Netflix is available in almost every country in the world, and has nearly as many subscribers as there are people in the United States. But the company seems to be searching for something more: a way to bring all of those users together. In May, it reimagined the Tudum live event—its annual, Comic-Con-like celebration of the platform’s most beloved titles—as a variety show, complete with a Lady Gaga performance at the Kia Forum, in Los Angeles. (The singer has a role in the streamer’s hit series Wednesday.) Named after the sound that plays at the start of original Netflix productions, the event brought disparate fan bases together. The goal, apparently, was to encourage Netflix subscribers to engage with the shows and films they already love—and inspire them to check out new ones. But the evening also seemed to be saluting the very platform that houses them: The host, Sofia Carson, who stars in multiple Netflix movies, addressed the crowd collectively as “Tudum.”

For the most part, however, the audience stayed siloed in their own groups, cheering for the franchises they already liked. Subscribers who streamed the event at home seemed to act similarly: Abigail De Kosnik, an associate professor at UC Berkeley who studies fandoms, admitted to me that she “just forwarded through to the shows that I watch.” As it turned out, just because fans were in the room together didn’t mean they’d be fans of everything.

Yet Netflix s