I Can't See the Movie I Want Because Netflix Removed It

Submission 4,606

Part of a series on Physical Media Discourse. [View Related Entries]

About

I Can't See the Movie I Want Because Netflix Removed It or Come To My Place, I've Got the DVD is a series of memes criticizing the decline of physical media based on an image macro consisting of a top panel showing a man crying in front of a TV, captioned, "I can't see the movie I want because Netflix removed it," and a bottom panel showing an image of a man standing in front of a wall full of DVDs, captioned, "Funny, I've never had that problem." The meme was originally posted to Imgur as early as October 2016 and became the subject of edits and redraws over the following years, also inspiring physical media discourse online.

Origin

On October 18th, 2016, an Imgur^[1] user uploaded a two-panel image macro criticizing the decline of owning physical media, specifically movies. The top panel consists of an image of a man crying while standing in front of a TV with the Netflix logo displayed on the screen. The man is subtitled, "I can't see the movie I want because Netflix removed it." The bottom panel consists of a photo of a man soy facing in front of a shelf full of DVDs, subtitled, "Funny, I've never had that problem," garnering over 3,700 views in eight years.

On July 25th, 2023, an edit of the meme was posted by Tumblr^[2] user funky-dealer, replacing the second-panel subtitle to read, "Really sorry to hear that man. If you want to you could come to my place I've got the DVD we could watch it together. I even have some soda and popcorn!" garnering over 160,000 notes in a year.

The post includes a description by the user that reads, "I can't even explain why I feel this way about it but this meme, this specific version, just makes me so emotional i love it so so much. it's very heartwarming. peace and love on planet earth."

Spread

The meme, along with edits of the format, continued to spread on various sites and platforms over the following months.

On July 29th, 2023, Tumblr^[3] user yuttikkele posted a redraw of the meme referencing Homestuck, garnering over 4,500 notes in a year. On February 27th, 2024, Redditor u/MemeLord150 posted the Tumblr edit of the meme to /r/okbuddyretard,^[4] garnering over 2,000 upvotes in eight months.

On July 29th, 2024, the original meme was reposted to /r/dvdcollection,^[5] titled, "Don't rely on streaming for your entertainment," garnering over 1,700 upvotes in three months. On August 4th, a screenshot of the Tumblr post by funky-dealer was posted to /r/CuratedTumblr,^[6] garnering over 1,100 upvotes in two months.

On the same day it was posted to /r/ComedyCemetery,^[7] titled, "Boomer superiority spotted," garnering over 800 upvotes in the same span of time. Later that day, a screenshot of the post to /r/ComedyCemetery was posted to /r/memesopdidnotlike,^[8] garnering over 2,000 upvotes.

On October 13th, 2024, a redraw of the meme referencing Zenless Zone Zero was posted to /r/ZZZ_Official,^[9] garnering over 2,500 upvotes in a day.