While the remix of “34+35” might not have done much to assure one’s faith in the original, it did leave an opportunity for Megan Thee Stallion to shine (unsurprisingly, much more than Doja Cat) as she demands, “Netflix or Hulu?/Baby, you choose.” And though it may not sound like the deepest question (because it isn’t), alas, it is the “pithiest” one of our times. Right on par with, “To be or not to be?”
It’s important, naturally, not to take the question as literally as people take just about everything, for, as we all know, there are far more streaming services to choose from than merely these two (let’s not leave out the likes of HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV—goddamn, the list goes on). Because, surely, you get the gist of what Thee Stallion is trying to ask: shit sandwich or shit cereal? Numb yourself to reality—this way or that way, it really doesn’t matter, so long as you are numb. It’s for your own good, like it was for Mildred Montag in Fahrenheit 451. The fact that existence has reached such a nadir (despite many deeming the technology available to us in the present a high point of civilization—that we can stream anything and everything we want!) doesn’t seem to bother people as much as the idea of having to Netflix and chill alone.
For yes, part of the existentialism of the Netflix or Hulu query stems from the idea that you should have someone to watch whatever the latest slop is. “Watch” being a loose term, as in a song like “34+35,” we’re slapped with the perpetuated false belief that watching TV and movies is supposed to make us feel “sexy.” As “sexy” as the actors who really only feel that way because they’ve been plucked, stuffed and waxed into the oblivion of near non-sentience. And, let’s be honest, oblivion is the name of the game in this “modern” life. Sex doesn’t really play into that as much as people seem to believe. And, among other things 1984 warned of, it was that the gradual stamping out of even the will or urge to bang would be part and parcel of the future. Likely as a direct result of what Ray Bradbury called out via “parlor walls” (a.k.a. screens on in people’s homes 24/7). Hence the ironic ridiculosity of Megan Thee Stallion incorporating a rap about blankly staring at a screen into a “let’s get it on” song.
Thee Stallion might be among the ever-dwindling percentage of those who contribute to the open-ended “and chill” part of the famed Netflix adage, but for most, “Netflix or Hulu, baby you choose” means just that. As in: “Well, here we are with a bit of free time from our middling professions, why not pass it in some way that doesn’t really elevate our consciousness at all? In fact, that’s the last thing we should be doing, lest we both realize 1) how much we actually hate each other and 2) how much twenty-first century existence is an especial prison.
The great joke about it all is that, even though we’re becoming as desexualized as ever (with anti-natalism bound to be on the uptick as more people rethink the idea of bringing someone into this hellscape, complete with the added burden of “competing for basic resources” as climate change intensifies), the masses are still shamed undercuttingly with a song like this. Because, apparently, you’re nobody until you have somebody to stare vacantly at a screen with. This being an aspect of how you’re still expected to be “normal” even as the world around you exhibits fewer and fewer signs of erstwhile “normalcy.” And society has consistently touted that word as having “monogamous” in the definition. Even if you’re asking, “Netflix or Hulu?” to multiple parties throughout the month despite probably not even being vaccinated.
So yeah, “Baby, you choose.” Pick your poison (i.e. numbing agent of choice). Except in this case, the Shakespearean verdict would be, “O true apothecary, thy drugs are not quick at all.”
