How Stranger Things’ Conformity Gate revealed our fear of thinking differently |
If you finished Stranger Things on New Year’s Day and felt a faint sense of unease rather than closure, you weren’t alone.
By the time the credits rolled, social media was already buzzing with Conformity Gate - the fan theory that Netflix hadn’t quite finished the job, and that the show’s final moments were merely a sleight of hand before a real ending was revealed.
The actual finale, fans insisted, would drop days later, on January 7. Netflix said nothing. The show’s creators said nothing. That silence, however, rather than cooling speculation, only seemed to legitimise it.
Across TikTok, Reddit and X, increasingly elaborate explanations began to take shape. Scenes were dissected, timelines mapped, supposed clues unearthed. Within days, the theory carried a strange authority, not because it was especially convincing, but because it was everywhere.
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