It’s been over a month since one of the most popular shows, Stranger Things, came to an end.
Premiered in 2016, the show takes place in the town of Hawkins, where supernatural events occur after 12-year-old Will Byers goes missing. Growing up watching the show, I feel my emotions at an all-time high.
I turned my phone off throughout New Year’s Eve to avoid spoilers. And when I finally watched it the next day, I felt so empty. I was met with many mixed reactions when I scrolled online.
Of course, when you have a show go on for such a long time, it holds sentimental value. As someone who was 12 when I got into the show and am now in my early 20s, I hold the show close to my heart.
And of course, long-time fans were expecting something big. Fans started speculating about a surprise ninth episode, based on what was put in the show and on behind-the-scenes photos posted by the cast and crew as hints that a secret episode would be released the week after or after the documentary.
Personally, I didn’t believe it because I thought the show ended on a good note, with everyone starting to move on, but at times, I started speculating about how hard fans were thinking about this episode being released.
Many wanted a ninth episode to erase everything that went “wrong” in “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up”.
Having a fan favourite character, Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown), sacrifice herself at the end of the show, when they were almost free from all the turbulence, was a hard watch. Even “Byler” shippers, people who shipped Mike Wheeler (played by Finn Wolfhard) and Will Byers (played by Noah Schnapp) together, were left searching for the ‘missing’ scene that would finally make their long-awaited theories canon.
This desperation for a “fix” is exactly how theories like the “Conformity Gate” started to trend, and even reached the actors themselves.
So was it actually real? The short answer? No.
There was no secret ninth episode, no hidden “Conformity Gate” finale locked in a Netflix vault, no hidden or cut script from the producers Matt and Ross Duffer, and no last-minute rewrite.
We essentially tried to manifest a reality that didn’t exist. However, this raises a larger question: why did we cling to this theory so much?
When you grow up with a series, the characters become more than just pixels on a screen. Facing the end, especially an ending as heavy as Eleven’s sacrifice, or the graduation scene, feels like a door slamming shut on your own childhood.
The “Conformity Gate” wasn’t just a theory; it was a coping mechanism. We clung to it because, as long as there was a “secret episode” on the horizon, we didn’t have to say goodbye. It’s a classic case of the Mandela Effect fueled by digital desperation.
In the age of social media doom scrolling and all things digital, if enough people scream about a “lost episode,” our brains start to treat the theory as a memory. We looked at grainy behind-the-scenes photos and convinced ourselves they were “clues” rather than just the cast hanging out between takes.
We created the “Conformity Gate” because we weren’t ready for the credits to roll. We wanted one more hour when everyone was safe, when the ships were cannon, and when Hawkins was finally at peace.
The episode might have been a coping mechanism, but the feeling behind it was real. We didn’t make up the episode because we were confused. We made it up because we cared.
Even if the screen stayed black after episode eight, the fact that millions of us were waiting together for a “secret” ninth one proves just how much this show meant to us. Although some fans seemed too extreme, it shows everyone who worked on this show that it meant a lot for them to be a part of it for the past decade.
Maybe the real “Conformity Gate” was just us trying to find one last way back into the world of Hawkins before the lights went out for good. Is it fair to say we made up our minds? Absolutely not.
Fans don’t leave overnight, some stay for a long time, new fans arrive years after the series ends, and people will still talk about it for decades to come.
Many big series such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Star Wars are still talked about years after their ending and a huge online presence to this day.
A big part of being a fan is the community. Even though this chapter in our lives has now closed, it’ll be something to cling to forever.