Netflix reveal hidden ‘micro genres’ that activate depending on how you watch

Netflix have revealed that they have 'micro genres' that can pop up depending on your watching habits.

You may have heard of the numbers you can type into the streaming app to get all the films and TV shows in a certain genre to pop up, but it looks like there's a way to find even more specific genres.

Long gone are the days of doom-scrolling through all the titles on offer until you come back to the one you started with.

But this new micro genre on Netflix is slightly worrying about where we are heading with media.

There are micro genres for viewers to search for (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It was previously revealed that, the age of short-attention spans and multi-tasking when it comes to technology, Netflix executives have told screenwriters to make things simpler for those at home.

They instruct them to have characters 'announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have a program on in the background can follow along'.

It was all part of an exploration into the streaming platform and how it operates, where magazine N+1 spoke to former Netflix screenwriters, who remained anonymous.

This revelation irritated viewers, as film as an art form is being consumed as 'content' rather than anything else, with more people using it as background noise while doing something else.

A pair of sources also revealed to the magazine that Netflix higher-ups would sometimes approve projects 'without reading the scripts at all'.

But as well as this, it turns out that one tag among Netflix's 36,000 micro genres is for this type of film and TV, particularly.

Titled 'casual viewing', it consists of a specific genre of media - think sitcoms, reality TV and nature documentaries.

People nowadays like to have two things on at once (Getty Stock Photo)

You may think that this may consist of most of Netflix's catalogue, though a lot of it can best be described as watches that come off best when you're not fully paying attention to it, or doing something else while it's on.

Think Gen Alpha, and scrolling on your phone while doing anything else.

The magazine goes on to describe Atlas, a 2024 sci-fi title starring Jennifer Lopez, that came out this year as 'another Netflix movie made to half-watch while doing laundry', adding that it is 'Tide Pod cinema'.

Whether you're a fan of what is essentially 'brain rot' TV or not, it seems like that's the way we're headed, so savour those rare trips you make to the cinema for those one or two blockbusters a year.