A Netflix Engineer's Love For '80s Birthed An Imitation Of Each Decade's TV Experience

If you're a naturally nostalgic soul who grew up on ancient modes of entertainment like cable television, this era-by-era portal created by Netflix engineer Joey Cato is for you. Starting from the '60s and running into the '00s, each era's experience mimics the technological marvels of that time. Called "My Retro TVs", the virtual websites were created by Cato as a means to "reclaim his youth," he told us.

Each era displays big pop culture moments of that time period, complemented by an equally convincing interface. For instance, the tuners reminiscent of the earliest sets of television in 1960s are wonderfully mimicked on the website, making the entire experience immersive.

That's not all, for each era between 1960s and 2000s, multiple genres of content is available to watch on the My Retro TVs website - ranging from cartoons, comedy, drama, kids, talk shows, to even commercials! Essentially, there's something for everyone who's seemingly tired of a remote-sized screen abyss in their pockets.

My60sTV / Joey Cato

If you were born before the '00s, chances are you have experienced some form of television fatigue - from losing signal, to endless repeats, and the lack of flexibility. Every advertisement meant a pee break, and every repeat telecast presented a chance to become a knowledge-master of that particular series.

Joey Cato

If music is what defined your childhood, Joey Cato has put in extra work to imbibe classics from each era into his portal. Think it doesn't get better? Cato has news for you. Within each era's dedicated website, there exist further demarcations based on each year, which may help you narrow your preferences. While a search button feels missing, it's simply to assist in making the experience more realistic.

My70sTV / Joey Cato

The inspiration behind My Retro TVs

We caught up with Joey Cato on the inspiration behind the creation of My Retro TVs. The first platform for the project focused on the '80s. "I've always been deeply connected with the nostalgia from that time period," he told us. Joey Cato also talked about the role played by his childhood and upbringing in creating the digital experience. "I grew up poor in a small town so I always felt like I missed out on the full pop culture experiences then," he said.

When Cato was working on My Retro TVs, he was already knee-deep in other big projects, like Electronic Arts' The Sims 4. "[At this time] I realized that the Flash technology we were using to create our interfaces was starting to become obsolete, so I thought it was a good time to freshen up my resume by learning modern web development," he told Indiatimes over e-mail.

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A series of his side projects manifested as My80sTv. "The original web app became quickly popular which completely surprised me. It was pure joy hearing from folks around the world telling me how much the site connected them to their childhood." This feedback inspired him to build era-based throwbacks "by adding on more decades ('90s, '70s, '00s, and most recently '60s)."

My80sTV / Joey Cato

Not much later after building My80sTV and My90sTV, Joey Cato was being sought by Netflix for an interview, where he currently works. At the world's favourite streaming portal, Cato works with JavaScript to build their TVUI experience.

Additionally, Netflix's future-ready streaming capabilities added to the nostalgia factor for Cato to pursue MyRetroTVs, inspiring him to create a throwback experience of cable television. "I think it may have been partly due to how content streaming¡¯s increased popularity had displaced the traditional concept of ¡°channel-clicking/surfing¡±."

A compelling era-by-era recreation of pop culture

With MyRetroTVs, Cato was simply trying to "give users the ability to access those older forms of discovery and interaction" with a bias for the '80s. "Hard-core '80s fan here," Cato told us while adding that the "90s has recently grown [on him] like a fine wine." Cato thinks a lot of this shift may be credited to "recency bias" as memories of the '80s continue to fade with age. If you ask us, the '80s will live forever, at least on My80sTV if not in pop culture.

My90sTV / Joey Cato

All content on MyRetroTVs is sourced entirely from Youtube, "much of which is now crowdsourced." For each channel, there is a corresponding YouTube clip helping it run.

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To make the experience more lived and realistic, Cato had the genius idea to imbibe a "static overlay transition during channel changes". This, according to Cato not only makes the MyRetroTVs experience "more authentically immersive," but helps cover up buffering time on the portals.

Joey Cato

Mimicking the live television experience isn't a straightforward journey and Joey Cato has made changes and modifications to help create the perfect directory for those perpetually high on nostalgia. For instance, to ensure the experience comes off as "live", Cato tracks the timestamp of each visited channel "so that if a user flips back to it later the elapsed time is added and the video resumes at the correct position."

My00sTV / Joey Cato

As is true for all-things-technology, MyRetroTVs is a constant work in progress. Recently, Cato added a series of CSS filters to give users "more granular control of the picture quality" with more to come. You can access "MyRetroTVs" here with a user guide curated by Cato himself.

Personally, we're biased towards My90sTV. Which one is your favourite era - through the eyes of Joey Cato? Share your pick with us in the comments below. For more compelling content in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.