Netflix Makes 13 Reasons Why A Bigger Deal Than It Really Is

One of the Most Talked About New Shows of the Year Benefits Greatly From the Streaming Service Behind It

 

I’m not even gonna deny it: I haven’t watched this show. I’ve caught a few stray episodes – or, more accurately, a cluster of scenes from a few episodes – here and there, but I have not actually sat down and watched the thirteen hour-long installments that constitute its first season (and yep, a second season is coming). So, you wanna stop reading based on that? Fair call, but hear me out: one, I’m not here to talk about what happens on the show, and two, fucking sue me. Seriously, I spend about as much time watching a screen as a kitten whose face has been stapled to an iPad, so I don’t have the time to electively check out something that (and this is purely speculation) I’m probably not gonna love.

That said, just because I’ve never climbed to the top of Kosciuszko, doesn’t mean I can’t look at it from a distance and say, “Fuck me, that’s a big hill!” And, much like an obstructing mound of rock and dead bilbies, 13 Reasons Why has become pretty unavoidable in the yawning chasm of the internet over the past month or so. I feel, at this juncture, that it’s basically my weirdly self-imposed obligation to comment on it.

So look, I’ve read a good amount of the think pieces surrounding this show, with some extolling its merits and others critical of its misguided intentions. Still, as mentioned, that doesn’t even begin to qualify me to delve into the plot of 13 Reasons Why on either critical or moral grounds. Rest assured, I am not here to mull over whether it does more harm than good, or what have you.

Here’s what I have to say: I truly believe that no amount of quasi-controversial subject matter, real life concern for how the material might be interpreted or general hype around a show such as this would be quite as significant as it has been if it weren’t on Netflix. The amount of vocal supporters and detractors for 13 Reasons Why seems to still be growing weeks after the show appeared in so many people’s queue, with no signs of curbing. But why does everyone seem so insistent on discussing this show and its lingering implications?

To even begin talking about this, the uninitiated will need some details. So, in case you’ve been too busy stapling kittens to things to pay attention to the online sphere of chatter this show has ushered in, here’s the plot at its most basic: a teenage girl kills herself and then leaves tapes behind for her friends to listen to, giving reasons and allocating blame to those around her for her suicide. Reductive? Whatever, that’s what happens.

Yeah, I know, I see the obvious part of this equation too. It’s a show about suicide, and the story of a pretty young girl committing suicide to boot, so it was never not gonna garner some controversy and wider discussion. But, to my thinking, it’s the immediate availability of every episode all at once that makes this show so alluring to some and dangerous to others. Removing that time and distance between installments forfeits a space for absorption, for consideration and reaction that many people might consider necessary in order to form a proper opinion of something. From the looks of it, it fucking bothers a lot of them in ways few other shows have in recent memory.

For some, I’m sure there’s an ethical concern here based solely on the content but, more than that, Netflix offers a liberation to its viewer that others in a position of authority might view as a loss of control. Childproofing aside, if you have a Netflix account and a young person in the house wants to watch this show, bet your arse they’re gonna. I mean, shit, how many do you think finished watching it before most older consumers even knew it was a thing? Now imagine that reality from a worried parent’s perspective. If this was a week-to-week program, there’s at least some illusion of being able to engage in the conversation surrounding 13 Reasons Why, of keeping up with it at the same pace as the rest of its target audience (which, let’s not fuck about, is teenagers and early twentysomethings).

On that level alone, its existence as an easily bingeable piece of entertainment gives plenty of people pause. When concern for what an impressionable young person you care about – especially one under your care – might be exposed to, instant gratification becomes a scary concept. It’s the difference between finding an empty beer can in your kid’s rubbish bin and coming home to find your liquor cabinet empty and on fire. Extreme? Yeah, no doubt and, once again, I’m not saying this is the right mentality to have, or even maybe an accurate understanding of the issues many have with the show. But, based on the reactions I’ve read over the past week or so, that’s just how it appears to me.

Now, I’m aware that, on some level, this is nothing new. It’s not even sort of revelatory to observe that streaming services have altered the way we watch television but, then again, it’s worth mentioning in this specific instance. A show that traffics in and (based on what I’ve read) displays graphic images relating to an issue as delicate as teen suicide is one that’s gonna inspire strong opinions, and those who love this show love the absolute fuck out of it. Is this because it hits home for some, provides a weird, macabre kind of escapism for others, or does it simply represent a more lived-in understanding of teenage life sorely lacking from the landscape of television? Fuck if I know, but I’m not about to disregard the place Netflix as an ever-expanding piece of culture onto itself plays in this adoration.

“Netflix and chill”, “What’s your Netflix password?”, “It’s in my queue”, etc. Its presence in our homes has permanently affected not just how we watch TV, but how we talk about how we watch TV. Against the odds, and largely while playing to them, Netflix is still cool (I think… yeah, I’m pretty sure. Are kids still saying “cool”?). So, if you give me a still strangely relevant streaming platform with a taboo new show destined to be meme-ified into fucking oblivion and launch the careers of its chipper upstarts, I’ll give you the widest, most receptive young audience on the planet. Nothing can interfere with how destined that formula is to succeed, almost for the precise reason it bothers so many others.

Call it outdated or simply underappreciated if you want, but following a show as it airs new episodes weekly is fast becoming obsolete. Netflix, which basically launched the alternative approach single-handedly, eschews the slowburn reward of anticipation with the more millennial-friendly ability to binge. Its platform couldn’t be more suited to a young audience, and 13 Reasons Why might be the most significant new show aimed at that same demographic in years.

What’s more, a thirteen episode dump prevents the onset of stagnation. There’s no way for any other show, movie, meme or whatever to infringe upon 13 Reason Why‘s arena because this show owns the space it functions within. It doesn’t need to share or be lessened by the presence of other shows. Rather than premiere and slowly grow less relevant over time, it leaves the duty of time to you, the viewer. The realm it occupies is outside of time, at least temporarily, and that makes it a simultaneously speedier viewing experience and grants it an arguably longer lasting impact.

Soooo, yep, those are my thoughts on the responses and emotions surrounding this show. Again, if I could, I’d offer some additional insight on the show itself, whether it achieves what it set out to do and how in fuck there could possibly be another season of it (’cause, spoiler, the main girl’s pretty dead). Can’t do it, though, and I doubt I’ll be able to anytime soon. Even so, I’ll bet by the time the next season comes around, I’ll have inadvertently heard and read enough about it to be firmly up to date. Not because it’s a great show, or a terrible one or particularly significant on its own terms in one way or another. It’ll be because it’s on Netflix, and yeah, I have Netflix. Who doesn’t?