Last Tuesday night, the people of the Capitol Hill Autonomous zone gathered for a screening. The police have agreed to abandon the blocks that make up the protest zone in the heart of Seattle. The protesters don’t trust the local economy, instead relying on their own communitarian marketplace. And they’ve even freed themselves from medical services, creating their own medic station. But the activists, who President Trump has called “Domestic Terrorists,” gathered around the one institution we can all agree has not let us down for one second during the most tumultuous three-month stretch in living memory. That Tuesday night, the Autonomous people of the Zone watched Netflix, specifically the Ava DuVernay documentary “13th.”The incongruity of a commune untethered from police but still glued to Netflix should be jarring. But it’s barely noticed. As institutions from government to sports and from technology to fashion lose respect, the streaming utility has maintained and even gained its gravitas and reliability.A sign on a salon in my neighborhood put it succinctly. In times of crisis, we turned to Netlfix. It's been a safe haven for the country.
As if he were narrating the scene inside the Capitol hill Autonomous Zone that night, Dave Chappelle and Netflix underscored our great collapse in trust later in the week. If any one sentence can be considered a thesis statement from Chappelle’s new special “8:46,” it’s this one: “Every institution that we trust lies to us.”That Chappelle spoke those words on Netflix’s YouTube channel only highlights the gulf in trust between Netflix and its tech rivals. When Netflix changed their home screen to feature all Black movies, it was rightly and universally accepted as a powerful use of that invaluable real estate. On the other hand, Google, the parent company of YouTube, where the Chappelle special was distributed, has been the subject of walkouts and protests over speech. Twitter has been at the center of controversy surrounding Trump's hate speech, eventually labelling his tweets with warnings. Facebook is facing sustained criticism over letting those same Trump posts remain unmoderated. And even Amazon failed to its biggest test of trust and reliability at the beginning of the pandemic.
As it becomes obvious that institutions like the stock market, the police and even print media don't always have the best interests of everyone in mind, it seems like only Netflix, more of a utility like television itself than one streaming service among many, can reliably keep all of us, whether in autonomous zones or within the grip of the American state, together.
The shorter stuff
Special "Jean Baudrillard's Wet Dream" Section
The NBA is turning the league into a hyperreal version itself, with players living and playing in a bubble at Disney World. (NYT)
But Kyrie Irving says "something smells a little fishy" about simulation. Players are now pushing back, putting the plan in jeopardy. (The Ringer)
🌀Special "Field of Elite Ineptitude" Section
Ivanka Trump's dream man is Christian Bale's portrayal of Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho." (TNR)
Jeffrey Katzenberg's original favorite name for Quibi was "Omakase." (WSJ)
The writers for both Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert came up with the same unbelievably corny joke about Trump's Lafayette Square disaster: "Why did the orange chicken cross the road?" (NYT)
Special "Reporting From the Hamptons" Section
Air Mail sent a guy from East Hampton to Southampton. He checked into a hotel. (Air Mail)
Ben Smith got tons of anonymously sourced intel on media's bunkered bosses: "One new media executive told me he issued specific instruction to his executives to be careful about what gets into the Zoom frame: no pool, no ocean, no nanny." (NYT)
Do you think "ZeroZeroZero" got the Lefsetz Lift that "Bosch" got? (Lefsetz Letter)
Dick Costolo bought a SoHo apartment with a stripper pole in it. (NYT)
Is it time for millennials and Zoomers to rethink the magazine or newspaper profile as the ultimate signifier of success? (THR)
"Space Force" has not left the Netflix Top 10 since it debuted to terrible reviews. (Image)
Scott Galloway just comes out and says he wants to be "the most influential thought leader in the history of business." I would have way too much shame to ever admit this. But I guess that's why he's got a podcast with Kara Swisher and I don't! (WSJ)
Apparently it took Substack a hackathon to come up with the idea of private Substacks. Does the word hackathon mean nothing anymore? (Substack)
Monday's Fortnite event was the most watched event in gaming history. (Twitter)
If Jim Cramer's show is not abrasive and anxiety-inducing enough for you, check out Barstool's Dave Portnoy's stock trading livestream “Davey Day Trader Global.” (Bloomberg)
Dylan Byers was extremely generous in comparing this interview with Marc Andreesseen to the Paris Review's "Writer At Work" series. (The Observer Effect)
Emily Nussbaum is asking for suggestions on how to fix Quibi. (Twitter)
Considering that Will Smith's show on Snapchat got 35 million viewers during the pandemic, coronavirus is probably not the reason Quibi flopped. Might have something to do with the shows. (Bloomberg)
🌀Special "Media Reckoning" Section
Ginia Bellafante is a national treasure. Her column this week on Condé Nast and its elitism is scorching. (NYT)
Matt Taibbi's controversial piece is not only a thorough roundup of all the firings in media the past two weeks but also proof that you will not turn into a bad person simply by reading something that is a counterbalance against the dominant narrative. (Taibbi)
And if you're curious how much money people at Condé Nast make, there's a Google Doc going around. (Page Six)