If you subscribe to Netflix, you’ve likely seen some strange categories suggested for your entertainment:
- Cult Mockumentaries With a Strong Female Lead
- Chilling Workplace Mysteries From the 1980s
- Cerebral Mind-Bending Courtroom Fantasy Movies
While those might not be real categories, Alexis Madrigal and Ian Bogost looked into Netflix’s taxonomy and concluded they have over 75,000 different ones.
They’ve even posted a spreadsheet listing 10 sub-genre columns. The longest one, Adjectives, has almost 150 rows, everything from Absurd to Zombie.
The fascinating tale of their data hunt is detailed in The Atlantic’s How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood.
‘Todd Yellin is Netflix’s VP of Product and the man responsible for the creation of Netflix’s system. Tagging all the movies was his idea…. A fascinating thing I learned from Yellin is that the underlying tagging data isn’t just used to create genres, but also to increase the level of personalization in all the movies a user is shown. So, if Netflix knows you love Action Adventure movies with high romantic ratings (on their 1-5 scale), it might show you that kind of movie, without ever saying, “Romantic Action Adventure Movies.” “We’re gonna tag how much romance is in a movie. We’re not gonna tell you how much romance is in it, but we’re gonna recommend it,” Yellin said. “You’re gonna get an action row and it may have more or less romance in it based on what we know about you.”‘
My take: I love The Atlantic’s Netflix-Genre Generator. There are three flavours: Netflix, Hollywood and Gonzo. Good for lots of chuckles — and maybe some bright ideas too!