That seems a little too tidy and clever to be a database defect. Has someone imagineered a word for faux bugs yet?
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:00 AM on May 22, 2015

That seems a little too tidy and clever to be a database defect.

I have no idea if this is fake, but if it were real, they would have only selected the funny ones for the blog, and left out the nonsensical ones...
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:05 AM on May 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Netflix at least claimed it was real:

Last night, a Netflix representative confirmed with Slate that the bug was real, saying in an email, “Indeed this bug has given us a few chuckles, too. We are looking to fix it as soon as we can, though. We have confirmed the issue, it happens rarely, and are working on a solution.” (It’s unclear whether Lannon’s popular Twitter account is what alerted Netflix developers to the problem.) Just minutes later, the spokesperson confirmed that the product team has fixed the summary mashup issues.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:08 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Another plot summary suddenly makes Terminator 2: Judgment Day seem a bit less terrifying ...

"On May 17, 2014 Netflix became self-aware ..."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:18 AM on May 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

I would watch the Twilight Zone Parks & Rec. I guess it would be like Night Vale.
posted by Monochrome at 10:27 AM on May 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

If you look at the pictures you can see the little descenders from letters that have been overwritten. So it's not like they somehow accidentally mixed up all the strings in the database; they're just trying to render two summaries and parts of each are showing up.
posted by vogon_poet at 10:28 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

P.S. If I ever need a new account handle, dibs on Warren Buffet: America's ultimate bachelor party!
posted by Monochrome at 10:32 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

wow...that's actually a really neat bug.
posted by lodurr at 10:33 AM on May 22, 2015

If I can't actually watch the one where Jean-Luc Picard leads the crew of the new Enterprise on missions of trash-talking and deceit, I want my money back.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 10:43 AM on May 22, 2015 [7 favorites]

Star Trek + trash-talking and deceit = sassmaster Garak
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:50 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

This reminds of the 80s and satellite TV (when the antennas were huge.) My friend had a fat magazine schedule with movie listings with short descriptions he swore were either brilliant or really stupid, but wasn't sure which. I randomly flipped it open and read one that I remember to this day. "Deliverance : Atlanta businessmen take a bad canoe trip."
posted by cccorlew at 11:14 AM on May 22, 2015 [8 favorites]

I often would come home late at night to find my father watching some random movie on television. He'd explain the amazingly confusing plot to me, with changing characters and byzantine complications that were intricately woven together. It wasn't until I found him watching a movie I happened to know particularly well that I realized he'd fallen asleep during an earlier movie, woken up in the middle of an entirely different film, and somehow supplied elements in his own mind that pieced the two together.

I suspect he would have recognized these movies as old favourites.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 11:16 AM on May 22, 2015 [11 favorites]

I like this one.

Yesterday I was looking up a book of poetry by queer and feminist theorist and academic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and came across this bizarre/amusing google books mashup.
posted by latkes at 12:17 PM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

I posted about this a year ago, but fun to see it pop up again!
posted by oulipian at 4:49 PM on May 22, 2015 [1 favorite]