[imagesource: Netflix]

Only two Netflix shows have racked up billions of views within the first three weeks after their release.

That being Squid Game and Stranger Things 4.

But now, another contender is surpassing this Netflix benchmark along with single-handedly reviving Gothic subculture for Gen Z.

Welcome, Wednesday.

The Netflix Addams Family reboot directed in part by Tim Burton is a smash hit and has already picked up two major Golden Globe nominations this week, notes The Guardian, awarding the show four stars.

Not to mention how social media is overflowing with fans getting dressed up in their best Wednesday Addams cosplay, Lady Gaga included, only to diligently recreate her Siouxsie and the Banshees-inspired performance.

The Wednesday star Jenna Ortega’s now-viral choreography to the Cramps’ 1981 cover of ‘Goo Goo Muck’ is a sensation on TikTok:

@ladygaga BLOODY WEDNESDAY #fyp ♬ original sound – heyy

Netflix has had a dismal year of plummeting stock value and lost subscribers, but Wednesday seems to have done the streamer a major service, arriving “as a mixed bag of surefire storylines with a little something for everyone”:

This is a supernatural, coming-of-age, murder-mystery young adult comedy, where Ortega, officially the It Girl of the moment, plays the daughter of a familiar and beloved TV family. Wednesday is both the underdog misfit and the hottest girl in school, the product of the unlikeliest of mergers: think Addams Family meets Emily in Paris, sprinkled with a heavy dose of Harry Potter.

Wednesday’s narrative arc is achingly like a goth Emily in Paris, but it is more relatable for those who are not always so happy and colourful:

If Emily in Paris is kind but not cool, Wednesday is cool but not kind in a way that’s infinitely more relatable and inclusive – after all, aren’t we all trash? In her own words, she’s stubborn, single-minded and obsessive, “all traits of great writers, yes, and serial killers”, she tells Thing, a disembodied hand excellently played by real-life magician Victor Dorobantu.

For the kids, it’s a supernatural murder mystery that meets a coming-of-age teen tale. Give the trailer a watch if you haven’t already:

Who doesn’t love a good guy verging on villain trope? Who doesn’t love dark humour?

Indeed, who wouldn’t want to be Wednesday Addams “in an idealized world where your well-timed barbs and lack of interest in others’ approval made you impervious to bullies and the caretaker of your fellow misfits”?

Wednesday is the ultimate independent, anti-social goth queen of our time, and clearly, so many people are showing up for her.

[source:guardian]