If you wanted to watch the family sitcom “Gordita Chronicles” right now, it would be a very early 2000s experience.

“You would have to come to my house and sit on my couch and hold my dog and watch my DVDs,” said Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz, the showrunner.

“Gordita Chronicles” was one of the dozens of shows and original films that streaming service HBO Max erased from its platform last year. Future seasons of these shows weren’t just canceled; the titles were removed entirely from the streamer, with no clear plan for whether they’ll return somewhere else.

“Gordita” centered on a Dominican family immigrating to Miami in the 1980s, with a John Hughes-y polish. Muñoz-Liebowitz was motivated to come on as showrunner because the story felt personal. Her mother immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia.

“I was so charmed by the story and saw so much of myself in it, so much of my family’s narrative, so much of the narrative of so many other first-generation or new arrivals to America,” Muñoz-Liebowitz said.

The show premiered on HBO Max last year to positive critical reviews and social media love, especially from Latino audiences.

But a few months after its debut, Warner Bros. Discovery — the parent company of HBO Max — canceled a second season. Then in December, Muñoz-Liebowitz learned that the show would be removed from the platform entirely. She felt embarrassed.

“It made it seem like it wasn’t good enough to hang,” she said, “like in the way that maybe you’re not invited to a party because you’re not cool enough. Or maybe you can’t join this country club because you’re not rich enough or white enough.”

It’s not just Warner Bros. Discovery that has purged shows from its streaming library. Last month, Showtime pulled original shows like “American Gigolo” and “Super Pumped” from its service.

The removals have caught creative talent off-guard throughout Hollywood. In the Netflix era, even if a show was canceled, cast and crew came to expect that their work would live on in perpetuity.

“The creative community is in a state of dumbfoundedness,” said Matt Belloni, who covers Hollywood for the news site Puck. “I think they’re saying, ‘Wait a second, my show can just disappear?'”

Up until last year, the thought of taking shows off a platform seemed antithetical to the entire economic ethos of streaming.

Streamers “wanted to greenlight the most shows,” Belloni said. “It was a volume play. ‘We have to have a robust library and own it all and control it all.’ And it’s just volume, volume, volume.”

Wall Street was comfortable with streamers losing money, as long as they were gaining subscribers. But when Netflix started reaching the limits of subscriber growth last year, Wall Street demanded that streamers start making profits.

That prompted companies like Warner Bros. Discovery to start scouring for ways to cut costs.

Warner Bros. Discovery “could save money from not having to pay residuals to certain profit participants and talent associated with the shows if the shows were not exhibited on the streaming service,” Belloni said.

It could also sell the “disappeared” shows to other streaming services that were looking for content. The company did not respond to an interview request.

Actors, writers and directors on canceled shows frequently get checks as long as those shows remain on streaming platforms.

“When content is made for a streaming service, the writer gets a flat fee for each year that the content is available on the service,” said Laura Blum-Smith, research director at the Writers Guild of America.

The guild estimates that in 2021, writers made about $27 million from streaming residuals, a growing income stream that’s increasingly important as broadcast television withers.

“It made it seem like it wasn’t good enough to hang, like in the way that maybe you’re not invited to a party because you’re not cool enough.”

— Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz, showrunner of “Gordita Chronicles,” on the series’ cancellation and removal

Warner Bros. Discovery hasn’t disclosed how much money it’ll save from the purge.

Blum-Smith believes the original sin was the combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2022, which followed the merger of AT&T and WarnerMedia. The conglomerate is tens of billions of dollars in debt, and Warner Bros. Discovery can take advantage of unique postmerger tax breaks by nixing content.

“We’re getting what you expect from consolidation,” Blum-Smith said. “The company is using its market power to slash programming and cut costs by squeezing workers.”

When streamers cut costs, they may resort to old programming habits, she added. “A lot of the casualties have been projects created by or centering women and people of color.”

Like the animated show “Tuca and Bertie,” with comedians Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong, or the sitcom “Chad,” starring “Saturday Night Live” alum Nasim Pedrad.

Thus far, “Gordita Chronicles” has not found a home beyond Muñoz-Liebowitz’s couch and DVD player. 

Although there is one other place you could watch an episode. “You know where you can watch it?” Muñoz-Liebowitz said. “You can watch it on American Airlines or JetBlue flights to Miami or New York. I hope it lives there forever.”

She hasn’t watched the show since it was canceled. It’s just too sad. Plus, she would have to hook her DVD player back up.