Netflix Burns Hulu With '13 Reasons Why' Meme in Brief Twitter Spat
This week, two popular streaming services went full Cady Heron vs. Regina George on Twitter. Netflix deflected a shot from Hulu by referencing a new meme from its own teen series "13 Reasons Why."
Hulu started the mini feud with this April 14 tweet mentioning all the content they carry that Netflix does not have:
Streaming only on Hulu. Not on Netflix. Try your free trial today! https://t.co/zSLJeqPY6epic.twitter.com/4Edc7TqoaQ
— hulu (@hulu) April 14, 2017
It took Netflix a few days to respond, but when they did, they went meta:
Welcome to your tape https://t.co/juAMcd0jjU
— Netflix US (@netflix) April 18, 2017
At least 316,000 people got that reference, and liked the tweet. If you're stumped, "Welcome to your tape" is repeated in Netflix's "13 Reasons Why" by the character Hannah Baker, in reference to the tapes she recorded and left for various recipients, to explain why she killed herself, and each recipient's role in her decision.
Refinery29 explained how "Welcome to your tape" has become a meme, whether that's a good thing or not:
"So, what is being memed? Mostly they're mocking her character's tendency to get upset over what seems like nothing to some people. Each meme makes light of the experience of being depressed, isolated, and hopeless. Yes, it seems foolish, without context, for Hannah to place blame on a boy who stole doodles of bunnies out of her compliment bag. But we're all adults here and know that it meant a lot more than that to the 17-year-old in the show.
The most popular meme is to use the phrase "Welcome to your tape," which Hannah's voice-over repeats on each episode, marking the exact moment she felt betrayed by or disconnected from the subject of the tape."
What was Netflix trying to say with its meta tweet? As Entertainment Weekly interpreted it, "So Netflix is basically saying Hulu's ad is so depressed, isolated, and hopeless that it's making them feel suicidal (or perhaps that their ad plays a like suicide tape, depending on how you interpret it)."
Hulu has yet to reply back, and they probably won't -- they also probably won't try to take another shot at Netflix. It would be fun to see Amazon jump in with its own meta sass (surely they could find a way to squeeze in a "Bosch" or "The Man in the High Castle" reference), but this is probably the end of the high school streaming spat.
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