Netflix: The American Economy's Last Hope

Demand for videos by mail increases as we become a nation of impoverished hermits

Now that we’re in a global depression, people have stopped spending on such luxuries as cars and their mortgages. It’s austerity time in America, and it feels good! No more nights out at fancy restaurants like Applebees, no more decadent impulse purchases such as full tanks of gas – we’re all tightening our belts and learning anew the joys of thrift.

Over years of economic prosperity, many consumers acquired the terrible habit of viewing movies in movie theaters, in the company of other humans. Now that indulgence has fallen by the wayside and people are watching movies the way the Lord intended: at home, alone, on a grainy flickering screen with weird dark lines on it because the cathode ray tubes are shot and nobody can afford a plasma anymore.

Oh sure, it sounds a little depressing, until you consider that Americans’ newly hermetic bent has created an actual boom in an actual industry! When’s the last time you heard of that happening? This magical industry is known as “Netflix,” which is a Latin word for “a solitary and compulsive activity for sad people who cannot stop themselves from watching an entire season of Alias in a single sitting without a bathroom break.”

Netflix saw its quarterly profits jump an astonishing 45 percent in Q4 – three of America’s bleakest months, economy-wise, in the history of ever. This officially makes Netflix literally the only company in the country, if not the world, that is doing well right now.

Investors are kicking themselves for not investing in Netflix in early September, when it first became clear that we would soon degenerate into a nation of impoverished housebound losers. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, expect Netflix stocks to rise precipitously as more and more desperate investors drive up the prices into an unsustainable bubble, eventually betting their life savings on the video giant, until at last the bubble bursts and they’re all poor again.

That is when the puppetry bubble will commence.

Sara K. Smith also writes for Wonkette and desperately needs a new television.

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