10 Times Netflix Caused Major Viral Trends

10. The Queen's Gambit - Chess

Let’s start with the most obvious; The Queen’s Gambit came out late October right around the time an unprecedented spike in chess board sales swept the world. Related? Yes.

For anyone who’s currently living under a rock (I don’t blame you, the world is a scary place right now) The Queen’s Gambit is a show adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name, and you guessed it; it is all about chess. Well, not all about it, it is actually a carefully crafted thriller based on a young girl whose interpersonal relationships lead her to make dire and addiction driven decisions.

Sounds like a riot, right? But for some reason audiences were captivated by the story, the characters, the drinking and drug abusing and surprisingly… the chess matches.

I don’t know who decided it was a good decision to make a tv show anchored by such a slow actionless game, perhaps they saw the finale of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone and thought: chess… what a thrill ride, but whoever they are they must be grinning like the chess-hire cat right about now.

The Google search for “chess” hit a peak just after the release of the show, and I’m sure many households on Christmas day saw family members ripping paper off of brand-new chess sets all around the world.

Who knew chess would be the stand out point of such an intense piece of drama?