When it comes to spoilers, nowhere is safe.
Even if they had all the right hashtags and words muted on their social media feeds, many overseas fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race had this season’s All Stars winner spoiled for them on Saturday courtesy of Netflix itself.
(Because we’re not that dumb, we won’t be revealing the results here. This is a Drag Race spoiler-free zone, so read on without fear!)
In a boneheaded error that I can only assume got someone fired, the streaming service showed a shot of the winning queen being crowned when users clicked to watch the final episode of the spin-offs fifth season. Netflix used the same spoiler-rific image as a thumbnail and hold-screen for the series, so even just navigating to the service’s homepage could reveal the winner.
The finale aired in the U.S. last night but only became available on Netflix in certain regions, such as parts of Europe and New Zealand, this morning. So as you can probably imagine, people were pissed to find out who won before even watching the episode. All Stars 5 began trending Twitter even in the U.S. as overseas fans went online to chew Netflix out.
Every single gay in the UK this morning looking at that Netflix thumbnail. #AllStars5 pic.twitter.com/Hq2BZwWR6c
— Robert Madge (@Rob_Madge_02) July 25, 2020
Me : “Hmmm I might watch #Scream on @NetflixUK!” @NetflixUK : “Excellent choice, the killers are the boyfriend and his best friend! Drew Barrymore dies immediately too.”
Thanks for ruining @RuPaulsDragRace with the winner in a thumbnail… ???????? #AllStars5
— Leigh Van Bryan (@LeighBryan) July 25, 2020
.@netflixuk you just ruined @rupaulsdragrace #AllStars5 for me because you’ve put the winner holding the crown and sceptre as the holding image! You should fix before you spoil it for everyone else. #Spoilers
— Douglas Dare (@DouglasDare) July 25, 2020
If you’ve avoided #AllStars5 spoilers thus far, you need to approach Netflix with caution as whatever straight intern set the thumbnail for the episode used an image of the winning queen with their sceptre ???? pic.twitter.com/pYsXk9DhLg
— Holly x (@hollyshortall) July 25, 2020
As of Saturday afternoon, several fans on Reddit are saying that Neflix has replaced the image with a more benign picture of one of the season’s finalists. But the damage was already done.
It’s not the first time Netflix’s questionable user interface choices have screwed over its subscribers. In December, Netflix made the equally baffling decision to autoplay a disturbing preview for its docuseries Don’t Fuck With Cats: Hunting and Internet Killer so that anyone browsing the streaming service for something to watch risked accidentally hearing the sound of kittens being brutally murdered. Because, yes, Netflix decided to include that in the trailer for some reason.
Here’s a small consolation for overseas Drag Race fans to consider, though: If we’re being honest, did Netflix really spoil anything? I mean, we always knew which queen was going to win this season. Maybe Netflix was just out here stanning with the rest of us.