Netflix Tells Offended Employees To Quit | The Kyle Kulinski Show

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"The first time I ever really listened to Kyle Kulinski’s show was in the back of a cab last summer. The driver had his phone hooked up through the stereo and was pumping out an episode through the car speakers — loudly, as if looking to convert a captive audience.

“Do you like Kyle Kulinski?”

The driver, Ahmed, was a recent immigrant and apparently a die-hard fan of Secular Talk, the political talk show that Kulinski broadcasts on YouTube. I told him, yes, in fact. I do like Kulinski, had come across his show several years ago, and, all things considered, he seemed pretty good.

“He understands what we’re up against,” Ahmed said. “Like Bernie.”

But I was surprised to hear Kulinski’s name mentioned in the same breath as Bernie Sanders, particularly with such adoration. Because what I did remember about Kulinski’s show struck me as mostly capital-P “progressive” takes on the news — the left wing of the Netroots crowd more than the democratic socialism Sanders has popularized.

It’s an impression that wasn’t entirely incorrect.

“I have no time for philosophical, airy bullshit,” Kulinski tells me from his home in Westchester, New York. “I don’t want to hear about Lenin. I don’t want to hear about Marx. I just want a super plainspoken, straightforward agenda with a straightforward way of selling it.”

With over 800,000 subscribers and nearly 670 million total views on YouTube, selling a progressive agenda is clearly something Kulinski knows how to do — even Democracy Now, the long-standing flagship of progressive media, cannot match his reach on the platform. Chapo Trap House can certainly boast a wildly devoted fan base (and a not insignificant degree of media influence), but their audience is roughly half the size of Kulinski’s.

While Secular Talk might be more likely to be looped in with the progressive networks around Air America and Pacifica alums like Sam Seder than the more resolutely socialist world, Kulinski’s fiery rhetoric, razor-sharp class instincts, and knack for withering takedowns sets him apart from his peers. Judging by his rhetoric alone, he’s closer to a Eugene Debs than a Chris Hayes.

But unlike Hayes, Amy Goodman, or his friend Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks — who began airing Secular Talk on his web network seven years ago — the thirty-two-year-old Kulinski is virtually invisible in the mainstream media. Despite his enormous fan base, his show has never once been mentioned in the obligatory trend pieces on “the Millennial Left” pumped out by the prestige media. Nor has Kulinski’s name ever popped up at all in the New York Times, Vox, the New Yorker, New York Magazine, or the Washington Post, despite his leading role in cofounding Justice Democrats, the organization widely credited with sweeping Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of “the Squad” to power.

Just last week, his Wikipedia page was deleted. The reason? “There is very simply no [reliable source] coverage of this person,” according to one moderator. In new media, he’s king — the Sean Hannity of the Berniecrat left. In old media, he’s nobody.

I suspect there are a few reasons for that. There is nothing “cool” about Kulinski’s show. (As a friend put it, “‘Welcome to Secular Talk’ sounds like something you’d hear on Egyptian radio.”) His no-nonsense social-democratic politics won’t get him much cred with the Full Communism crowd. He records his show not in Brooklyn or Los Angeles, but in a studio he built himself in his modest Westchester home. His hair is too groomed and his taste in clothes too preppy to qualify as “Dirtbag Left.” Nor has he ever attended an n+1 release party. “Not only have I not attended one,” he says, “I have no idea what that means.”

And yet he’s astonishingly plugged-in for a young man in the suburbs. Wondering how Sanders ended up on the Joe Rogan Experience? Kulinski, a frequent guest on Rogan’s wildly popular show, introduced them. “You make the most sense to me,” Rogan told Kulinski on a recent episode. “You’re a normal person.”

Much like Sanders himself, Kulinski’s show has a massive audience that just doesn’t compute with our media’s understanding of “what the kids want” or even “what the left-wing kids want.”

It’s probably for the best — the very woke and very WASP-ish decorum haunting much of the media world is nowhere to be found in Secular Talk. “Corporate Democrats over-focus on identity as a trick to divert you from the issues that unite us all — class issues,” he said on a recent episode. “That Raytheon decided they don’t hate gays or trans people — frankly, I don’t really give a shit what their take on that is..."

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#KyleKulinski #SecularTalk

[blackjack]

Netflix is gearing up for big layoffs. It’s much cheaper for them if people quit so they don’t need to pay severance

[WorldsGreatestRingAnnouncer]

The thing that we should understand with Netflix is that the company produces and hosts a variety of shows. You have the very vanilla TV-Y shows to the very edgy shows. There will be shows that many people get offended by. As long those shows are not illegal or borderline illegal cough cough Cuties, you need to accept that those shows should be on the platform.

[AmazinglyAwkward]

Tbf, people should quit Netflix and unsubscribe not because of it’s shows that are on the platform, it’s the multitude of shows and second seasons that were great that got dropped. And the fact they’re introducing ads to a PAID service, surely the reason you’re paying for it is to not be supported by ads

[rilke]

If you don’t like a certain piece of media/art, don’t engage in it. That is free speech.

[didgya]

I understand what Kyle means but Blazing Saddles is not racist. It demonstrates how racist people were and still are ridiculous by using humor. I still fail to understand why people don't get it.

[lennonavaitraison]

In this instance, Netflix is totally in the right in this instance as long as they apply the same with social media and advertisers. They can't start censoring content because of employee pressure or any other pressure, otherwise, they should close shop. They should apply the same standard if they get outside pressure from the right.

[ryans]

If they want to better serve their members then stop raising prices, stop canceling good shows, stop blaming password sharing for your failures, and start coming up with some out-of-the-box ideas.

[MMAli-rqkd]

*Bigger concern* is that Netflix will pick and choose content and reject other, it's just saying that it's not going to be the employees. Ultimately, a small group will be deciding based on what THEY like. There is no incentive for free speech in corporations except as far as rewarded by the customers. If subscribers start demanding censorship not just options, Netflix WILL cave. *They remove episodes and entire shows based on the request of governments that are criticized in these shows.*

[jca]

As a privileged employee of Netflix that probably makes more than 6 figures for whatever it is they do....yeah they can either shut up and get back to work or leave Netflix . Nobody is forcing them to stay at Netflix. Why does Kyle act like an employee doesn't get compensated for their work at said company ? An employee isn't the one covering the costs of the business and isn't the one who built the company . If you don't like where u work or a product of that company ...then you have the free will to leave . Plain and simple.

[docfig]

100 percent agree with this analysis. Work place democracy is about pay, benefits, hours etc. concerning how the company produces, not the nature of the company at large. If you don’t like what the company produces, that’s 100 percent a person’s choice to work/not work for that company.

[CitrusPeppercorn]

Blazing saddles isn't racist it makes fun of racists.

[MillerIndustriesInc]

How exactly does this "owner should call all the shots at the buffet" argument coincide with workplace democracy and worker owned co-ops? If a restaurant's staff is 90% vegetarian, and they want to make it a vegetarian buffet, should the 10% overrule that? Should there be an owner who can overrule everyone else combined? Seems like a really bad argument to me dude

[insanity]

So Netflix is asking their employees to be stable human beings. Sounds good to me and about time. It’s ok to be uncomfortable or offended but it’s not ok to use that to control others.

[rlt]

While I agree that employees shouldn't have veto power like they are demanding... Netflix lost ALL claim to the moral high ground when the tripled down on Cuties. Sorry but Netflix can get stuffed.

[katelincoffin]

I agree with the approach Netflix took. You can't allow the employee's to determine what content should be on the platform. I have an uncle who thinks Harry Potter is demonic and believes it corrupts our kids. There is no way an employee with a mentality like that should be determining what makes it and what doesn't.

[bladerunner]

Can we get the doctors who object to certain treatments due to religious bigotry to quit their jobs?

[sunone]

I'd take a job at Netflix. Ridiculous to believe you should agree with everything a company produces.

[Jack]

Good, first major company that takes a stand against this cancel bullshit. Good job Netflix.

[Random]

I work for a company that does things I’m not fully in support of, but I’m not going out of my way to demand they change to fit my narrative. It’s like being a vegan working at a butcher shop and demanding your bosses to stop butchering and serving meat. So like NETFLIX says, if you don’t like it then quit and make room for someone who is more willing to work here. Now if employees were being mistreated based solely on your race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., etc. then that would be understandable.

[towel]

I really don’t see a problem with this