Filter me this, Netflix

Let us teach your algos more about what we really want, Netflix.

I’ve a friend who posts “the date” every day to help us keep track. Today is Wednesday, March the 199th, 2020.

Social media has become more widely used in the last decade, and the tools to manage them have matured as well. You can hide specific dates or people from popping up as “memories” on Facebook. You can mute or enhance keywords, hashtags, and channels on Twitter, Slack, Discord, and more.

But what about our TV streams? I’m sure I’m not the only bingewatcher out here. Help a binger out, Netflix.

The Challenge(r)

As we settled in to another evening of one episode of our latest choice of serial streamed TV, Netflix popped up a giant ad for one of their new offerings, Challenger: The Final Flight.

Not my favorite topic; I was a space nut as a kid and this was my first “big” space failure. Thanks to the combined forces of Marketing and the algorithm that knows I watch space shows … it will be on my “suggested” list for a long, long time.

Give me some space, but not that space.

I could simply down vote Challenger, but it’s not enough to hide it. I reallly don’t want to see it. No spotlights, no “because you watched …” suggestions … I want it gone.

So how about this, Netflix? Give it a keyword or two I can click to filter out. Challenger + Space. And an option to hide the show itself if it pops up anyway.

Yes, I grump-watched Space Force even after I realized I don’t like that kind of humor. But I watched it on someone else’s Netflix account (cat sitting gig) so as not tempt the algorithm to show me more things like that.

Do even more. Add a filter for actors and directors. Want to block out Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, and Woody Allen? Click. Gone.

Let us filter in, too. More indie work by the likes of Maïmouna Doucouré, Ava DuVernay, and Luis Estrada. Click. Something new.

Google used to have an “I’m feeling lucky” button … what if Netflix let us teach the algorithm with what we know we want, don’t want, and might want. Reward us with a surprise something new to try.

How else to entertain us as we binge stream our way through to Tuesday March the 506th?

*By their math, March 1 = March 0, but who am I to argue with one’s perception of time? People are converting their unspent, unrollable holidays into every Friday or Tuesday off if their company hasn’t added an extra day or two off in the interim.