A subset of Stranger Things fans unsatisfied with the horror series’ finale have spent the last week dunking on the creators and actors and also peddling a conspiracy theory that Netflix was holding a secret finale episode that would explain away things these fans didn’t like about the existing conclusion. According to the “Conformity Gate” theory, the ninth episode of Stranger Things’ fifth season was supposed to go live on the streaming service last night, January 7, at 8 p.m. ET. The theory had become so widespread that fans claim Netflix crashed around this time as fans flocked to the streaming service and overloaded the servers. When they finally managed to get the app to boot up, they found that no such ninth episode had been published.
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@kylobae
#conformitygate i love how this theory resulted from the fandom crashing out over the finale. crazy together right? #strangerthings #strangerthings5 #strangerthingsedit #strangerthingscast
♬ original sound – kylobae
While the Conformity Gate theory was an interesting thought experiment, and I’ll admit I watched enough videos about it that I wasn’t quite convinced but was at least willing to see it all play out, this turn of events was hardly surprising, especially after Variety published a story hours ahead of the supposed launch debunking the theory.
What is surprising, however, is just how far reaching Conformity Gate had become before it was inevitably disproven. Some corporate accounts, like the one belonging to the Empire State Building of all things, were posting about Stranger Things fans’ collective psychosis, whether in genuine support of the theory or just to take advantage of a trending topic for social media engagement. The Slim Jim account is in everyone’s comments like Joyce Byers telling everyone the Conformity Gate theory is canon, to them.
@empirestatebldg
I DON’T WANT IT TO BE OVER!!! #empirestatebuilding #newyork #nyc #strangerthings #trend
♬ original sound – the.capcut.guru
Perhaps the interest of brands is understandable, though, in light of what a phenomenon Stranger Things was right up through its final episode.. The fifth season has already cracked Netflix’s top 10 all-time most-streamed series, and even if some fans online are so unsatisfied with how it all ended that they’re imagining another episode that might fix it all, the series still has enough cultural cache that every social media manager is probably looking at Conformity Gate as a chance to ride the coattails of a trend. Now, however, even people who are actually part of the Stranger Things brand are starting to post about it, and sorry to those holding out hope, but the few times that people like actor Brett Gelman have acknowledged the conspiracy, it hasn’t been to confirm it. Here he is addressing Conformity Gate by name while lipsyncing a cover of Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” specifically the line “Maybe you’re just like my mother, she’s never satisfied.”
@brettgelman
#st #strangerthings #conformitygate #fyp #whendovescry
♬ When Doves Cry – Short – Lionet
The Stranger Things social media accounts also now have “ALL EPISODES OF STRANGER THINGS ARE NOW PLAYING” in their bios, and it doesn’t get much clearer than that. The X account allegedly responsible for starting the conspiracy, @67gate, has set their profile to private. Now that the dream seems to be truly dead, fans are reacting in a lot of ways. Some are grieving, finally realizing the ending they didn’t like is, in fact, the finale of Stranger Things, while others are saying that the theory provided a fun ride for a week, and helped cushion the blow of the finale.
Unfortunately, if you scroll through the comments on videos about there being no ninth episode, you’ll also find people moving the goalpost and saying that a secret finale could still be coming, whether that be after the upcoming One Last Adventure documentary about the making of the final season, or at some other date they made up. Maybe they will return to reality in the coming days as more people disperse from the discussion.
@wthstrangerthings
The duffer brothers could’ve went down as the best writers in tv history :/ #confirmitygate #strangerthings #confirmity #strangerthings5 #theory – all these “coincidence” weren’t for nothing… @Netflix @NetflixUK
♬ оригинальный звук – 𝕤𝕚𝕣.𝕖𝕣𝕠𝕜
@matcrackz
DID NETFLIX JUST DROP EPISODE 9 OF STRANGER THINGS 5 OR WAS CONFORMITY GATE A LIE 😔💔 #strangerthings #conformitygate #strangerthings5 #netflix #vecna Netflix crashes due to conformity gate believers 😭
♬ original sound – matcrackz
“This whole thing has been the strangest mass delusion I’ve ever seen,” Totheendofsin wrote on Reddit. That about sums it up, but if you’re tuned into enough fandoms, you’ve probably seen people clowning like this. I lived through the spread of the Mass Effect 3 Indoctrination Theory years ago, and I’m sure, despite this idea of a “secret finale which will reveal that the bad ending was just a nightmare we’re all going to wake up from” having never actually proven true, we’ll live through a Conformity Gate moment again in a few years.
Taylor Swift fans are also notorious for looking for clues where there are none, such as when they speculated for months that a re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” of the artist’s Reputation album was imminent based on small hints, only for Swift to reveal months later that she’d barely recorded any of the tracks for a re-release. Theorycrafting is fun, but when you stake this level of an emotional claim in it, you’re dooming yourself to devastating disappointment.