Blippo+ Stands Against the Enshittification of TV

You’re likely familiar with the saying “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Well, I’ve got an addendum of my own to add to the heap: enshittification. As surely as you and I will be taxed into the ground, many of the things that we love will get worse. They already have. In my relatively short lifetime, I’ve seen enshittification encroach on most things I’ve loved and/or found some utility in. Phones have gotten worse. The internet is… well, that’s another essay entirely. Even the quality of television has taken a nosedive, though perhaps not one quite as big as Disney+ subscription numbers of late.

Everything in the world of TV feels like a numbers game now thanks to enshittification. Subscription services only care for higher attachment rates, and throw ridiculous production costs at an immense volume of shows and movies that ultimately look and feel hollow in order to attract viewers. Every time the tactic has failed or stalled, the prices of these subscription services—which were once posited to be more affordable than paying for cable—climbs higher in an effort to squeeze blood from a stone. And increasingly, the things they do churn out that manage to connect feel like outliers among the slop.

Blippo+ (no relation to Disney’s service) is a recently released channel-surfing video game meant to recall the heyday of idling in front of a boob tube in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It is a rejection of enshittification, one which imagines what cable TV might look like if it were more intentional, inclusive, and curious. It’s less of a game in the ways which most are familiar, but still makes for a hell of an Experience™ and I cannot recommend enough just throwing it on your monitor or Switch while you’re doing other things. Though there are stories and characters to track throughout Blippo+, it is first and foremost an exquisitely executed vibe, one with greater legs than I initially gave it credit for.

Blippo+ is both a kindness and cruelty. It is quite literally a look into another reality. One where TV, and specifically cable TV, is all the aspirational things that we’ve made it out to be over the decades. It’s a reality where we don’t shrink to pressures and conceal the weirdest and most honest versions of ourselves. It is a celebration of the diversity of the human experience, all presented as a satire of television’s bright(er) past. There is a reason after all why younger viewers won’t recognize a single present trope or mold of show across Blippo+‘s stunning lineup. We don’t make them like Blippo+, but we really ought to.

I can practically feel the warmth radiating off the zany images that define Blippo+‘s extensive offerings—a warmth that feels completely at odds with the cool, detached style of television that dominates the airwaves in 2025. Upon booting it up, I immediately surrendered myself to its deeply weird and heartening programming, which despite rendering a slew of channels with bite-sized shows—each episode only runs about two to three minutes and episodes repeat once the block is up—still entranced me. That’s likely because every episode was more than just some gag: each functioned as a window into the wacky world of Blippians and what passes for news and entertainment out there.