Stranger Things Fans Are Using “ConformityGate” to Try to Say There Is More to the Finale…
After a decade of ups, downs, and years of waiting between seasons, Stranger Things has drawn to a close. The juggernaut of a Netflix series aired its final episodes over the course of the recent holiday season, culminating in a massive episode, released both online and in theaters on New Year’s Eve.
But depending on who you ask, the show might not be truly over. In the aftermath of the New Year’s Eve episode, a theory dubbed #ConformityGate has grown among Stranger Things fans online. It argues that the events of the recent final episode are actually a massive illusion brought to life by Vecna, and that Season 5 still has some sort of secret episode on the way to actually culminate things.
If you look on social media long enough, you will see an ever-growing amount of evidence arguing for #ConformityGate. Some of them predate the finale, like the color of an important lever changing from episode to episode. Some of them factor into the episode itself, like Hopper’s engagement ring to Joyce looking oddly familiar, and the False Hydra being used during the characters’ final Dungeons and Dragons campaign. The high school graduation scene has become a specific point of contention, both for the distinct orange color of the graduates’ robes, and for the posture everyone appears to have in the scene.
Even things that didn’t diegetically factor into Stranger Things itself have been cited as #ConformityGate evidence. “End of Beginning”, the hit song from Stranger Things cast member Joe Keery under his stage name Djo, was used on multiple cast members’ social media posts for the final season. While that could be seen as them supporting their co-star and using a song about “the end”, fans have latched on to the lyric “another version of me / I was in it” as further evidence that the characters are stuck in a Vecna-created illusion.
Is #ConformityGate Real?
#ConformityGate is far from the first or last time that a major television show has been attached to this kind of storyline. Ever since St. Elsewhere revealed that its events were stuck within a child’s snowglobe (creating one of the wildest shared fictional universes in the process), the possibility that everything is really a dream or a false reality has surrounded plenty of ambitious and genre-bending shows. I still have fond memories of speculating about the early seasons of Mr. Robot, and wondering if its web of storylines and twists would ultimately be revealed to be some sort of high-concept sci-fi simulation. The possibility of a hidden “secret” episode has also followed countless television shows, most recently with misinformation spread online surrounding the second season of Peacemaker.
While there’s no telling at this point, the idea of #ConformityGate being real and Stranger Things having a secret “real” finale would be a bit unprecedented. Sure, it could further explain the final season’s massive budget, and give a much different resolution to certain characters and storylines. But as part of the conversation around #ConformityGate has argued, there are an ever-growing number of things that fans thought the show could theoretically do and just… didn’t.
Series creators Ross and Matt Duffer have done a massive press tour surrounding this season, with sound bites ranging from clarifying plot points that confused audiences the first time around, to revealing that certain key moments happened offscreen, to just admitting that they didn’t put too much thought into certain details. The idea that, amid all of that, the Duffers and the writing staff have secretly had a massive, high-concept plan up their sleeves isn’t impossible… but it just might be improbable. It might not be the resolution that some Stranger Things fans wanted, but it might be the one that they’re ultimately getting.
(featured image: Netflix)
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