Netflix is tapped into your psyche

You've lied to us all, Beyonce.

​Interpellation: a word I learned in my college critical theory class, which I admittedly skipped almost every day of. The Althusser day, however, I dragged my semi-stoned, semi-drunk ass out of bed and learned some useless philosophy.

Interpellation, as it was explained to me, is the act of mirroring. Ads use it often. Basically it's when an ad creates an image and calls it "you." Eventually you relate to the image and need whatever is in the ad. Loreal uses it in their main slogan -- "Because you're worth it." All of a sudden, you're identifying with Beyonce and thinking that you need the grocery store makeup she's hawking even though you know she'd never buy that shit herself. And that leads us to Netflix.

Everyone knows Netflix is stocked with shit movies. In fact, only about two percent (this is not an actual, researched figure) of the movies are five-star-worthy. So Netflix, to keep you interested in their product, and to hook you into watching the shit movies they've paid for, created an ingenious marketing tool: the algorithm that takes your ratings and suggests movies to you, filed under custom headings.

The French are true artists, which means that they've never invented anything useful.

But there's a huge flaw in the system: I would never have watched that weird French horror movie Netflix suggested to me in a random draw if Netflix had good movies. I wouldn't have given it three stars ("liked it") if Netflix had other good movies. I gave it three stars simply because, in Netflix-world, that movie deserved three stars. Therefore, the "Foreign Horror" category Netflix created for me is based on the false premise that I prefer foreign horror when I do not.

Here's the kicker, though: Now I have watched six French horror movies, all suggested by Netflix, and I got to say -- I love them. Netflix created an image for me -- an image of a woman who has more culture than to watch only John Carpenter films -- and I fell into their clever trap of interpellation. Here's a few more categories Netflix picked to describe me that now actually describe me. Those tricky bastards.