I’m incredibly compelled to believe conformitygate could be real based on evidence thus far.
Which is why it bothers me so much that people will dismiss it without considering. I want to think it’s not real, but absolutely nobody is providing substantial proof to argue against it—it all just boils down to condescension, calling the duffers stupid and theorists over thinkers.
So, I want everyone calling conformitygate theorists stupid, or delusional, or crazy, or psychotic, or every other weirdly nasty name people have come up with to actually properly refute conformitygate evidence for me:
People say the time spent filming, overall screentime, and budgeting ultimately doesn’t add up for the content we received. When compared to season 4, we have 6mo of filming vs 1yr. 13hrs total screentime vs 10hrs. 270mil vs 400-480 (round it to 440 to play it safe, each ep costed 50-60mil). Explain why it does add up.
They claimed to have studied bad and good endings immensely to understand what is often received well and what isn’t and avoid what isn’t. They even put emphasis on game of thrones specifically. They destiel’d mileven, GoT’d killing the mindflayer, GoT’d the documentary, and lord knows what else (my tv media consumption consists almost exclusively of bobs burgers, Rick and Morty, and niche queer shows that get cancelled before they get to have bad finales, so I can’t point out any parallels that haven’t been pointed out by others, and I’m probably not online enough to see everything). Explain how they studied bad finales specifically to avoid it, only to do what they did—especially GoT, right down to the documentary.
El’s entire storyline in season 5 contradicts her previous 4 season arc of self-discovery. She became a weapon and a monster. She snapped a persons neck without hesitation or reaction, she looked a man dead in the eye while forcing him to kill himself without missing a beat. That’s not a subtle change or accidental minor mischaracterisation, that’s a complete contradiction of the goal their character has worked towards for the past 4 seasons. Explain why her story this season contradicts her previous arcs so heavily.
The duffers are being accused of AI usage during scriptwriting, and using Ross’s ex-wife to give the show the quality it had (ignoring how offensive that is to the female writers on the show, one of whom was the writer of the play everyone adores), and yet they are doing very little to dispute these rumours. The interviews they did after Vol3 immediately turned them into laughingstocks, PR found dead in a ditch apparently. Explain why they’ve done almost nothing the shield themselves from the hellfire raining down upon them (that’s not an intentional pun).
The writing of stranger things has had its flaws here and there, like most shows or books do, but it’s always stuck to its core values (love defeats fear, protect outcasts/freaks). Explain why it did a complete 180 in season 5.
The lights are still flashing when el and Nancy arrive, and hol can still be heard screaming once they’re inside, so the time between the attack and el and Nancy getting inside will have been 45 seconds at most (being generous). In Hollys memory, Karen is lying on to floor, eyes open, chest not moving (they even accentuate this by panning down to her for a few seconds). Yet in E2, she’d managed to drag herself over to the counter and stand up and grab the phone. Explain why they made the choice to show that the demo was still in the house at the point that they showed up, and to show Karen unmoving in Hollys memory.
People claim the WYR question “be stuck in the upside down with your best friend, or live in paradise shackled to your worst nightmare” is far too reminiscent of what conformitygate is to be a random question. Explain why it is random.
The documentary has at least one undoubtedly scripted scene, another that’s been heavily speculated to be scripted. It managed to point out just about every flaw with the finale, focused heavily on the duffers essentially just being incompetent and everyone around them judging them (if it’s not real then this is actually just really funny honestly, totally lost respect from all their employees), and evidently showed us a previous draft that gave us a far better storyline. Explain why, despite the at least 1 scripted scene and the duffers being made to look like complete buffoons to the point where the GA was fired up over it, the documentary is still sincere (using the term loosely because we do already know at least part of it isn’t).
Will and mike have multiple wardrobe designs that parallel lovers whose memories of the other are taken:
Explain why it’s not intentional, or what the parallel is about if not that.
The images of the clown cake and circus tent show us that birthdaygate was (more than likely) real. Under the assumption people will argue the storyline was simply cut (I’ve seen different arguments as to why), explain why they would allow for bts to be posted that proves a well-known theory they are aware of was cut.
Barbs body was brought up prior to the release, saying it would be in S5. The actor was at the premiere. BTS images show her body in at least two locations: the church and the pool. Explain why they would talk about it, and allow for bts to be posted if it was cut.
People have pointed out that the leaks of the ending were suspicious. There were multiple high quality shots of Mike and hopper talking together, showing enough of the set to give a timeframe, immediately leading to the theory that el would die or fake her death. This was the biggest twist (twist being used loosely) of the series, and it was leaked with no attempt to quell it (as far as I’m aware, please correct me if they did try to snuff it out). Explain why it was so easy to leak the biggest twist of the series and why they didn’t try to keep it quiet.
Dnd games foreshadowing events in the show, yet vecna having a fakeout death (and noteably coming back missing an arm, cough cough) was never realised. Explain why that game wasn’t foreshadowing, despite the previously established rule.
Following up, the foreshadowing of the season 3 game in which Mike injured his arm and sacrificed himself—we see the beginning of the foreshadowing coming into the show when he hurt his arm in E4, only for the rest never to be carried out and his arm miraculously being okay afterward. Explain why the foreshadowing was suddenly abandoned, and why they put focus on mikes arm only for it to be okay.
The wsqk episodes evidently sync to the actual episodes, with multiple audio cues that heavily point toward the sync being intentional. Parts of the episodes are completely recontenxtualised by the music choices. Explain why it isn’t intentional, or why it doesn’t play into conformitygate.
The season has multiple parallels to the Truman show, some noteable ones being the lightbulb drawing framed over Truman vs the wormhole/upside down drawing framed over will, the eagle on the wsqk van vs the eagle on the boat Truman used to escape, wills epilogue outfit being reminiscent of Truman’s love interest (as referenced above), & more. Explain why these parallels are not intentional, or how they’re relevant in the show, just not to conformitygate.
Digdug foreshadowed the tunnels in season 2, the video game Derek plays has a false ending before you get to the real final boss. Explain what the game foreshadows if not a false ending, or why it doesn’t foreshadow anything.
They have multiple abandoned/incomplete (some foreshadowed) storylines or arcs, such as romantic development between Mike and Will, Wills forgotten birthday and his birthday being the same as Henry, the continued love overcomes fear arc that plays a part in each finale, patty newby, Henry’s trauma, mikes hero arc (and foreshadowed battle with Will, which leads me to believe should conformitygate be real, he’ll be the final boss), the time travel references and the UD being stuck on the day Will was taken, Will being revealed as vecnas builder, Wills connection to the hivemind. Some were introduced this season, which means forgetting due to time is not a valid argument. Explain why we have all these meticulously (byler, birthdaygate, time travel, patty/henrys trauma, love overcoming fear specifically are the ones I’m referring to as meticulous) set up arcs left suddenly abandoned.
Joyce puts on a play within a play, the fake “Oklahoma” play before the real play, saying that it’s a risk, but it’ll be worth it if they can pull it off. So the writers clearly are aware of fake-outs. Explain why Joyce’s play doesn’t work in favour of conformitygate.
We also have the “sad ending vs gay ending” script from Joyce’s play, with bylers colours, and the song not finishing in the credits (“you never know the ending until it’s sung all the way through”, credits finish on “we can be heroes”, right before the next lyric “we’re nothing, and nothing will help us”). Explain why they gave us a sad ending, don’t plan to give us a gay one, and why the song doesn’t finish on the credits.
Millie called season 5 “meta”, when we have not yet seen any meta content. Explain why she would call it meta.
Episodes 2-8 are yet to be copyrighted, episode 1 was registered after 5 days. Explain why they haven’t copyrighted them yet.
People have noted these potential “hints/clues” the ending:
- no watches show the time (I’ve gone through scenes frame by frame, it’s not a matter of bad lighting or quality)
- Jon’s camera does not show the date
- whatzit game in basement and cabin (killer is not dead trope)
- robin saying, “I am almost too superstitious to say this […] but I think the Hawkins curse has finally lifted”.
- Mike and Nancy being copies of their parents, when that is each their biggest fears
- gowns being orange, despite the fact that orange was closely associated with prisoners in the 80’s (and still is), and the gowns were green in Nancys book, but they were orange when Henry went there.
- Robin hoping she would double her audience by the end of the year (only if will can out-sorcerer the sorcerer and they don’t all die), and promising to take Vickie to enzos (if they make it out alive), neither evidently happen in the epilogue.
- Will being erased from the scene where his birthday was forgotten, and the small town boy album shapes in the background.
- the ticking leading into the epilogue (which immediately opens with another brick in the wall)
- wills imagined epilogue boyfriend wearing a similar jacket to mike and the same hair (the actor does not have this hairstyle, so it was changed to look like that)
- the engagement ring jopper used being the jancy ring
- el in a wig being the clip they used right after she said “the real me”, and her entire speech being directly contradicted by the arcs for their relationship in the previous 2 seasons
- Mike not saying I love you, nor initiating the kiss
- the “m” on mikes dnd book holding the same shape as the cave/spyglass
Explain why all of these are coincidences/how they work in the show in a way that doesn’t feed into conformitygate.
Im not saying conformitygate is 100% real, i don’t want to believe in it (not saying I don’t want it to be real, just don’t want to believe in it), but I am yet to see any compelling arguments against conformitygate. So I am genuinely inviting people to please refute these (without being condescending). I’m fully aware there’s a ton more, but I’m so tired and my neck hurts, and I’m yet to organise the evidence I’ve seen in a fashion that makes it easy to navigate.
And no, calling the duffers stupid as an actual argument doesn’t cut it. Especially when it comes to refuting the bad writing arguments, because other people were still involved, including Kate Trefy (I believe that’s her name, apologies if I got it wrong) who they deeply respect and admire. And that reminds me, please stop with the Divorcegate crap, it feels genuinely insulting to these women who worked on ST5—and Leigh too, who was better established in the industry than the duffers, and I’m sure would not let her husband take credit for her work for 10 years.
Can’t believe I forgot this one, because it’s definitely one of my favourites:
Melvalds is not only mentioned in Wills coming out speech, present in the background of many scenes at the Mac-Z, and shown in the beginning of the epilogue AS a general store (which proves they did not forget its function, meaning the speech wasn’t a plot hole), it takes centre stage in one of the most emotionally pivotal (and visually impeccable) scenes of the entire season.
Explain why they would put so much emphasis on Melvalds if it weren’t there for us to notice.
