Memes Drive Streams for Netflix Hit ‘Bird Box’

Netflix’s Bird Box, a thriller where the world’s inhabitants have to be blindfolded to survive is “eh” according to reviews. However, the film is Netflix’s most successful to date—garnering 45 million+ streams in its first week. It was an unexpected phenomenon that owed its success to… memes?

Since the film’s December release, there has been an endless torrent of memes. Once online distractions, memes are now generating millions in the movie industry and Bird Box is its current apex. Memes unintentionally marketed the film and its viewers (including celebs) furthered it, energizing what is known as the “Bird Box Challenge”.

To promote the film, Netflix presented Twitch gamers with a challenge: play their games blindfolded. They did. The public saw and responded. People began blindfolding themselves as they performed various tasks and this took the Internet by storm, prompting Netflix to tweet: “PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES”. Social media propelled an average movie into an international focus. All of this coalesced into FOMO (fear of missing out). People watched the movie to see what everyone was talking about.

Mediocre movies making big bucks or getting views is not new, but Bird Box is different. It showed how future projects can be marketed and how streaming platforms can achieve greater success against big studios.