New Netflix Party Extension Simultaneously Awesome, Depressing

Have you ever wanted to binge Netflix shows with friends, but maybe your friends are part of your WoW guild and can’t make it in person? A new Chrome extension, Netflix Party, provides a solution that’s as awesome as it is depressing.

As reported by Daily Dot,

Netflix and chill no longer requires you be in the same room as your partner, thanks to a new Netflix Party extension for Chrome browsers.

Once installed, the extension lets viewers sync their start times and adds in a chat sidebar for group banter as you power through all seasons of House of Cards in one sitting.

Once one person starts watching something on Netflix, they create a sharable link for friends to join their party and watch at the same speed. No word on whose buffering takes precedence and gets them off the list for further party invites.

That sounds good in theory. For example, what if you and a friend want to live-tweet a Netflix program, but you’re on a business trip? Something like this could be a great way to bond with friends over long distance.

On the other hand, isn’t part of the fun of watching Netflix with someone the interaction? Far be it from me to judge those who’d prefer social interactions to be insulated with a screen. But it seems this kind of thing brings us closer to Wall-E’s dystopic version of humankind’s future.

But on the OTHER-other hand, screw it. It’s cold out there in the real world. Now that anything can be delivered in minutes (at least until investors get wise), there’s little incentive to leave our grooves.