“Oh yes, when the Tiger King says ‘Are you lost, baby girl’, that’s my favourite moment too,” said Mariyam J nervously as her friends started talking about the new ridiculous show on Netflix that she didn’t watch.

“Everyone just sort of stopped and stared at me for two seconds before resuming their conversation about some Sima mami,” she said, “and I was left to sit and contemplate my existence the entire time we hung out together.”

Mariyam is not the only one who has been afflicted with this problem. There are just too many so-bad-its-good TV shows and movies on Netflix that it’s hard to keep up.

“It’s a serious issue,” says Dr. K.M Fernandez, a gynaecologist who has a Netflix subscription, “If you’re caught in a social situation without the awareness of all the meme-worthy moments from whatever Netflix show is going viral at the moment, then you will feel like garbage and that’s not nice.”

It’s not the end of the world, says Dr F. “If you don’t have time to sit through documentaries on white people being generally awful or whatever it is they’re peddling these days, then you can always go with the trusty, ‘Oh yeah, I thought that was pretty problematic’, this will immediately launch a conversation about wether that thing you have no idea about was problematic or not. It could take several hours, so you’re solid.”

Another helpful suggestion by the good doctor is to say, ‘I don’t know why people like this so much’. According to the doctor, this is also another way to get people who have seen the show occupied with a lengthy discussion over why we watch badly made cringe-inducing stuff, “As a bonus, they will think you have actually seen the show to have such a deep cultural observation about it.”

There are some risky options that you can try, but there’s no guarantee that they would land or not. “you can always go with how troublingly attractive you found the lead,” says Dr F, “But that wouldn’t work in a reality show or a documentary, so you’ll just have to take a chance there.”

So there you have it. Foolproof ways to pretend that you’ve seen whatever your friends are obsessing over on Netflix. Now back to body image issues.