Peak Streaming (Dumb...Huh?) - Tealy and the Crew

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The email to Netflix was sent at 3 AM on a Friday.

Tealy found out about it the same way he found out about most DumbDird developments — a phone call at an unreasonable hour, a sentence that made no structural sense, and then the slow creeping horror of realizing it was real.

"DURR, TALLY, I APPLIED TO NETFLIX—"

"You what."

"DURR, I SENT THEM THE SHOW—"

"DumbDird it is one episode—"

"DURR, ONE REALLY GOOD EPISODE—"

"It has forty views—"

"DURR, FORTY VIEWS, TALLY—"

Tealy stood in his kitchen holding his phone with the lights off because he hadn't even turned them on yet, staring into the darkness of his own home, processing.

"Go to sleep," he said.

"Durr, okay. DURRR, NETFLIX—"

Tealy hung up.

He stood in the dark for another moment.

Then he turned the light on, sat down, and spent twenty minutes thinking about it before going back to bed, which he would also never be admitting to anyone.

The application itself, which DumbDird had forwarded to the entire group the next morning with the energy of a CEO announcing a merger, was a document of staggering confidence.

It was three paragraphs long.

The first paragraph described Dumb...Huh? as a, quote, "groundbreaking game show experience with a catapult."

The second paragraph was just the word "DURR" followed by the view count, written as "40 VIEWS (VIRAL)"

The third paragraph said, and Tealy read this four times to make sure he was seeing it correctly, "We also have a loyal fan base including a 3 year old, an angry old man, and a traffic cone."

He had listed the traffic cone as a fan.

In the official Netflix application.

As a member of the fan base.

Dird read the email, set his phone face-down on the table, and did not speak for several minutes. When he came back he simply said "he listed the traffic cone" to nobody in particular and poured himself a glass of water with the movements of a man who needed something to do with his hands.

Blara read it, said "the traffic cone can't watch Netflix," and went back to her snacks. She was not wrong.

Beric read it and immediately wanted to know if Netflix's submission portal had any interesting technical infrastructure, which was a completely different concern but very on-brand.

UltraDumbDird, upon being told DumbDird had applied to Netflix, asked if Netflix was food.

It was not food.

He seemed disappointed.

The response came in eleven days.

Tealy was there when DumbDird opened it, which he would later reflect was both a privilege and a burden.

It was a standard rejection email. Professionally worded. Politely declining. Thanking DumbDird for his submission and wishing him well with his creative endeavors. The kind of email Netflix had clearly sent ten thousand times and would send ten thousand more.

DumbDird read it carefully. Nodded slowly.

"Durr," he said.

"Yeah," said Tealy.

"Durr, they said creative endeavors."

"They did."

"Durr, that's me. I have those."

Tealy looked at him. At the email. At DumbDird's face, which contained zero devastation and an amount of quiet pride that was frankly unreasonable given the circumstances.

"You're not upset," Tealy said.

"Durr, no." DumbDird shrugged cheerfully. "Durr, they'll come around when we have more views."

"How many views are you aiming for."

DumbDird thought about this with genuine seriousness.

"Durr, fifty."

Tealy opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Looked at the ceiling.

"Fifty," he said.

"DURR, FIFTY VIEWS, TALLY. THEN WE REAPPLY."

"You're going to reapply to Netflix."

"DURR, YEAH, AND NEXT TIME—" DumbDird leaned in with the energy of a man who had a plan, a real plan, a plan he had thought about for at least several minutes— "DURR, I'M TELLING THEM ABOUT THE BIGGER CATAPULT."

Tealy stared at him for a long time.

Outside, somewhere in the distance, the world continued operating normally, completely unaware that a reapplication to Netflix was being strategized around a catapult upgrade and a ten-view milestone.

"I'll watch the next episode," Tealy said finally.

DumbDird's face did the thing it did.

"DURRRRRR—"

"Don't."

"DURRRRRRR—"

"DumbDird—"

"TALLY—"

"I'm leaving—"

"DURRR, WE'RE GOING TO NETFLIX, TALLY—"

Tealy was already at the door. But he was, against his will, smiling approximately four percent of a smile, which was more than he would ever voluntarily disclose.

The reapplication was already being drafted.

It mentioned the traffic cone again.

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