Impact of the Netflix documentary on the speedcubing community

[abunickabhi]

The Netflix documentary on speedcubing is going was released last year. It was shot during the World Championship 2019 in Australia.

What will be the impact of this documentary on the speedcubing world? Will we see a surge of participating after this?

Till now, Speedcubing is in the dark for general public. Other than a few reality show appearances, there is outreach of cubing to the public.

Netflix is a platform with a big reach, and I would like to ask, how many new cubers do you think will emerge out of this documentary? How successful will this documentary be in making cubing become a pop culture, where everyone recognising what speedcubing is and how rich the sport has become (over the last 40 years and especially the last 10 years), and do not say random things like "there is a trick", "I just peel the stickers", "what's the point?", "get a life". There are some of my acquaintances who have been knowing about cubing for years, but still not know who the speedcubing world works and how big it is.

I had a discussion on the WCA Forums as well, and there were some interesting insights discussed there: https://forum.worldcubeassociation.org/t/impact-of-the-netflix-documentary-on-the-wca-community/4342

 

[DiamondGolem12]

I already knew how to solve a 3x3 before watching the documentary but I didn't know how fast people could do it or even how many different puzzles existed. In a way, I thought I knew everything there was to cubing. After watching the documentary, I practiced 2x2 for a few months, found this forum and moved onto 3x3 and other puzzles.

 

[Deleted member 36445]

I absolutely loved it. Max and Feliks are brilliant
Although I watched the documentary with mom and dad and they were surprised by the stress that people pass on competition.
Of course that the documentary pointed out how Feliks and Max are friends and cheered up one another everytime they won but there was a lot of nerves involved

 

[Kaiju_cube]

it got my kids interested in cubing which is pretty cool. Of the two boys both were interested but only one actually sat with me and took the time to learn how to solve the 3x3. he's gotten faster and average around 1:30 after about a month of cubing.

Tried teaching him the 4x4 last weekend but he wants to focus on the 3x3.

He's Asian so I think he really liked seeing Max and he's become a hero to him. Also he's discovered Leo Borromeo in the Philippines who's really inspired him.

All in all I think the documentary will get more people interested in the hobby.

 

[GiancaCub3r]

I bought my first cube anteriore having seen the documentary on Netflix. I found speedcubing amazing and even if I know l will never be fast, I'm enjoying it!

 

[abunickabhi]

I bought my first cube anteriore having seen the documentary on Netflix. I found speedcubing amazing and even if I know l will never be fast, I'm enjoying it!

Oh good to know, I hope you find the speedsolving site resourceful as well.