Beyoncé wins the holidays with an ultra-clever Netflix joke

• Beyoncé is promoting her Christmas Day half-time NFL football game performance
• She produced a special video to do so
• Questions about Netflix’s ability to handle it remain

If you’re amped for Netflix’s first-ever live Christmas Day NFL football game, you’re probably even more excited about the halftime show: Beyoncé. That’s right, the megastar will perform at the midpoint, probably playing tracks from her wildly successful country album, Cowboy Carter. But you might also be a little worried.

Last month, the streaming giant struggled through the live Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul boxing match, where at least 108 million simultaneous viewers tuned in to see Paul take out an aging champion in an embarrassing fashion. The embarrassment was actually on Netflix’s part, though, which presented its iconic spinning wheel of disconnection to millions of would-be viewers.

Naturally, we’re all wondering if Netflix can handle what could be an even larger audience tuning in just to see Beyoncé perform live…and that apparently includes the iconic singer.

Beyoncé took to X (formerly Twitter) on Christmas Eve to promote her half-time show with a little country picking. In the brief video, below a tweet that said, “I’m sending you big joy and love on this Cowboy Christmas Eve I’ll see y’all tomorrow, in my city HTX,” Beyoncé is seated with a banjo on her knee, causally strumming when…the Netflix spinning circle appears and Beyoncé is temporarily frozen.

I know I watched the video wondering if now X’s own servers were struggling under the weight of Beyoncé’s enormous star power – and that’s when the video resumed and the luminescent star cheekily winked at the camera.

Oh, you clever Beyoncé.

Clearly in on the joke, Netflix quickly responded, “Now hold on…”

Kidding aside, worries that Netflix won’t be up to the musical task remain.

A few weeks after the Paul vs. Tyson debacle, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos tried to explain away the issues at a conference. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sarandos said, “We were pushing the ISP, every ISP in the world, right to the limits of their own capacity. We were stressing the limits of the internet itself that night.”

That much was clear. How Netflix takes those learnings and avoids another night of red, spinning circles is another matter. At least Beyonce seems to know what she’s in for.

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