With the recent announcement that “The Office” will be leaving Netflix in 2021, mutual agreement about the extent of power streaming services have has sparked among users.
“The Office” is a popular sitcom, lasting nine seasons on NBC from 2005-2013, and, in addition to its successful run, is one of Netflix’s most-watched shows. On Tuesday, Netflix announced it will be removing the show from their media-base, since NBC will be taking over all streaming of the sitcom.
“We’re sad that NBC has decided to take The Office back for its own streaming platform — but members can binge watch the show to their hearts’ content ad-free on Netflix until January 2021,” Netflix tweeted on Tuesday afternoon.
Given the show’s popularity, this announcement has caused people to notice the extent of power that streaming services, like Netflix, truly have.
Ali Feder, 17, of Westport, Connnecticut, is a fan of “The Office,” and is dissapointed to see it leave. She herself was too young to watch the show during its original run, and became a fan by binge-watching it on Netflix.
The show is “able to reach out to a different variety of people who maybe weren’t as ‘of age’ to watch it when it was airing on TV, which kind of broadens the spectrum of the fan base” said Feder. With the show likely to become less-accessible, and more costly to watch when it transfers to NBC’s official website, Feder is concerned that future generations will not be able to connect to a show that is so popular today.
“There’s also such a sense of community that you make new friends because of a show that you binged,” says Anabella DebJesus of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Both Feder and DebJesus agree that without easy access to popular TV shows, the fan-communities build around them will dissolve.
These fan-communities make up a huge part of 21st century culture, with friends being made across the globe through bonding over a funny post appearing on both users’ feeds.
In his essay, “The Future of Fandom,” Henry Jenkins wrote about how “Newsweek reduces the phenomenon of “social media” or “web 2.0” to the phrase, ‘it’s not an audience, it’s a community.'”
In the opinion of many fans, like Feder and DebJesus, Netflix’s removal of “The Office” from their media library deprives past, present, and future fans from reaping the benefits of a close community surrounding the mutual love of a little office in Scranton, Pennsylvania.