We Need to Rethink Streaming Genres.

Proposing A Better Way to Categorize.

For whatever reason, the most popular words to describe comedic style focus on the sincerity and delivery of the material.

These include, “self-deprecating”, “satirical”, and “deadpan”. Someone will say they’re after a partner with a “quick wit”, or who is, “fluent in sarcasm”.

But successfully applying these descriptors to other people’s words fully depends on your own perspective, and your ability to accurately assess their underlying worldview.

For instance, if your coworker tells you a racist joke ironically, but you’re just racist, you might classify them as someone who, “tells it like it is”.

Context is everything.

And it’s the first thing lost when platforms attempt to organize their catalog by surface-level traits.

For instance, take a look at some of the Netflix subcategories within the already wide net of “Stand Up and Talk Shows”:

The first three “Deadpan Stand-up Comedy” specials that come up for me are from Norm MacDonald, Nate Bargatze, and Mike Birbiglia.

All three are great, but slotting them next to one another here makes no sense.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Well, they are all white guys telling jokes on stage to an audience without screaming at them… that seems pretty similar, no?”.

But that’s like saying Eminem, Lil Dicky, and Macklemore share an audience because they’re all white guys who can rap fast.

There is a massive diversity in audience and where the laughter comes from with this trio.

I’ll give you another one, “Cringe Comedy”:

We see two Bo Burnham specials, another Mike Birbiglia special, a four-part collection of James Acaster specials, and two Petes, whose only similarity between their hours is their first name.

Again, it’s all white guys.

But I think the only person who cringes at Bo Burnham’s comedy is Bo Burnham.

And what do they mean by “cringe” here?

Are we cringing with these comedians? At them? In recognition of the less flattering qualities of ourselves exaggerated through their over-the-top persona?

This mislabeling does not only apply to stand-up comedy, by the way.

Would you prescribe any of these series to someone in a rush?

And it’s not just Netflix.

Here’s HBOMax’s Max’s HBOMax’s category, “Laughs, Guaranteed”.

There is not a single person on Earth who finds all three of Insecure, The Big Bang Theory, and Entourage funny, guaranteed.

And here is Hulu’s “Hularious” hub, arbitrarily distinguishing between “Stand Up Fans”, “Comedy Fans”, and “Stand Up Comedy Fans”:

Is this a squares and rectangles situation?

And here’s a tab for “Podcast Lovers”, where we see two more Mike Birbiglia specials:

You guys know Mike Birbiglia, right? The cringe and deadpan podcaster?

Thinking stand-up comedy is an outright genre unto itself is as fallacious as assuming “Podcast lovers” is a personality type.

I’m reminded of a girl I once met at Kam’s, a swamp that moonlights as a college bar in Champaign, Illinois. We got to talking about movies we liked, and she mentioned she was, “really into psychological thrillers”.

And subconsciously I was kind of like, No fucking shit? Who doesn’t like that? That’s like saying I’m really into gripping drama, or hilarious comedy shows.

Of course, I didn’t say any of that out loud.

Instead, I chugged my drink, and transferred to Emerson¹.

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If I were to hazard a guess as to how streaming services’ recommendation algorithms function, it’d be similar to YouTube. High average view duration gets rewarded, with a compelling trailer, title, thumbnail, and description bringing people in the door.

For the artist’s sake, I wish more titles resembled Fred Armisen’s “Stand-Up For Drummers”, where it’s immediately clear who something is and isn’t for.

But then categories and keywords are slapped on, either by a machine, or by someone who couldn’t possibly have the time to watch and organize this much content. And so your masterclass in interconnected storytelling that builds towards some grand revelation about fatherhood is reduced to “quirky” and “off-beat”.

Personally, I would be furious if my special that I worked on for 2+ years was wrongly described by a few adjectives, and fed to millions of people who won’t find me funny.

And so the more important factors, far over cadence or tone, are audience and function.

It’s about who something is for (and not on a demographic level, but a psychographic level), and what purpose it serves for them.

Of course, you should never identify a problem without proposing a solution.

So rather than describing the physical traits of the people who created something – including their ethnicity, sexuality, and whether or not they are standing up – I think it’d be more useful to everyone involved (audience, creatives, streamers, etc.) if we had categories that leveraged shared truths of their target audience, like:

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• Background Noise for People Who Work From Home

  • Kind of like what the radio or regular season baseball used to be.

  • Ironically, this one could also be titled, “Podcast lovers”.

• Complete and Utter Escapism

  • The ultimate “turn your brain off” hub.

• I’M SIXTEEN AND I SMOKE WEED

  • It’s very important that the people in these movies/shows also smoke weed.

• “It Gets Better”.

  • Bojack Horseman, 13 Reasons Why, that documentary with Jonah Hill’s therapist, etc.

• On The Train? Here’s Friends, Broken Into 30 Second Intervals

• Showdenfreude

  • Anything where the point is to feel superior to the idiots on screen. Think Family Feud, Wipeout, most Reality TV, etc.

• ⚠️ Severe Weather Alert In Your Area ⚠️

  • The televisual equivalent of a weighted blanket, or matzo ball soup. You’re not going anywhere today, so get cozy.

• Shows for Moms on Treadmills

  • I mean you can picture it, right?

• Stuff to Browse Your iPhone to

  • A cousin of the Background Noise category, but the viewer is off the clock.

• 5-10 MG of Melatonin

  • Typically a show someone is rewatching from their childhood or teenage years. Ideally the TV automatically turns off after 2-3 episodes.

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Of course, I’m mostly kidding.

But I’m also not.

I’m reminded of a Spotify playlist someone once used at a pregame called, “Songs That Get Drunk White Girls Excited”:

The Killers, Charli xcx, and 50 Cent all on the same playlist.

Function over Genre.

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Labels are supposed to clarify. In practice, they’re starting to obscure.

Back when we all watched cable TV that had channels with distinct brand identities, the process of discovery was much clearer. You didn’t need five genre tags to know what kind of comedy show you were watching. If it aired on Adult Swim, you already knew the vibe, even if it technically shared a channel with Cartoon Network.

Contrast that with today’s content mix. Does an original animated comedy series residing on Hulu vs. Netflix vs. Peacock mean anything to you? Probably not.

But if I said an animated comedy series previously aired on Nickelodeon, or Fox, or Comedy Central, vastly different shows with vastly different audiences come to mind.

And until platforms figure out how to incorporate this sort of human curation into their recommendations, great work will keep getting mislabeled, or missed entirely.

1. I would later transfer back to Illinois, but that’s besides the point.