For those of us who are quietly agents of absolute chaos, or simply want to try and stretch out the number of episodes of one specific thing we watch (you know, like normal TV), Netflix has started trialling a ‘shuffle’ option. To shuffle your viewing. So you’re not watching the same thing for six hours straight and get a bit of variety into your Netflix seshes.
Either that or you’re yearning to cause havoc with your TV habits, because every other element of our lives this year is pure chaos so why not bring that into couch potato time, hey.
According to Tech Crunch, Netflix began testing this new option on a select number of users in July and expanded the pool further this month. Popping up for some as a shuffle button in various parts of the menu screen, the shuffle option apparently unlocks a playlist of options that might not be what you’re watching right now, but things the Netflix algorithm thinks you might like.
Instead of spending ages scrolling through everything in the streaming library until you get to the strange stuff you didn’t even know existed (read: Valley Girl with Nicholas Cage) you just get served a bunch of stuff you haven’t clapped your eyes on yet, but might be your next obsession.
So it’s kinda like TV, which is the original shuffle playlist if you really think about it, but instead of getting stuck watching something you give precisely zero fucks about, everything’s a bit more tailored to you. Doesn’t sound too bad, really.
I’m not sure if this fancy little shuffle mode is being tested with Aussie accounts yet, but if you spot it the next time you settle in for a binge-watch sesh (read: me hoovering through Selling Sunset) maybe give it a hit and see what the algorithm spews up at you. Who knows, maybe you will like a viewing of The Boss Baby: Get That Baby!
