A look at streaming services' profile avatars (2024 edition)
It’s been a year since I last looked at streaming services’ profile avatars. Given some changes in streaming since then, I thought I’d look at the 2024 state of streaming avatars for Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.
Again, Hulu and Apple TV+ don’t have avatars, so I won’t be touching on those two.
Amazon Prime Video
Most of Prime Video’s avatars are based on their live action TV shows and films, including:
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”
“Fallout”
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
“The Boys”
“Good Omens”
Along with some generic cartoon avatars (“Animals,” “Moods,” “Archetypes”), your only two choices for animated series avatars are:
“The Legend of Vox Machina”
“Invincible”
Again, the same status as a year ago. If it’s a kids’ profile, your only choices are several categories of generic cartoon avatars. Amazon couldn't bother to include any of the Amazon animated shows like the “Rocky and Bullwinkle” reboot, or the back catalog of older third-party shows like “Clifford’s Puppy Days” or “Justice League Action?”
I use a generic panda icon for my Amazon Prime Video account.
Disney+
Disney+ offers a wide range of avatars, covering their library. They also add new avatars when prominent new TV shows or movies added. However, not much has changed for Disney+’s avatars since last year’s post (thus a lot of what’s below is a repeat).
The avatars are separated into the following categories:
Featured (avatars from various categories)
Disney
Pixar
Marvel
Star Wars
National Geographic
Kids
Ice Age
Mickey and Friends
Villains
Disney Classics
Disney Princess
Disney Channel
The Simpsons
The Muppets
X-Men
Some of the avatars show up in multiple categories. For example, Ursula from “The Little Mermaid” appears under the Villains and Disney Classics categories.
Several profile icons are LGBTQ-friendly, such as Ethan Clade (an out gay Black character from “Strange World”) and Nash Durango (a character from “Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures,” who has two Moms).
The X-Men category are all the main characters as they appear in the 90s animated series. Despite the positive reception for “X-Men ‘97,” it doesn’t seem like they’ve updated this category with any avatars from that series.
The Marvel category includes both the MCU films and the live-action TV shows; She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and the aforementioned Ms. Marvel are present. Oddly, there aren’t any avatars for “Spidey and His Amazing Friends,” despite being one of the most-watched shows on Disney+. However, the conventional adult Spider-Man has an avatar.
The Kids category includes the main cast of “Bluey.” one of Disney+’s most popular TV shows (despite being a third-party-made Australian import).
The Mickey and Friends category is a mix of different franchise versions. Mickey has his retro style from the recent animated shorts; Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto are the “default” modern styles seen on merchandise; Chip and Dale are their “Rescue Rangers” versions; Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, Uncle Scrooge, and Launchpad are from the 2017 “DuckTales” reboot; and finally, the remaining option is, of all characters, José Carioca, who’s pretty obscure these days. That said, Disney+ does have “Legend of the Three Caballeros,” a 2018 series that features José.
One observation: despite the Hulu/Disney+ merger, none of the avatars are for Hulu's shows. While Hulu doesn't offer avatars, it'd be nice to see Hulu shows like "Only Murders in the Building," "What We Do in the Shadows," and "Welcome to Wrexham" as Disney+ profile options for Disney Bundle subscribers.
My Disney+ profile avatar is currently Mike Wazowski from “Monsters, Inc.”
Max
I don’t have Max, so I can’t really cover the current avatars. (Trying to log into my old account to check the avatars just redirects me to the account sign-up screen.) However, in 2023, Max announced some then-new avatars added to the service. The Streamable has a full list of all the available avatars (as of 2023), going along with a related Max press release.
Here’s the cartoon-related avatars available as of last year:
Adult Swim:
“Aqua Teen Hunger Force”
“The Boondocks”
“The Brak Show”
“Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law”
“Primal”
“Rick and Morty”
“Robot Chicken”
“Samurai Jack”
“Space Ghost: Coast to Coast”
“Squidbillies”
Cartoon Network:
“Adventure Time”
“The Amazing World of Gumball”
“The Powerpuff Girls” (original series)
“Steven Universe”
“Teen Titans Go!”
“We Bare Bears”
Hanna-Barbera:
“The Flintstones”
“The Jetsons”
“Scooby-Doo”
“Tom and Jerry”
Looney Tunes
Max Originals:
“Velma”
Studio Ghibli:
“Earwig and the Witch”
“Howl’s Moving Castle”
“Kiki’s Delivery Service”
“My Neighbor Totoro”
“Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind”
“Ponyo”
“The Tale of the Princess Kaguya”
“Princess Mononoke”
“Spirited Away”
“Tales from Earthsea”
“The Cat Returns”
DC Comics:
“Batman: The Animated Series”
“Justice League Unlimited”
A pretty strong list of choices, which cover much of Warner Bros.’ animation library pretty well.
Netflix
Netflix offers a large number of avatars. While several generic icons are available, Netflix usually has avatars for their most popular material, as well as prominent new programs.
The current animation-related avatars include:
“Sonic Prime”
“Carmen Sandiego” (Netflix reboot)
“She-Ra and the Princesses of Power”
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” (Netflix live-action adaptation of the animated series)
“Leo”
“Gabby’s Dollhouse”
“Boss Baby: Back in Business”
“The Dragon Prince: Mystery of Aaravos”
“Jurassic World: Chaos Theory”
“Trollhunters”
“One Piece” (Netflix live-action adaptation of the anime/manga)
“Vivo”
“Big Mouth”
“BoJack Horseman”
“Maya and the Three”
“Arcane: League of Legends”
“True and the Rainbow Kingdom”
“Ask the Storybots”
“The Sea Beast”
“Super Monsters”
“Disenchantment”
That’s quite a list of both current and previous material. In my case, my Netflix profile icon is Sonic.
Paramount+
I don’t currently have Paramount+; logging into my old account just gave a sign-up screen. Thus, this section’s based on what I wrote last year. My old account's avatar was Sandy Cheeks from "SpongeBob SquarePants."
Several years ago, Paramount+ offered a pretty limited number of avatars. Since then, Paramount+’s improved its avatar choices, and now offers a broader range of icons. Below are the avatar choices as of last year:
Live-action:
“iCarly” (revival version)
“Star Trek”:
“Strange New Worlds”
“Picard”
“Discovery”
“Why Women Kill”
“Evil”
“Mayor of Kingstown”
“1883”
“Ghosts”
“Halo”
“RENO 911!”
“Crank Yankers”
Animation:
“SpongeBob SquarePants”
“Star Trek: Lower Decks”
“PAW Patrol”
“Big Nate”
Nickelodeon: “Rugrats” (original version), “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “The Legend of Korra”
Nick Jr.: “PAW Patrol,” “Peppa Pig,” “Blaze and the Monster Machines,” “Dora the Explorer,” “Blue’s Clues”
Emotions (generic/default avatars)
Peacock
Peacock carries a small but OK number of avatars. Some of the live action avatars include:
“The Office”
WWE wrestling
“Parks and Recreation”
“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”
“30 Rock”
“Real Housewives”
“Jurassic Park”
“Chucky”
““E.T.”
“Ted”
“Fight Nights at Freddy’s”
The cartoon related choices are pretty limited; they include:
“Boss Baby: Family Business”
“Curious George”
“Trolls”
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“Despicable Me”
The default avatars (a blue peacock and a green peacock)
I’m amused that one can have a profile avatar of rapper Ice-T, who plays a main character on “Law & Order: SVU.” I’m not so amused, however, by one glaring flaw of Peacock: the kids’ profile option doesn’t filter out avatars for adult-only material. Thus, one can choose a Chucky or Michael Myers avatar for a kids account. This flaw’s existed with Peacock for years now; apparently nobody at Comcast cares enough to fix something as basic as filtering out adult-only avatars?
My Peacock profile avatar is Toothless from "How to Train Your Dragon."