes me. Probably just old.
I tried using Linda’s account once to watch something a coworker recommended. Spent twenty minutes just trying to log in – had to reset the password twice, then couldn’t figure out how to navigate to what I actually wanted to watch. When I finally found the show, Netflix kept suggesting other things based on Linda’s viewing history, and honestly, the algorithm seemed to know her better than I do after thirty-two years of marriage. It was suggesting exactly the type of documentaries she loves, the British mysteries she always gravitates toward. Kind of unsettling, actually.
Back when I was still trying to keep up with technology more actively, I would’ve been impressed by that kind of personalization. Now it just feels invasive. The system knows exactly what you want to watch next, keeps you scrolling through options, makes sure you never run out of content. It’s designed to be addictive, and from what I can tell, it’s working exactly as intended.
Our firm had a work retreat last year, and on the final evening, everyone decided to have a group viewing party for some Netflix show. I’m not kidding – people brought snacks, arranged the conference room like a living room, made it this whole social event. I ended up standing awkwardly in the back for about ten minutes before giving up and going to the hotel bar instead. Found this older gentleman there who also skipped the Netflix party, and we ended up having the most interesting conversation about vintage electronics and how AM radio works. Honestly, it was the best part of the whole retreat for me, but I couldn’t help thinking about the irony – I had to become a social outcast to have a genuine conversation.
My daughter thinks my Netflix avoidance is just me being stubborn. “Dad, you’re being such a boomer about this,” she told me last week, even though I’m technically Generation X. “You’re not proving anything, you’re just making things harder for yourself.” She’s probably right, but at this point I’m almost afraid to sign up. What if I can’t figure out how to use it? What if I accidentally delete something or mess up the settings? It’s another password to remember, another interface to learn, another way to feel incompetent when the system inevitably changes.
There are some advantages to being on the outside, though. When you’re not caught up in whatever everyone else is watching, you can see the bigger picture more clearly. I watch my coworkers discuss shows with this intensity that seems disproportionate to what they’re actually talking about. It’s like these streaming platforms have created this artificial urgency around entertainment consumption.
What I find fascinating, from my accountant’s perspective, is how these services have completely changed the economics of entertainment. Instead of everyone watching the same few shows, now there are hundreds of options, but they’re fragmenting audiences into smaller groups. More content, but less shared cultural experience. Everyone’s having intense conversations about different things, creating these little pockets of shared knowledge instead of broad cultural touchstones.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m the last person in Chicago without a Netflix account. Probably not, but it feels that way during office conversations. There’s something almost rebellious about it at this point, even though it wasn’t intentional. In a world where everyone’s connected to the same platforms, consuming the same algorithmically-suggested content, maybe there’s value in staying disconnected from at least one piece of the machine.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not advocating for everyone to cancel their streaming services or anything. That would be hypocritical coming from someone who can barely manage the streaming services I do have. But there’s something to be said for occasionally stepping outside the cultural current and seeing what it looks like from the shore.
Linda keeps threatening to sign us up for a family account, and honestly, I might let her. The social isolation is getting a bit ridiculous, and I’m tired of being the office weirdo who doesn’t understand half the references people make. But for now, I’m accidentally holding onto this one small piece of resistance against the digital uniformity that’s taken over everything else in my life.
My daughter was mortified the other day when I mentioned “Netflix and chill” during a work meeting, apparently using it completely wrong. Based on her reaction, I’m guessing it doesn’t just mean watching Netflix and relaxing, but nobody bothered to explain what it actually means. Just another cultural reference that went completely over my head. At least some things never change – I’m still embarrassing my kids, just with different technology than my parents used to embarrass me.
Paul’s a Chicago accountant learning to survive in the cloud-software era. He writes candidly (and funnily) about being tech-competent but perpetually one update behind. His motto: technology is great—once someone explains where they’ve hidden the settings.
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