Whatever Happened To Netflix's Awards Ceremony The Flixies?
About a decade ago, Netflix was sitting pretty, pulling in growing numbers of viewers with TV shows they had licensed from other networks. Some might remember how, in 2013, NBCUniversal licensed the streaming rights for "The Office" to Netflix, allowing it to become a frequently re-watched series for the streaming service. 2013 was when, some might say, early rumblings of what was to become the Streaming Wars began. Companies began keeping their own properties under their own umbrellas, each hoping that it could launch a successful streaming service of its own. Netflix also began making original content, a move that was considered risible at the time.
We all know the hoarding, overspending, and striking that the Streaming Wars ultimately begat, but just prior to the War, streaming seemed like a sustainable model. Studios would license their movies to a third-party streamer, they would earn revenue, and many older shows and movies were advertised as being more available. If Netflix had ever bothered to release its ratings, actors and writers might have been paid fair royalties the entire time. It was a simpler model and one that gave rise to widespread "binge-watching," still something of a novelty at the time. Older, random shows could become hits, and some people liked it that way.
Into this streaming atmosphere dropped the Flixies, which Netflix announced as an annual awards show centered solely on its available catalog. Not Netflix Originals, mind you, but everything on the service. Viewers were to vote — and they were encouraged to vote as many times as they liked — on what TV shows and movies they liked the best based on a strange list of categories.
The Flixies were held once.
And the Flixie goes to ...
The categories of Flixies were MTV Movie Awards levels of frivolous, so it's clear they were not meant to be a serious contender for legitimate critical awards. It was more of a way to brag about which movies and TV shows you had watched. The categories included:
- Best Guilty Pleasure
- Best Commute Shrtner (sic)
- Best Marathon TV Show
- Best Hangover Cure
- Best Bromance
- Best PMS Drama
- Best Tantrum Tamer
The Guilty Pleasure category was a mix of trashy TV shows, hit movies like "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," and reality shows like "Hoarding: Buried Alive." Commute Shorteners (excuse me, shrtners) were presumably the best shows to watch on your phone, Quibi style, while on a bus or train. I'm not sure what "Super 8" or "Nacho Libre" have to do with curing hangovers, but they were nominees in that category. The Bromance category and the PMS category were essentially sexist, gendered categories for men and for women respectively, and the Tantrum Tamers were the shows parents plopped their toddlers in front of to, well, tame tantrums.
Netflix, with the Flixies, had seemingly embraced its 2013 place in the pop culture firmament as the ultimate provider of trash. They had no interest in being a legitimate artistic archive, and had every interest in turning TV into constantly-available, disposable chewing gum for the eyes. Every category implies that its customers watched films and TV shows passively, using them as fodder for hangovers and toddlers. The tagline was, "Honoring the ways you REALLY watch Netflix."
Viewers were also invited to suggest their own categories, and you didn't have to be a Netflix subscriber to vote. The Flixies also coincided with the debut of "House of Cards," the very first Netflix original series.
March 11, 2013
The winners were to be announced on March 11, 2013, several weeks after the broadcast of that year's Academy Awards, and definitely after the end of the Awards Season in earnest. It was a last-minute contender and overstayed its welcome. Not very good timing on Netflix's part.
Fanfare about the Flixies was notoriously low, although some actors played along. Nina Dobrev, the star of "The Vampire Diaries," tweeted that her show had been nominated. There was a minor, minor, very minor scandal with the Flixies, as they deemed the hit cult show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" a "Guilty Pleasure." Beyond that, few people seemed to pay any attention to the awards. March 11 rolled around, and the winners were announced on the Flixies website, TheFlixies.com. Sadly, the website is defunct, so the winners cannot be easily found. Statuettes were not distributed, as far as I have been able to determine.
The only current evidence that any awards were given out at all is a citizen's blog called My Power Is Beyond Your Understanding, which announced the top three shows in each category. "The Muppet Movie" won Tantrum Tamer, "Breaking Bad" won Marathon, "Mythbusters" won Commute, and, yes, "The Vampire Diaries" won Guilty Pleasure. There didn't seem to be any fun write-in categories. It appears that actual audience participation in the Flixies was incredibly low, and the service decided not to try it again the following year. Perhaps now an embarrassment, the Flixies have become a footnote to a footnote.
The following year, Netflix distributed Jehane Noujaim's documentary film "The Square," which was nominated for an Academy Award. Their appetite whetted, the company began to produce their own awards-bait prestige pictures. Eight Netflix movies have been nominated for Best Picture from 2019 to 2023.