The Netflix Taste Profile

Netflix, it is the poor man's Comcast, a flea market of the recent, the not so recent and the down right obscure in cinema.  Chasing down movies in Netflix I feel like Michael Douglas in The Game.  There are so many dead ends and false leads.  But maybe that's why they have the "Taste Profile".

Since that Ed Snowden debacle there has been a lot of concern about what information the NSA is collecting on the average citizen.  I'm more preoccupied with what sort of data Netflix is collecting on me.  Just how is this Taste Profile constructed.  It all seems a bit convoluted compared to something like Pandora, which is a simple thumbs up/thumbs down system.

Put in the hours and your Taste Profile becomes the holy fucking grail to Netflix.  Typically my Taste Profile mirrors my movie preferences well with categories such as "Gritty Crime Drama" or "Oddball Comedy".  With enough views I hope to see some greater specificity with categories like "Harrison Ford Throws Bad Guys Off Moving Vehicles" or "Dramas Featuring a Nick Cage Meltdown".

Truth be told with this shitty weather I've been bingeing on Netflix like a crack fiend.  My profile is nicely tuned and spitting out recommendations for Less Than Zero and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.  Jesus, Sam Rockwell is one of my all time favorite supporting actors.  How the hell did Netflix know to find that for me?  It begs the question, what else does the Netflix supercomputer know about me?  Does it know my first non-G rated movie was Home Alone, that my Dad and I sat through Spice World so my sister would watch the 1998 World Series, that in junior high I was too scared to watch The Blob but years later laughed my way through Hostel, that I've watched both Dirty Dancing and The Notebook to get some, that Fight Club is the only movie I have watched with director's commentary, that I had a Natalie Portman poster in college or that I feel compelled to watch High Fidelity every time I get dumped?

But just when my Taste Profile is near Stephen Hawking level intelligence I go and do something stupid and ruin it all.  Usually following a night at the bar.  Returning home I'm feeling lonely and sentimental.  So I watch some coming of age drama that is listed as "popular on Netflix".

The next day I wake up groggy and hungover.  I boot up Netflix to discover my Taste Profile has dyslexia or some shit.  Gritty Crime Drama has been replaced with Understated Drama and Oddball Comedy is now Romantic Comedy with a Strong Female Lead.  The Netflix supercomputer has just pulled a Hal 9000 on me and now I'm out in the cold.

As a kid I would build giant card castles.  The Netflix Taste Profile is my new card castle.  It takes so long to build but just one foolish choice brings the entire house of cards tumbling down.  When will I learn?