I have not seen "Cuties."If the French indie film at the center of a political shitstorm for Netflix is even 1% as perverted as its reactionary critics claim it is, I'm good. But I have seen a lot of Netflix artwork. Countless images, from thumbnails to bigger images, are created automatically, through, as one Netflix employee called it, a "framework" to "effectively intersect big data with creative."Allow me to translate for those readers who spend less than every waking second on Slack: they've put the creative on autopilot. And, with "Cuties," the autopilot crashed the creative right into the side of a mountain. Late last month, the artwork created for this movie led to Netflix being accused of sexualizing girls."We're deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for 'Cuties'" a spokeswoman for Netflix told the Times. "It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. We've now updated the pictures and description."Ditching Default ImagesTo understand how "not OK" artwork that is "not representative" of a film became the artwork for that film, look at Netflix's self-publicized history of A/B testing.
In a company blog post from May of 2016, Gopal Krishnan, a Netflix engineer, explains the moment when the platform started creating their own artwork based on performance."Netflix would get title images from our studio partners that were originally created for...roadside billboards where they don't live alongside other titles," Krishnan wrote. "Other images were sourced from DVD cover art which don't work well in a grid layout in multiple for factors (TV, mobile, etc.)
"The first artwork they ever A/B tested was for "The Short Game."
"If you see the default artwork for this title you might not realize easily that it's about kids and skip right past it," Krishnan wrote. While "The Short Game" was Netflix's first movie about kids to ditch the default studio artwork, it was not the last."Cuties" was originally called "Mignonnes" in France, and its original poster seems to highlight parts of the movie that were not presented in the eventual Netflix version of the advertising. According to The New Yorker's Richard Brody, "Cuties" is "the story of a girl's outrage at, and defiance of, a patriarchal order."
Visible, Polarizing FacesSo why wouldn't the default art for "Cuties," which communicates defiance, work for Netflix? More A/B testing led the Netflix team to certain learnings:
"Faces with complex emotions outperform stoic or benign expressions.""Visible, recognizable characters (and especially polarizing ones) result in more engagement.""Our members respond to villainous characters surprisingly well.""An image's tendency to win dramatically dropped when it contained more than 3 people."
"Computer Vision"Those learnings turned into rules, for an automated image selection process that uses "a collection of nearly two million images."That process kind of looks like the thermal vision mode from "Predator," and it can use AI to automatically crop Kevin Spacey's face (as if it couldn't get creepier) for TV or mobile and even to replace any need for human involvement in placing and sizing text in an image.
IronyWas the poster for "Cuties" created using the same automated image selection process as the millions of thumbnails used on the site? I don't know, and I would not be surprised if it wasn't. I'm sure some human hand at the creative services team was involved at least a little. But I would be willing to bet that best practices from AI-generated thumbnails were applied to the poster, even if that poster came from a different department within Netflix and it was created by hand. Right now, two self-righteously frightening documentaries about the pernicious effects of big tech are being heavily promoted on the Netflix home screen, "Capital In The Twenty-First Century" and "The Social Dilemma." And now there's a lesson about how tech warps us right next to those titles in "Cuties," a movie that is actually about isolation and exclusion that Netflix inadvertently turned into a story about scandal.
The shorter stuff
Disney executives didn't know the ninth minute of credits in "Mulan" thanked eight government entities accused of human rights abuses. (NYT)
When millennials run presidential campaigns we get phrases like "the Democratic Avengers." (The Atlantic)
Jeff Zucker telling Michael Cohen he wants to give Trump a weekly CNN show was the only Trump book-related thing I liked all week. (NYM)
Lana Del Rey talking to Jack Antonoff makes me want to go enroll in a writers' workshop. (Interview)
Joe Rogan moderating a Trump-Biden debate is way better than some snooze-fest from ABC/Politico or whatever and you know it. (NYPost)
Special "Ben Smith Profile" Section
After Clare Malone's sweaty profile of the Times' Ben Smith I don't think I want to hear the word "scoop" ever again. (NYM)
Here are the most eye-rollingly fawning parts:
"Week by week, Smith is laundering the internet's voice through his column, loosening the Gray Lady's corset ever so much."
"Smith's membership in the 'I Run Stuff' club seems secure even as he pokes at the other members of it."
"Once, he grabbed a cheeseburger off Jones's desk and ate it as he passed by."
I think this Army display ad is deliberately styled like a Call of Duty multiplayer loading screen. (Image)
Drew Magary calls Adam Corolla scum. (SFGate)
"The Boys" fans are throwing a tantrum because they can't watch the whole new season at once. (The Wrap)
The son of the author of "The Old Guard" comic book was arrested in a #BlackLivesMatter protest. (NYPost)
Jay Caspian Kang: "A few days later, [Wieden + Kennedy] announced their newest client: social justice." (NYRB)
Max Read on the jouissance of posting stuck with me all weekend. (Bookforum)
Carrie Battan on the virtual concert and the only moment of intimacy coming from Megan Thee Stallion's flaws and vulnerability. (TNY)