Tiger King earned 34 million viewers in 10 days, which is why we can't escape it

By Shannon Miller | April 8, 2020 | 4:42pm

Aux Features Netflix

Tiger King earned 34 million viewers in 10 days, which is why we can't escape it

Photo:

There will come a time when you can cruise the internet and not run headlong into a trove of Carole Baskin memes or a kazoo-heavy cover of “I Saw A Tiger.” However, it may take just a little while longer for the general public to phase out of its fascination with Joe Exotic and his ilk. Per Variety, Netflix’s inexplicable hit Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness garnered over 34 million viewers in 10 days. The mammoth rating, measured by Nielsen, tops that of Stranger Things 2, which drew in 31.2 unique viewers for its first 10 days. Nielsen also reported an average of 19 million views on a per-minute basis. So if you, like many of us, find your various social media feeds inundated with multiple, unrelated debates regarding Baskin’s level of involvement with her former husband’s disappearance all at once, it’s because just about everyone is watching it, which you probably already guessed.

Tiger King’s popularity wasn’t immediate. Its first day on the streaming platform was met with very modest numbers—741,000 unique viewers, to be exact. But an ideal combination of the show’s bizarrely interconnected events, the steady rawr of online buzz, and the shared reality of having nothing else to do culminated in a growing, extremely vocal fandom. For the past two weeks the 7-part series has reigned the platform’s Top 10. As usual, there’s no way to compare the show’s viewership with others since the public has yet to pry Netflix’s precious metrics from their paws (fine, we’ll stop), but it is clearly one of its most popular original programs to date, prompting many inquires about potential sequels and spin-offs.