I’m sorry to tell you that Steve D. is back, sounding off. If you’re unfamiliar with Steve D., he’s a hostile force that occasionally takes over my site to Sound Off on things he’s angry about.  Today it’s people who complain about Netflix’s rate hikes. If you still want to read things I wrote, I covered two TV shows last night.

Okay, listen up, idiots. At least in regard to this “blog,” it’s been about three years since I last Sounded Off (that’s a trademarked phrase by the way, so don’t get any ideas). Oh, I’ve been Sounding Off in real life plenty. I just don’t feel the need to log onto the World Wide Web of Jerks (also trademarked) in order to spew bins of emotional rubbish all over everyone’s heads in public like all of you do. Also: finding that Claire is somehow now affiliated with WBEZ and all the liberal snobbery that comes with that makes me feel ill and gross. Ick.

However, as much as I would have liked to have stayed away, I found that my Sound Off Meter (clipped safely to my belt) had been reaching dangerous levels lately and when it does that, I know it’s time to act (or it will burst and spill mercury all over my pants). Here’s the sole reason for its violent reaction, and thus mine in response: all of you stupid people whining about Netflix increasing their prices. You need to close your mouthy yaps and there’s only one method I can think of to make that happen effectively.

That’s right. Ready your eye and ear holes, because it’s time to Sound Off!

First and foremost, shut up and stop whining, because here’s the thing: you are complaining about dumbest thing imaginable, you dumb dummy. Netflix is a luxury item. Do you need it? Unless you are some bizarre obsessive or are somehow glued to your couch (talking physically-bound here), then no, you absolutely don’t. It is a thing you likely didn’t even have five years ago and lived without just fine. Then, of course, you opted into it because it was so inexpensive and convenient. And what did you do after you ordered it? You let the discs sit there for months unwatched and maybe occasionally streamed episodes of TV shows that you’d already seen FOR FREE on FREE NETWORK TELEVISION. You could have watched every single film they’ve had available in the years you’ve subscribed, but you didn’t. You didn’t even come close. And now you’re upset that this thing that was always an utterly pointless luxury item that you were always, ALWAYS losing money on each and every month because you never used it now costs a bit more?! You ignorant fools, you know why you’re so upset? Because it’s made you face up to this failing of yours as a person.

Yes, sometimes being Sounded Off upon stings a bit (don’t touch your eyes).

Is this rate increase going to make you start watching all those Swedish documentaries you put in your queue after you read about them in the New Yorker? No, you moron, because the thing you’re paying Netflix for isn’t for access to a catalog of movies larger than any video store you’ve ever been in; you pay for it, in part for convenience, yes, but also because you want a false sense of identity and self-worth. You want to believe you’re the kind of person who not only has the time to, but will also actually watch this sort of artsy drivel. It makes you believe that one day you’ll be so smart and worldly that you’ll be snorting all over your expensive wine. Gross.

You ready to go back to video stores, you schmucks? Clearly you must be preparing to grovel at the feet of the last few employees at the half-dozen Blockbusters that still exist, begging them to reinstate the membership card you haven’t used in four years because you decided it was too much of a pain to walk a half block to wander through a selection of more films than you could ever possibly hope to watch in your lifetime. Or better still, let’s hope after all this complaining you still have time slotted to go apologize to the ghosts of all those independent video store owners who you so quickly abandoned once Blockbuster built that bright shiny mecca down the street. Oh poor, poor you!

People, listen: a gallon of gasoline costs $4. Wrap your small, dinosaur-nugget brains around that. You’re complaining about a rate increase for a service that allows you to watch movies. Mostly stupid movies that will distract you from important things you should be doing with your life. Your priorities are dumb, pointless, and above all: dumb.

Think of all the time you’ve wasted complaining about this online and with your sweaty little friends. You know what you could have been doing with all that extra time? Getting your money’s worth from a service you have no intention of quitting, despite your desperate cries to the contrary.

Yes, I am a Netflix customer and yes I will both continue to subscribe and continue not using their service. Why? Because as a stupid luxury I don’t need, at $27 a month or whatever it happens to be, it’s one of the least expensive pointless things I spend my income on.

Not a single ugly one of you doing all of this whiny complaining is a penniless urchin who is scraping together grimy gutter nickles every month to pay for your Netflix account. You’re a bunch of sweater-wearing, bespectacled twits who have probably spent more money on Groupons over the past three months than half the country pays on their underwater mortgages. You are the ultimate face of overly privileged shame. Shame!

In closing, if you take one point away from anything herein, please let it be this: you don’t really see as many basset hounds out on the street as much anymore and I think that has something to do with the struggling popularity of the Fred Basset comic strip.

A Sound Sincerely (trademarked),
Steve Delahoyde