Where does the word “Netflix” come from?
This one may not be a surprise nor even need an explanation, but given its firm place in the new normal let’s take a look at it along with some related words.
Netflix simply means “internet movies,” translated literally; “net” is short for internet and “flix” is a lazy way to spell “flicks” which is slang for movie (or at least used to be).
But hearing that now makes it seem like the name was obviously made for a streaming model…in fact, as you may know, Netflix didn’t begin as a streaming service. The founders wanted to combine words meaning internet and movie because people simply used the internet to order DVDs (this physical thing movies used to be stored on. Visit a museum after the lockdown ends to see one). They only launched a dedicated streaming service a decade ago and the DVD rental service about a decade before that.
So the “net” part is still understandable. But where did “flicks” come from as a synonym for movies?? Way back in the day, movies used to well, flicker. But people still loved them because of how incredible the content was.
In fact movies, specifically movie theaters, were around long before TV took over. It’s even said that “the new technology [TV] effectively killed Hollywood’s Golden Age.” It’s funny how the word meaning “vision from a distance (‘tele’)” got attributed to the thing people really didn’t watch from that far, especially relative to the viewing distance in movie theaters. “Movie” is such a cute way to say “moving picture”; I propose we used it for TV series too and do away with the clunky “television.”
Fun fact: The Netflix founders also considered the name “Rent.com”
