Roll Your Blunts: Netflix Nature Documentaries Are Now Free on YouTube

While in isolation, I've been attempting to both numb my brain and gently feed it some knowledge as passively as possible via Netflix documentaries. I have no attention span left to follow a plot, and no tolerance for seeing large crowds or people interacting in close proximity anymore, so nature documentaries are a nice escape.

Now, everyone can watch some of these documentaries, thanks to teachers trying to keep students on task remotely. At their request, according to Netflix, several of the streaming platform's documentaries are now available for free on YouTube.

Netflix already allowed "one-time" screenings of its documentaries in classrooms, giving educators permission to show documentaries on a sporadic basis, such as once per semester. But that service came with some stipulations: docs could only be accessed via the Netflix service by a Netflix account holder, according to a help page on the topic. Now that they're on YouTube, you don't even need to pay for Netflix.

There are 34 full-length episodes of various documentaries available on the channel's Educational Documentaries playlist now, featuring selections from Our Planet to Abstract: The Art of Design to Babies. There are a few full-length documentaries on there, too, including 13th, Chasing Coral, and Knock Down the House.

There is something soothing about putting on a series about nocturnal ecosystems, or coral reefs, or the mating habits of jungle birds in the background, on the Good Screen, while I scroll Bad Screen on my phone. And here on 4/20, the official day of zoning the fuck out, what better time to roll a blunt and queue up something about coral reefs or whatever.

The playlist of features and episodes comes to around 100 hours of viewing. If you get started now, you can be done in around four days. Time is meaningless, so why not.