Free solo climb on Netflix: 'If you fall, you're gonna die'

"Netflix, the world's largest streaming service with more than 300 million subscribers, is planning to broadcast Honnold's ascent live. In the trailer for the broadcast, Netflix plays on the life-threatening nature of the event. "I think I've gotten used to fear over the years. It's an ever-present part of climbing," Honnold says in the trailer. "No matter how much you prepare, occasionally things just happen. If you fall, you're gonna die.""

""I consider the live broadcast of a high-risk, potentially fatal event problematic because the media are no longer just documenting, commenting on, and contextualizing it, but are actively co-producing the event as a spectacle," Paganini said. She added that the risk is being deliberately used to increase attention and reach and financial gain. Therefore, the responsibility "no longer lies primarily with the athlete, but with the media disseminating the information.""

""It should be within my comfort zone," Alex Honnold said in on a recent edition of The Jay Shetty podcast. "So it's not so much about 'what if I die?'" The 40-year-old American is one of the world's best climbers, specifically rock and vertical climbing. Weather permitting, Honnold will be venturing onto unfamiliar terrain in Taiwan on Saturday morning (January 24), local time. He intends to climb the facade of the Taipei 101 skyscraper "free solo," meaning alone and without any safety equipment."

Alex Honnold plans to free-solo the facade of the Taipei 101 skyscraper, climbing alone without safety equipment, weather permitting on January 24 local time. Netflix intends to broadcast the ascent live to its more than 300 million subscribers and emphasizes the life‑threatening nature of the climb in its trailer. Honnold acknowledges persistent fear in climbing and says unavoidable accidents can be fatal. Philosopher and theologian Claudia Paganini calls the live broadcast problematic, saying media are co‑producing a spectacle by using risk to increase attention, reach, and financial gain, and that responsibility shifts from athlete to media.

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