Teen Says Netflix Outed Him to His Dad

A 15-year-old gay teen recently sought advice on Reddit after he thinks he was outed by his Netflix history. While the OP was extremely nervous, visitors of the r/gaybros subreddit quickly reassured him that everything is going to be OK.

In a Wednesday post on the forum, the anonymous teen claimed he pulled up his account while he was searching for a movie to watch with his father. The screen showed that the last thing he watched was Elite, a Spanish teen drama with a heavily featured gay romance. "If you know Netflix, they like to switch up the little posters about once every minute," he wrote, "and this time they decided to put the one of the gay couple holding each other's faces. I nearly got put in cardiac arrest."

"My father said something on the lines of 'what's that, go back,'" he continued. "I don't know if that's what he was referring to or he found something he wanted to watch. Either way I lowkey pretended that I didn't know what he was talking about and kept looking."

The teen is unsure of what to do next. "I think my reaction just made it more suspicious," he said.

While his father is open-minded -- and even watched the Netflix reboot of Queer Eye -- he ended the post saying, he claimed that he was terrified his family might find out about who he is before he's ready to tell them. "Regardless, I was still scared shitless," he said.

OP was far from alone in this situation, as others quickly posted that they'd had similar experiences on the streaming platform.

"I know how you feel," said one redditor. "When I showed my dad Netflix, he scrolled down to gay movies I used to watch. He didn't say anything but either he doesn't know yet or he doesn't want to talk about it."

"I legit delete my Netflix account every other week, so my parents won't see what kind of programs [I watch] on my account," said another user.

Living in fear of your viewing habits being discovered is a situation that is too real for many queer people. I'm getting flashbacks to deleting my internet browser history every time I finished using the family computer to stream episodes of The L Word or to take "what's your brain gender" quizzes to try and convince myself I wasn't trans.

Given the situation the OP described, many argued his father already knows is OK with it. Taking a page from Out's own advice columnist, !Hola Papi!, they advised him that it might be time to start the conversation.

"He may have an inkling of what you're trying to hide from him and is seeking an opportunity to discuss it openly with you," one poster said.

There's been no update from the anonymous teen since last week's confession, but hopefully he took the gaybros suggestions and is happily watching episodes of Queer Eye: We're in Japan with his dad as we speak.

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