This summer, Netflix’s original series Stranger Things quickly became a phenomenon with its own hashtags, memes and t-shirt campaigns. Like many other Netflix aficionados, I finished the series in one sitting. With the perfect blend of drama, mystery and horror, Stranger Things easily drew in a diverse audience. People who are not normally drawn in by a sci-fi title have been pleasantly surprised by their obsession with Matt and Ross Duffer’s creation. The plot built suspense within each episode and added to the series as a whole, creating a slow burning mystery that kept fans on their toes with jump scares and budding romances. Stranger Things painted a portrait of loss and sacrifice, testing the bonds of parenthood and friendship.
On the St. Bonaventure campus we have our own version of the “Upside Down.” We call it 5th Dev. Nearly everyone on campus has heard the rumors, and many have witnessed the unexplainable firsthand. Like the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, the St. Bonaventure community is skeptical of these accounts, but perhaps more afraid than they’d like to admit.
Sarah Rose Costello, a sophomore education major, currently lives on 4th Dev. She recounted her tale shortly after move-in.
“I was here all alone before my roommate got here, and I took my crocs off in the middle of the room. Then I notice that they’re stood straight up against the wall,” said Costello. Costello frantically snapchatted her friends, pointing out that in an earlier picture her bright yellow crocs were indeed in the center of the room. Costello slept with the light on for the next week.
The reach of 5th Dev and its mysteries is further than you may think. Kristen Caputo, a senior journalism & mass communication major, recalled some peculiarities of her freshman dorm room on the 3rd Fal.
“A bunch of little things happened at first. Things would go missing. Things would turn on and off in the middle of the night. I had on video on an old phone a water bottle being thrown across the room. It all happened after I went up to 5th Dev,” said Caputo.
The element of the unknown is what scares both characters and audiences the most. Throughout the Stranger Things series, we are faced with things we cannot explain or even fully comprehend, and can’t the same be said of life?
Photo: Stock Photo