Rating, ranking and reviewing content online is about to get a major shakeup, as Letterboxd has announced that TV series will soon be made available on the popular platform. As announced by Letterboxd, “Series will be coming later this year”. While no formal details followed, this is undoubtedly one of the biggest changes Letterboxd has made in years – perhaps sparked from its recent selling of a majority stake – and one that has set off discussion and speculation amongst users.
As for how Letterboxd will go about highlighting both movies and TV, they did note that they are “planning to do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt the current experience”. That’s certainly a positive, as some consider this a move in the wrong direction for Letterboxd. One X user wondered where it would stop: “you should add books and video games and live theatrical performances and guys playing music in the subway.” While miniseries and TV specials are already featured on the site, individual shows are not. Instead, TV lovers have platforms like Serializd, which lets users track their small screen habits.
In an odd twist on their announcement, when word began to spread and news outlets began reporting, the platform responded to one with, “would be nice to live in a world where a small reply to a tweet is not “news””. But, really, this is big news for Letterboxd. Whether people support the move or not, this will change the way the website – and perhaps others – are used. The idea of – and potential controversy surrounding – adding TV shows to Letterboxd has been discussed before, with co-founder Matt Buchanan stating, “The main pushback around the idea of adding TV is that our community is perhaps scared that the film-logging may be overrun by people binge-watching Friends.”
Letterboxd surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many began cataloging what they watched when they couldn’t leave the house. Even later to the game were directors Mike Flanagan and Martin Scorsese, who quickly became the most-followed user with nearly 320,000 followers. At least now we’ll know how many times he’s watched Bluey!
How do you feel about Letterboxd adding TV shows to the site? Do you think this will enhance or detract from the platform?
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