【Lee Do】

The Lee Do'Netflix and chill' meme took the world by storm last year — before dying a cold, hard death around the time your dad started using it. 

But, for a brief moment, the phrase perfectly encapsulated the Fog of Dating, as young people suffer the warfare-like uncertainties of modern love. That's pretty much the premise of Flix and Chill 2: Millennials.

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Flix and Chill 2is a recently released sequel to K Bros Games' first title that originally released as a browser game. In the followup, each of its four episodes finds a different millennial struggling to get lucky, whether at a rave or in the workplace. True to life, with its breadth of "moral" dialogue options, shit gets pretty complicated. Fast.

The game is nauseatingly millennial. Apart from the tagline advertising itself as "a game for the artsy fartsiest generation around," nearly everyone you interact with is entrenched in web culture. They're either a blogger, programmer, or worst of all, Youtuber. Despite all that, I decided to add a whole other layer of meta internet bullshit to the mix by inviting the guy I currently Netflix and chill with to play as I observed.

You know, for science.

Note: 1) This article includes some light NSFWcontent. 2) Out of respect for past and present dudes I've Netflix and chilled, this guy will remain anonymous and heretofore referred to only as "Guy."

What love looks like to millennials, apparently

What I discovered on the path to the climax of our journey was surprisingly profound. But, that might've had less to do with the one and a half episodes we managed to get through, and more to do with this unhappy time to be alive and navigating the weeds of modern-day intimacy.

In this age of unprecedented vagueness, courtship can feel like a minefield of coded language, subtle insinuations, and a whole lot of bullshit. We are constantly grasping for new terminology to define the unclear boundaries: ghosting, friends with benefits, exclusive but not dating, Netflix and chilling.

Rather than have outright, direct conversations, we code everything in layers upon layers of indirectness. We feel the need to determine whether another person is DTF (there's another one for yah) under the false premise of "hanging out" and "Netflixing." Both parties are meant to presume it will end in the same awkward macking session on your living room couch, with Netflix's "are you still there" prod hanging tensely over the whole thing.

Before Guy and I began, I got us started with a terrible pun, telling him I had to go grab my computer charger so we wouldn't "end prematurely."

"No promises," he fired back, evidently DTF with my juvenile wordplay. He even doubled down when he responded to my frustrated exclamations over a Steam error. "Goddamnit — fuck me," I said.

"We're getting there," he assured. Guy and I had already been Netflix and chilling for a few months at this point, so he knew how to play to his audience. Namely, one horny millennial succubus. 

A night at the rave

We dove headfirst into the first episode of Flix and Chillentitled 'Melanie.' Opening on a rave scene, Mel (played by Guy) received instructions from her friend Winnie to find their targets, John and Tristan, in the crowd.

"Let's do it!" I battle-cried reflexively, before remembering my role as observer. "Or, I dunno, are you feeling DTF? Or not DTF?"

"Well, I've never been a woman before, so I'm not sure what I'm about yet."

"That's actually supes sensitive of you," I said, nearly clutching at my heart (and only kind of kidding).

"But yah. Let's do it."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

We entered the hellish fray of lights, ripped jeans, and mohawks to finally come upon two dudes Guy dubbed "the yuppies." They’re neither of our types, but the game doesn’t give you the option to pursue other romantic partnersat the time we didn’t know the game allowed you to pursue other romantic partners in Melanie’s episode.

Our first major branching decision was whether or not to have alcoholic beverages. Guy -- very conscientious of Melanie as an individual -- considered what shewould want instead of what hewould do.

"She seems kinda like the timid and shy type, you know."

"Yeah, I mean, she's wearing her Sunday best at a rave right now," I replied.

We go for the non-alcoholic option. Winnie, on the other hand, emphatically stated that she wanted, "something delicious" to drink. This prompted a choir of #problematic jokes from Guy and I about Winnie being extremely parched and thirsty.

But Winnie — or, more accurately, the game itself — soon lost major points. She told our boys we'd buy the drinks, and then proceeded to manipulate two innocent male bystanders at the bar to pay for said drinks.

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Some not-so-great stereotypes

This moment became Guy's first real moral test. I've felt the brunt of this Conniving Girl Who Tricks You Into Buying Her Free Drinks trope. Men have called me a "bitch" for both accepting andrejecting the drinks they've offered.

"Urgh, this game is starting to perpetuate some not-so-great stereotypes about women," I said, conclusively proving my big damn mouth should disqualify me from any objective observation. "Yeah," he agreed. "But this dude [at the bar] kinda looks like me. Can I date him instead?"

He could not, but the game did ask us whether we wanted to try and swindle drinks from Guy's poor in-game proxy. "So, should I?" he asked, apprehensive.

"No! You're a self-respecting, independent woman with money to buy her own damn drinks!"

It came out in a single breath, like word vomit. But in the brief pause that ensued, I remembered I was doing really bad science. "I mean, in my opinion. But, you know, play the way you want."

We both laughed at this weak attempt. "Don't know if I have much of a choice here," Guy admitted.

So he attempted to choose the non-manipulative route. But the game insisted, and he finally conceded. "He offered!" he said, using the exact same defense I myself have used IRL.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"Okay," I asked him, "So it's okay for a girl to take the drink if the guy offers, then?"

"Yeah, I mean it's not like I [Melanie] said, 'Oh buy me a drink, and then we'll talk.' He just offered."

Yup — almost the exact words that have come out of my mouth while talking to countless dudes at bars.

"So what if a girl came up to you, flirted with you, then after you bought them a drink she eventually walked away?"

"Well—" He paused, stammering, knowing me well enough to choose his words verycarefully, no matter how innocent I tried to make the question sound.

"Not to put you on the spot," I tried again, very much putting him on the spot.

But Guy, being a decent dude, chose to not call me out. "Hmm. So, I wouldn't be okay with it if that was their intention from the get-go. That'd be pretty disheartening."

"Right, that makes sense."

"But if a girl's just not into me after we talk for a bit, then she's obviously welcome to walk away."

To my utter amazement, I found that we were actually communicating and respecting each other's perspectives through this hyper-millennial dating sim. Which felt kind of weird, but nice, I guess — or whatever.

Communicating without communicating

In an odd way, games and dating sims feel primed to capture the too-often dehumanizing chess game that defines millennial dating culture today. Tinder, for example, borrows heavily from the language and mechanics of game design. Aside from mimicking their positive feedback loops, the app even asks users whether they'd like to actually talkto a person they've just matched with or, "keep playing."

In the dance of virtual romance, we're all kind of reduced to a bunch of pixels on a screen. And Flix and Chill 2 is an obvious nod at the game-like nature of digital love, touching on how relationships play out online and over social media.

In the end, though, despite Guy acting like a pretty good guy (at least under the microscope of my imposing, tyrannical "observational science"), the game itself turned out to be less decent. Later on in the episode, a fight broke out between our two designated dude bros. John was mad at Tristan for dancing too close to Mel, the girl they'd privately agreed was "his."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The game gave us a choice in the scuffle: Continue with John, the dude who just claimed ownership and talked about you in third-person right in front of you to his friend, or choose to go with Tristan instead, the dude enabling this behavior by betraying the contractual agreement he'd made with his friend to claim Winnie as his.

"You know what, I'm dancing with neither of these guys because they are totally agro and giving me really bad vibes," Guy decided, unprompted.

"YEAH! Tell these dudes to fuck off!" I said, proud that I managed to keep my opinions to myself until just then.

"I'll let the yuppies dance together so they can resolve their issues the good old fashioned way — with their dicks and a ruler."

"Winning" and "losing"

Needless to say, Melanie went home alone that night. But the game's most interesting mechanic comes into player just after, when you're shown the character's end result through their Facebook profile. Our failure to mack on John wasn't necessarily presented as a "lose" state (and god help anyone who thinks of the other ending where you wind up in a relationship with Pissing Contest Yuppie John as a "win" state).

Instead of a relationship status change, though, Melanie posted a status update: "First rave night, success! Ended up alone by the end of it, but Im realizing I don't mind being alone. #Independent." She received 117 'likes' on said status.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

#Independent is RIGHT, gurl. Who needs 'em? #Resist #LadyBoss #ShePersisted

Well, apparently I need 'em.

Episode 2, entitled 'Frank,' wound up being a much more boring endeavor. Starring a Nietzsche-spouting, arrogant programmer, the goal was to mack on a girl who a) is minding her own damn business at her place of work, b) already batting away her own boss' constant advances, and c) anxious about her job security.

It reeked of that special kind of White Knight nerd fantasy, which makes me gag.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

So I turned to Guy with that "I'm over the Netflixing part" look.

Our first (and only) attempt at Flix and Chill might've concluded unsuccessfully, but I certainly did not go home alone that night. The status update on my profile would read: Only played one episode of Flix and Chillto completion. But don't worry, there were multiple finishes ;) ;) ;) #Hulu&Lounge #Game&Grope.

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