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> It's African Americans put in the situation of Friends, and then living their own similar-but-unique story in that situation, informed by cultural differences. (IMHO, it's also a helluva lot better of a show)

Living Single was a good show because, unlike Friends, it was actually funny.

> That kind of... stopped. Once TV got homogenized and distributors realized that African American viewers would watch shows about white people, but white people weren't as happy watching shows about African Americans.

But let's be nuanced about this - I don't think that skin color is the real case. Everyone watched Cosby (and for the sake of discussion let's ignore the current situation with him). My (white) heavily bigoted/borderline racist grandmother watched Cosby. He was America's dad and loved by everyone. I think the real problem was that black characters weren't put into shows that represented widely popular, aspirational American ideals or lifestyles, which Cosby had (nuclear family with professional parents and kids dealing with kid stuff). If you want to say that really doesn't represent the majority of the black American experience you wouldn't be wrong, but it also doesn't represent the majority of the white/Hispanic/Asian American experience either. It was something to aspire to.

Those sorts of mass-appeal western values-type shows, IMHO, will be some of the best bridges to build in regards to race relations.

Building bridges between communities is good, but it isn't the singular goal of storytelling. There are plenty of stories to tell that aren't wrapped tightly around the mission of making Black people seem cheerful and unthreatening to America, just like there are plenty of stories to tell about about Irish people that are about the complexity of Irish people just as human beings with human stories that happen to feature distinctive aspects of Irish culture.

I'll watch a movie set in Scotland just because I think Scottish culture is super interesting, regardless of whether that movie aims to make Scotland seem charming or "well integrated" with my own culture.

But the thing is, nobody (at least in America) expects a show about Scottish people to shoulder the burden of holding up a bridge between Scotland and the world. But there is a sense (at least in America) that the cultural success of Black stories is to be benchmarked against the Cosby Show. Which is weird, when you think about it.

> the mission of making Black people seem cheerful and unthreatening to America

Implies that America thinks this way. Again, nuance is needed.

The explosion of (largely greenbean, but to your credit yours isn't) concern trolling on this thread certainly supports the implication. On HN one might have expected more discussion of business models, technology, etc. Instead we have wall-to-wall "don't you know it's racist not to pretend that race has never been a thing in USA?"

It takes significant historical events to shed the consequences of past significant historical events. The past is exactly that but that doesn't mean we can escape it. People with half a brain know and understand this but (if I'm understanding you right) there's also a lot of using it as a club in these types of discussions. We'll never get away from that without some significant shift in the collective frames of reference. My comment was more a challenge on the wording used in

> the mission of making Black people seem cheerful and unthreatening to America

_seem cheerful and unthreatening_ is in particular what I take umbrage with. That implies that America finds black folks threatening which is why there better be some deep clarification in that statement. But on it's face who really thinks this way? Only ignorant people and true racists have this perception. As far as I can tell that percentage is low.

As far as the business goes I think there's more opportunity in casting that wider net like Cosby or more recently The Neighborhood and creating more appeal for a larger audience. The model of "Netflix for black people" immediately excludes about 86% of the population. Some non-black folks will subscribe, and giving a very liberal 16% of that share they are still excluding 70% of the potential population. This doesn't mean that they won't be successful though - Tyler Perry basically does the same thing (though not overtly so) and he does pretty well for himself. If I were an investor I'd have to examine this under a microscope before jumping into any investments. But who knows? Hopefully they will do well.

The apparently simplicity of marketing new Cosby Shows in the mass media is the whole premise of this startup; it's "Netflix for Black people" because the bet is that Black people will appreciate a space in the media where they can simply tell stories centered in Black culture which aren't freighted with the need to bridge cultural divides. There is a time and a place for bridges and also for enclosures.

You are certainly welcome to subscribe no matter who you are, and you might well do that if you're interested in stories told in a Black context --- for the same reason you might have been super interested in watching Babylon Berlin even if you don't even speak German. Or you might not. That's one of the cool things about pluralism.

I don't disagree with this. But as I said they've alienated a very, very large pool of potential customers. Good luck to them, but they could have gone bigger.

EDIT: short of a Tyler Perry or Oprah Winfrey jumping on board (someone that has significant momentum), the only other way this survives is with an acquisition. Netflix would be primed to pick this up as the start of a black-interest channel within Netflix itself. If this is a real market Netflix will either buy them or start their own.

And just a note here - I care nothing about the racial aspects of it but do like it when companies and people win and thrive. I want to see that here too but I think they're lopping off too many potential customers.

If they succeed with their intended audience, it's not going to matter how their day-1 messaging touched jumpy message boards like us. The content will win or it won't. Looking all the comments on this thread, I think it'd probably be a pretty big mistake to try to make something that doesn't piss off some of these people, rather than --- as YC tells people to do --- making something that some specific people truly love.

For what it's worth, the "homogenized" also means that the "white people TV shows" don't represent white people but rather a sort of lowest-common-denominator that can appeal broadly but not accurately represent anyone including white folks (except perhaps some SoCal types). They happened to feature white actors/actresses, but recent efforts to diversify casts haven't manifested in an improvement in quality.

> Living Single isn't Friends with African Americans.

Implies that Living Single came after Friends, but it debuted the year before.

In fact lots of people feel that Friends was largely a ripoff of Living Single.

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/white-ripoff

There are black family TV shows like Blackish, but the current trend is to mix a black and white character (or family) and then do plots based on the zany differences between the two. Bob Loves Abishola, The Neighborhood, etc. It's cheap and low-quality tv.

I couldn't agree more! You want to do PR for us?

Not sure I'm a good fit, but if you want a younger voice I've got a precocious 13 year old daughter... ;)

Eth bro dot co at gmail