Topline
X owner Elon Musk boosted posts on his platform from right-wing social media figures urging their followers to cancel their Netflix subscriptions over alleged comments made by Hamish Steele, the director of a discontinued animated series on the streaming service, about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
X owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk boosted a right-wing social media push to cancel Netflix.
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Key Facts
In a post on X on Tuesday, Musk reshared a post from another user announcing they are canceling their Netflix subscription, and wrote: “Same.”
The calls for cancellation appear to stem from an apparent post made by Steele criticizing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s tweet mourning Kirk’s death.
According to a screenshot of Steele’s alleged post, which was shared on X by right-wing account Libs of TikTok, the animated show’s director purportedly wrote: “Why the f— are you even commenting on this, d—head…a random nazi gets shot and it’s a public statement.”
The Libs of TikTok accounts had earlier shared clips of Steele’s animated show “Dead End: Paranormal Park,” which was canceled in January 2023, and claimed it was “pushing pro-transgender on CHILDREN.”
Musk reshared the post attacking the animated show and wrote: “This is not ok,” and later boosted another post attacking the streamer for pushing a “transgender woke agenda,” saying “Cancel Netflix for the health of your kids.”
Netflix shares fell 1.74% to $1,178 in premarket on Wednesday; however, it is unclear if this decline is related to the cancellation push, as all three major stock futures indices are also in the red.
What Do We Know About The Animated Show?
“Dead End: Paranormal Park” is an animated comedy series that ran for two seasons on Netflix from June to October 2022. The descriptive text included on the show’s page reads: “This spooky-but-sweet series follows a diverse group of employees at a haunted theme park, complete with vengeful spirits, a talking pug and LGBTQ+love.” The show’s first season received positive reviews from the small number of outlets that covered it and it has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes with only nine reviews. In its 2022 review, Mashable praised the show, saying: “Paranormal Park delivers meaningful LGBTQ representation.” In January 2023, Steele announced the show had been canceled by Netflix, saying, “It was always the plan to give these characters the proper ending they deserve. But sadly, the powers that be don’t want any more.” The statement, however, praised Netflix, saying: “I want to emphasize my gratitude to Netflix for commissioning the show and for giving us the freedom to tell this story.”
What Has Steele Said About The Cancellation Push?
Steele has addressed the controversy in a few posts on Bluesky, noting: “It’s all lies and slander! Netflix is NOT promoting [the show] at the moment!” A few hours later, he wrote: “I have mostly been very ok today and found it all quite funny, while really appreciating everyone who has reached out, but the extremely nasty weird [homophobic] and antisemitic emails have started rolling in and it is getting a little scary so I apologise if I take longer to respond to stuff.” After Libs of TikTok mentioned his Charlie Kirk post, Steele posted again, saying: “My Instagram comments are now flooded with replies saying I AM CHARLIE KIRK and that I celebrated his death (which I never did).”
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