Well, that’s bizarre: People are reporting online that their Prime Video subtitles are stuck on “I hate you” and some think it has something to do with watching The Boys. So if it’s happened to you, you’re not alone. But is it a technical error, or a coded message?
Inquiries about the unusual subtitles were posted on Reddit and X. The Reddit post appeared in early July 2024, and several X posts began circulating after that. Those who posted were understandably confused about what they saw and wondered if it was happening to anyone else. As David Farrier wrote on X, “the subtitles ‘i hate you’ will not stop displaying when i watch prime. turned them on and off again. action, drama, romance…. whatever i watch, i just have the words ‘i hate you’ looking back at me. it’s starting to affect the viewing experience & also my perception of myself.”
Earlier in July, someone posed a similar question on Reddit. Several comments on both posts said it was happening to other people, and many reported that it had only happened while they watched The Boys. But others said it happened to them watching different shows and movies. Reports say it happened on TVs and while streaming on an iPad. Many confirmed the problem was not fixed after turning the captions on and off or rebooting the app. Some reported the problem went away for a while but came back.
Prime Video’s ‘I hate you’ subtitle theories
With several anecdotal reports including photographs, there seems to be something strange going on with Prime captions, and there’s evidence to suggest it happened most often while watching The Boys.
Possible theories about why it might be happening include a prank from a laid-off employee, or since a few people report that it happened on their Samsung TVs, it might be linked to the “Samsung hack” according to one comment, presumably the 2019 Samsung hack of customer data. At this writing, those explanations are unconfirmed. Amazon Prime has not yet commented on the issue.