Skip to main content

Netflix pays people to watch TV all day, but some say it’s no dream job

Netflix’s library may be shrinking as of late, but there’s still a staggering amount of TV shows and movies available. While browsing through the library, have you ever wondered where the thumbnails for each of the available shows or movies come from? Netflix may be known for leveraging tech to solve most of its problems, but that isn’t the case in this instance.

Instead of opting for a technological solution, Netflix instead uses hundreds of people paid to watch movies and choose thumbnails, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While being paid to sit around and watch TV all day might sound like a dream job, some of the members of this secret team, known as Project Beetlejuice, wouldn’t agree.

Recommended Videos

“Juicers,” as the team members are called, are paid $10 per movie or show, and choose both still images and videos to help users figure out what to watch. More details on how this project works are few and far between. Even though Netflix has openly acknowledged similar teams before — like “taggers,” who as the name implies, choose the appropriate tags for a movie or TV show — the company remains tight-lipped about Project Beetlejuice.

Members of this team aren’t full-time employees, but are instead paid as independent contractors who can work from home. This still might sound fine, but two of these contractors – Lawrence Moss and Cigdem Akbay – are filing separate class-action lawsuits demanding employee benefits like overtime, paid vacation and holidays, a 401(k) plan, and health insurance.

Both Moss and Akbay are alleging that they often worked with Netflix management and would sometimes work more than 40 hours in a week. While these contractors can technically set their own hours, Akbay’s lawsuit alleges that the deadlines set by Netflix meant she needed to keep to a “rigid work schedule.” Akbay claims that watching Netflix eventually became her primary income source, and after relating this to the company in 2014, she was fired.

For Netflix’s part, the company claims that both Moss and Akbay signed agreements that require these issues to be handled in private arbitration. Whether or not these lawsuits move forward,  the gig economy model being used by many other companies, including Uber and Lyft, means we’ll certainly see more of this type of lawsuit in the future.

Kris Wouk
Former Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
3 underrated HBO Max movies you should watch this weekend (July 11-13)
A group of people stand in a line and look.

Last week marked the arrival of Sinners, which is in the running for the movie event of 2025. Ryan Coogler's vampiric horror stars Michael Jordan as twin brothers who return to their hometown to open a juke joint. The opening night transforms into a nightmare with the arrival of a supernatural creature with sinister intentions.

Sinners is now available to stream on the newly named HBO Max. Beyond Sinners, the streamer has an abundance of underrated movies waiting to be streamed. One of our picks is The Suicide Squad, James Gunn's first crack at a DC story. View all three selections below.

Read more
3 underrated Amazon Prime Video movies you should watch this weekend (July 11-13)
Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory.

Finding a movie to watch on a hot July weekend can be difficult, especially when you feel like you've watched everything obvious. If you're sick of scrolling through Amazon Prime Video and spending more time looking at titles than actually watching one, then we've got you covered.

We've pulled together a list of three underrated movies that are all available on Prime Video. While these movies might have made an impact upon their release, they aren't as well remembered as they should be. Here's why you should check them out.

Read more
This new movie will smash the weekend box office — watch the trailer
A photo of someone watching a movie in a theater.

Superman is all set to smash the weekend box office, with forecasts suggesting that the second reboot of the movie series will take between $115 million and $135 million in North America, Boxoffice Pro reports.

Opening globally on Friday (check out the trailer above), the movie, directed and co-written by James Gunn and starring David Corenswet as Superman, had a reported budget of $225 million, while marketing could reportedly add another $200 million or so to those costs.

Read more