Netflix has completely reinvented the ways in which audiences consume media, both in the ways it delivers viewers original content and the ways in which it makes distributed content available. You, the Lifetime series that debuted last year with little fanfare, has truly come alive on Netflix, with the streaming platform claiming it will have been viewed 40 million times within its first four weeks on the service.
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The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Netflix revealed during its quarterly earning call the projection about You, which classifies a “view” as a user who watches at least 70 percent of one episode. This doesn’t mean everyone is watching each of the 10 episodes of the first season in its entirety, but at least remained invested enough to watch the first 30 minutes of the series premiere.
While You was broadcast on Lifetime, it averaged roughly 1.1 million viewers per episode.
Based on the novel by Caroline Kepnes and starring Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail, You focuses on a book store employee who becomes enamored by one of his female customers, taking a terrifying ownership over her as he uses all the resources the internet has to offer to inject himself into her life. The longer the clerk stalks his victim, the more he connects with her, with each day that goes by being one step closer to her discovering his dark past and the ways in which he has invaded her life.
The series is a perfectly serviceable mystery, with multiple twists and turns that make you want to keep watching, while never leaning too far into the inherently dark and violent subject matter. With Netflix debuting the series all at once, audiences are able to get through the whole season in a day to learn how the story unfolds, as opposed to keeping track of the narrative over the course of 10 weeks.
You is far from the first series that has taken over all of social media when it debuts on the streaming platform, with thrilling narratives regularly becoming the most talked-about properties of the moment.
Another recent hit on the platform was the Sandra Bullock-starring Bird Box, depicting a world where otherworldly monsters will cause anyone who witnesses them to kill themselves, resulting in survivors wearing blindfolds to navigate the outside world. In addition to being consumed by large numbers of viewers, the narrative has inspired countless challenges where viewers blindfold themselves and attempt mundane tasks.
Fans can check out You, now streaming on Netflix.
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