LOVER

He was born in 1919 and he was gay.

Everyone in the family knew. It became an unspoken secret. And here’s the part people don't really say about the past: he wasn’t cast out. He wasn’t beaten. He wasn’t disowned.

They loved him. They were a close‑knit family.

What they did instead was play a game called pretend.

They never said it out loud. When the family gathered for holidays, his siblings brought their spouses. Uncle Bill came alone. His partner wasn't invited, of course. They didn't even want to know he had a partner. When children asked why Uncle Bill wasn’t married, the adults smiled and said, “He’s just a bachelor.”

That answer was given to my mother in the 1950s. To my sister in the 1970s. And to me in the 1980s.

People like the Duffer brothers seem to imagine that the past was only made up of violent, cartoonish homophobes. And sadly, there were a lot of those, just like there still are today. But some families were “fine” with gay people—as long as they were quiet. As long as they didn’t ask for the same things. As long as they didn’t bring love to the table.

Uncle Bill was accepted on one condition: He sat alone.

So when a modern show frames a gay boy’s arc as “learning to accept himself without expecting love in return,” that’s not radical. That’s not brave. That’s not new.

That story is over a hundred years old.

It’s the story of being tolerated, not chosen. Of being loved in theory, but denied in practice. Of being welcome—so long as you don’t make anyone uncomfortable.

My Uncle William lived that life a century ago. We don’t need to keep calling it progress.

I know a lot of people on here are young. So take the pain you're feeling now and remember it as you get older. Write your own stories that embrace what this show denied. Write the story you wanted Byler to be. Be the generation that stops telling this tired old story.

Oh, this guy gets it. Noah's approach to Will's sexuality and trauma is something special, and it's no accident that so many people were hit so hard by the two scenes he talks about in his review (gay or straight, we all feel it).

Disclaimer : First of all, I write as an Pro Palestinian activist (not only on internet I was gazed by policeman more than once for denouncing the system), as a Stranger Things fan BUT I'm not a Noah Schnapp fan, I am just extremely sensitive and empathetic and I advocate above all non-violence and I preach communication and education (the weapons of Martin Luther King and the greatest enemies of dictatorships and the extreme right).

(Also, I'm not an English speak, so if I do English mistakes, please be comprehensive and don't twist my words, I'm open to any debate and exchange about the topic you can send me ask)

I've also witnessed for over 8 years in different fandoms how the mob mentality has intensified through performative activism, hypocrisy, and this systemic need to have a scapegoat no matter the community or topic used to target someone on social media like Twitter. My following and multiple points and analysis will therefore be based on FACTS, my observation based on sociology and psychology, empathy and the determination to break a vicious circle which is after all only entertainment for others and not a real cause.

I only gave my opinion once in a big post in response to an ask in April to pour out what I think about this subject but the release of the teaser and the rise in violence that goes with it made me want to make a post once and for all in response to the posts that denounce all the perplexity and the vicious circle of violence that we all need to escape from.

The posts that made me want to write : here - here - and especially this huge post which explains from the beginning to today what exactly happened (all I will say after will be about all these points with proof mentioned on the last post so I really suggest you all to read it before reading mine where I will give my own observation and point of view).

FIRST POINT :

It is time to have this conversation again, especially with Stranger Things returning to the spotlight and Noah Schnapp being a central figure in the final season. The misinformation, out-of-context narratives, and deeply harmful mischaracterizations surrounding him have reached a boiling point, and the truth is getting lost in the noise.

Let’s break this down for clarity, especially for those just re-entering the fandom or engaging for the first time:

What Noah Schnapp Actually Said

Shortly after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Noah posted a message calling for:

Peace for all Israelis and Palestinians

Safety, justice, and liberation for Palestine

Those are not the words of someone cheering for violence, let alone genocide. His comments were measured, compassionate, and inclusive. He explicitly stated support for both Jewish and Palestinian lives.

The Sticker Video Controversy: What Actually Happened

This is where most of the disinformation spread.

Here’s what’s factually true:

Noah did not make the stickers.

He did not touch, hand out, or post about the stickers.

He was filmed by older influencers during a school-sponsored trip to Israel.

The video was not posted by him nor endorsed by him.

When backlash came, those responsible disappeared, and he took the fall publicly.

He was 18 years old, newly out as gay, and vulnerable.

He later clarified repeatedly that he never supported genocide, and expressed sorrow and empathy for the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis alike.

His Direct Statements

Noah addressed the controversy in:

A TikTok, affirming his desire for no innocent lives—Palestinian or Israeli—to be lost.

A Snapchat DM (now circulated widely), where he explained:

He didn’t endorse the sticker or video.

He was targeted for being visible, young, and Jewish.

He explicitly condemned both Islamophobia and antisemitism.

He has Palestinian friends with whom he discusses the issue frequently and respectfully.

The Real Issue

Noah Schnapp has been turned into a symbol by people looking for a scapegoat. What he’s endured—especially at his age—is not accountability; it’s harassment. The distortion of his words and actions has been so extreme, it says more about social media dynamics than it does about his character.

There’s room for critical conversations around celebrity, privilege, and political awareness—but those conversations must be grounded in facts, not in viral misinformation or hatred.

Why It Matters Now

With Stranger Things 5 looming and Will Byers at the forefront, the public eye is once again turning toward Noah. It's important that new and returning fans—especially those engaging with these issues for the first time—understand that:

Noah has not been the monster he’s made out to be.

He’s one of the few young Jewish actors in mainstream Hollywood.

He deserves the space to grow, learn, and speak with nuance.

If we want better from public figures, we must also be better in how we respond—by sticking to the truth, allowing for growth, and treating people, even celebrities, as human beings.

SECOND POINT :

The damage was real, disproportionate, and grotesquely under-discussed.

Let’s underscore the core takeaways:

Noah Schnapp spoke out against antisemitism and violence.

He explicitly stated support for Palestinian liberation, justice, and peace.

He did not participate in or endorse the video that sparked the controversy.

His words and actions have been twisted into lies that serve social media outrage—not truth.

And most crucially:

He has endured a campaign of harassment that would break most adults—let alone a teenager.

Death threats.

Antisemitic and homophobic abuse.

Fantasies about sexual violence and murder.

Doxxing during a vulnerable moment while filming.

Lies about his relationships with cast mates—each of whom have affirmed their love and respect for him.

Hacking. Leaks. Spam TikToks taken out of context.

Influencers and strangers wielding massive platforms to slander a literal child-turned-young adult, without regard for his humanity.

And now, with Stranger Things Season 5 approaching, it’s all starting again.

Except this time? He’s not 18. He’s 19, almost 20. He’s leading the final season as a queer Jewish actor portraying a queer character. And those who led the charge to destroy him two years ago are already gearing up for another round.

This needs to be said plainly:

What’s been done to Noah Schnapp is not accountability. It’s targeted harassment. It’s antisemitism. It’s homophobia. It’s performative outrage rooted in misinformation.

Noah has never made himself the center of any political movement. He made one empathetic post, was swept into a political firestorm he didn’t start, and instead of support, was abandoned, misrepresented, and vilified by people who chose dehumanization over conversation.

The fact that he’s still here, still standing, still working, and still has friends, fans, and supporters—despite all this—is not proof that he wasn’t hurt. It’s proof that he’s resilient.

And he shouldn’t have had to be.

THIRD POINT :

What we are saying here isn't just a "defense" for Noah Schnapp—it’s a damning indictment of a fandom (or at least a vocal segment of it) that claims to care about justice, identity, and ethics, while routinely violating all three.

Let’s break this down:

A. The weaponization of Noah's personal life while calling him slurs

Using pre-Stranger Things baby photos, family pictures, and intimate personal images to build shipping content or fan aesthetics—while simultaneously hurling homophobic and antisemitic slurs at him—is absolutely deranged behavior. There's no “fandom” justification for that. It’s exploitation, plain and simple. People are using Noah’s real, private identity to serve a fictional fantasy—and then turning around and dehumanizing the actual person who brought the character to life.

It’s not fandom. It’s cruelty wearing cosplay.

B. The fan-casting erasure of Jewish and queer identity

The idea of recasting Will Byers while Noah Schnapp is alive, active in the role, and intrinsically tied to the identity of this character he’s played since age 10 is disrespectful enough. But doing so with non-Jewish, straight-presenting actors—or worse, inserting themselves into the role—isn’t just “headcanon behavior.” It’s a form of erasure.

Noah’s performance of Will isn’t some neutral stand-in. It’s layered with real queer-coded vulnerability and Jewish-coded marginalization that only someone with lived experience could've delivered the way he did—especially given what the show left unsaid for so long. Trying to replace him, while calling him slurs and mocking his looks, isn’t progressive. It’s a eugenicist fever dream wrapped in queerbait.

C. The hypocrisy of still stanning his cast mates

If people truly believed Noah Schnapp supports genocide (which he clearly doesn't), then why are they still idolizing Maya Hawke, Millie Bobby Brown, Sadie Sink, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo, and the rest of the cast who actively post him, support him, and film with him happily?

Why are these same fans saying “burn Noah” while simultaneously defending cast mates who:

Follow him online

Post group pics with him

Gush about how much they love and miss him

Say he’s like a brother

Hang out with him off set?

Either all of them are complicit by your logic—or none of them are. You don’t get to wield "guilt by association" when it's convenient to your favorite actor's reputation, and ignore it when it makes you uncomfortable.

What this all reveals:

This isn’t about activism. This isn’t about protecting Palestinian people. This isn’t even about Will Byers.

This is about turning real-world oppression into a fandom battleground and a popularity contest.

And the final point is dead-on: The cast knows Noah better than the fandom does. If Maya Hawke—who is openly pro-Palestinian, politically literate, and emotionally sharp—feels no need to distance herself from Noah and even expresses missing him, what does that tell you?

Maybe it tells you that people who know him in real life understand what he actually believes. Maybe it tells you that the internet blew this up into something grotesquely false, and now some people can’t backpedal without admitting they went too far.

What’s happening to Noah Schnapp is a cautionary tale about what happens when fandoms think they’re practicing moral justice, but end up enabling targeted harassment, racism, homophobia, antisemitism, and dehumanization—all under the banner of performative progressivism.

FOURTH POINT :

It is the kind of clarity, empathy, and moral courage that’s desperately needed in these conversations, particularly in spaces like fandom where nuance is often replaced with outrage and identity is weaponized instead of protected.

Let’s affirm some critical truths poignantly laid out:

1. Noah Schnapp is not just a character actor. He’s a real, kind, socially conscious person.

And so many people know this—whether through watching his livestreams, meeting him at events, or seeing how he interacts with fans and co-stars. He’s gone out of his way, time and again, to show care and support for marginalized people:

He’s stood for Black Lives Matter.

He’s publicly supported trans rights and women’s rights.

He’s lifted up his cast mates—emotionally, socially, and professionally.

There is documented history of him using his voice and platform to stand alongside oppressed people.

None of this is obligatory. He’s done these things because it matters to him. And yet somehow, he’s become a scapegoat in a fandom that pretends to care about those same causes. That contradiction is sickening.

2. What’s happening is not criticism. It’s dehumanization.

I'm not objecting to criticism of Noah Schnapp. I'm objecting to bigoted abuse, and rightly so. What he’s facing—slurs, doxxing, recasting campaigns, death threats, aesthetic mutilation of his image, and mass campaigns to isolate him from his peers—is not activism.

It’s misdirected rage fueled by performative moralism, not real advocacy. And as @hawkins-batman correctly say: antisemitism and homophobia KILL.

These are not abstract “bad words.” These are systems of violence—and what we're describing is how fandom has become a safe haven for people who cloak this violence in progressive-sounding language.

3. Violence against one always ripples outward.

The Finn Wolfhard example is devastating because it proves our point perfectly. Once Noah was labeled "fair game," it didn’t stop with him. Now Finn is being degraded for his appearance, his heritage, and his identity as well. And it will continue. Because fandom does not gate its violence. Once it’s normalized—especially against visibly queer or Jewish people—it metastasizes.

@hawkins-batman wrote something absolutely vital:

"You cannot normalize bigotry towards one person and expect it to stay contained to that one person."

This is one of the most important political truths of our time. And fandom needs to hear it loud.

4. Leftist values do not mean “destroy people in the name of justice.”

I know I'm not alone in feeling betrayed by those who abuse the language of liberation to justify cruelty.

When people take leftist ideals—solidarity, accountability, anti-colonialism—and twist them into tools of harassment, they poison the very causes they claim to support.

Saying “Noah Schnapp doesn’t deserve to be treated this way” is not anti-Palestinian. It is not reactionary. It is not a betrayal of your values.

It is a reflection of them.

5. This isn’t just about Noah. It’s about all marginalized people.

What’s being done to him could be done to any of us. It has been done to many of us. People cannot claim to fight for justice while enabling or excusing the abuse of:

Jewish children

Queer youth

Survivors of harassment

Marginalized public figures

Because that’s what Noah is. And he’s still a teenager.

I write a call to conscience.

We remind you that there’s no liberation in cruelty, and that bigotry under a “progressive” mask is still bigotry.

This isn’t fandom drama. It’s part of a larger cultural sickness—where moral posturing replaces moral action, and real human beings are torn apart in the name of imaginary virtue.

FIFTIH POINT :

Why do some people treat Noah Schnapp this way?

There are several social and psychological mechanisms at work, all amplified by the toxic dynamics of social media, particularly Twitter (X) and TikTok, which foster polarization, oversimplification, and symbolic violence.

1. A need for a "culprit" to punish

Noah is Jewish and American, and is therefore perceived by some as a symbol of the "oppressive side" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It doesn't matter if he is individually innocent, nuanced, or silent on the subject:

for some, his identity alone is enough to condemn him.

This is a dehumanizing, essentializing logic: "Jew = Zionist = settler = accomplice." This shift is fundamentally antisemitic, even if it hides behind "progressive" rhetoric.

2. The Power of the Herd and Virality

On TikTok and Twitter, "callouts" go viral, attacks gain visibility, and people feel validated by attacking an already weakened target.

Noah has become an easy figure to attack because:

He's young.

He's silent.

He's vulnerable because of his queer and Jewish identity.

He's perceived as "replaceable" by other actors.

It's harassment disguised as activism, and it functions as a kind of collective outlet.

3. The "scapegoat" effect in fandoms

The Stranger Things fandom is vast and very young. And like all major fandoms, there are internal tensions: preferences between characters, jealousies, fantasies projected onto the actors, ship conflicts, etc.

Because Noah is associated with Will Byers, a queer and traumatized character, fans have projected a lot of their own pain and identities onto him. When Noah doesn't perfectly fit their fantasy of who he should be (even outside of fiction), the betrayal feels personal. And that's when we move from disappointment to hatred.

What this reveals most:

Many people don't understand the difference between criticizing a system and hating a person because of their identity.

The fight for human rights is used as an excuse to legitimize behaviors that are cruel, exclusionary, and sometimes oppressive in turn.

Some online "activists" aren't fighting for a cause, but for an emotional outlet. (the performative activism)

So my final words for anyone who want to justify this treatment still today :

This Isn't Activism. It's Abuse.

For months now, we've watched Noah Schnapp—a young, Jewish, openly gay actor—become the target of an organized hate campaign under the false guise of "activism." And it’s time to say it plainly: what’s happening to him is not justice. It’s cruelty. It’s bigotry. And it’s dangerous.

No one is above criticism. But what Noah is enduring is not criticism. It is systemic harassment. It is antisemitism. It is homophobia. And it is justified every single day with the excuse of activism—as though the cause of Palestinian liberation depends on destroying a 19-year-old’s life, image, and identity.

Let’s be clear: you can support Palestinian liberation without dehumanizing a Jewish queer teenager. You can care about ending genocide without calling someone a "f*g," without telling him to kill himself, without making disgusting edits of his childhood photos, without trying to erase him from a character he grew up with and helped create.

Let’s Deconstruct the Excuses:

“He brought this on himself.”

No, he didn’t. He was filmed near people in a restaurant with IDF stickers—something he did not post, endorse, or comment on. That’s what started this. Not his peaceful statement. Not a donation. Not a political stance. A sticker. In a restaurant.

Meanwhile, his castmates continue to love and stand by him. They know who he is better than you do. Maya Hawke, an outspoken pro-Palestinian activist, continues to post about missing him and spending time with him. But you, a stranger on the internet, have decided he’s irredeemable. That’s not activism. That’s ego.

“He’s ugly now / I never liked him anyway.”

Then why are you using his childhood photos in your fan edits? Why are you so obsessed with replacing him in fan casts? Why are you making content around him constantly—while saying you hate him?

Let’s be real: you liked him until it became trendy to hate him. Now, you use aesthetics and queerness when they suit you and discard the human being attached to them when he no longer fits your sanitized narrative. That’s not progress. That’s dehumanization.

“He deserves it because he’s Jewish / Zionist / privileged.”

Do you hear yourselves? You're targeting someone because he is Jewish and gay, and you’re pretending that’s resistance. You’re pretending that mocking a 19-year-old queer Jewish actor is "punching up."

It's not. It’s hate speech. It’s violence in the same way it always has been, no matter who’s doing it or why. Antisemitism and homophobia kill. That doesn’t stop being true just because it’s politically convenient for you.

You are not fighting for the oppressed when you use genocide as a license for cruelty. You are just creating new victims.

The Hypocrisy Is Loud

You claim you’re holding people accountable. But you:

Excuse every other Stranger Things cast member who associates with Noah.

Recast his role with non-Jewish actors, ignoring what Will Byers means as a character portrayed by a Jewish, gay actor growing up on screen.

Stay silent when other public figures with far worse statements go untouched, simply because they’re more attractive or less visibly Jewish or queer.

You say Noah’s proximity to a sticker is unforgivable, but Finn Wolfhard’s friendship with him is fine? You say Noah is ugly and irredeemable, but you praise others who look like him or benefit from his work? Your standards aren’t ethical. They’re emotional, biased, and rooted in cruelty.

Let’s Talk About Real Impact

While you're busy calling Noah Schnapp a slur for clout, Jewish protesters in Colorado were firebombed. An Indigenous gay man was just murdered—shot in front of his husband—after his home was burned down.

And yet the fandom that supposedly cares about liberation is focused on… mocking a queer Jewish actor for existing?

Do you think this violence happens in a vacuum?

When you normalize antisemitic and homophobic rhetoric—even in the name of a cause—you are fueling the very systems that hurt us all.

The line between "he deserves it" and "they all deserve it" is razor-thin. And you're dancing on it every day while pretending to be righteous.

You Don’t Have to Like Him. But You Should Care.

You don’t have to be a fan of Noah Schnapp. You don’t have to follow his career. But you should care that the rhetoric around him is rooted in the same types of hate we claim to fight. You should care that antisemitism and homophobia are being treated as acceptable tactics. You should care that someone is being harassed for their identity while people cheer.

You should care because this won’t stop with him. It never does.

This isn’t activism. This isn’t justice. This isn’t liberation.

It’s hatred. It’s trauma projection. It’s people using real-world atrocities to justify internet bullying—and endangering real lives in the process.

If your activism relies on destroying a queer Jewish teenager, then your activism is broken. And it’s time to fix it.

If all the accounts on Twitter that jump at the chance to humiliate, bully and insult Noah like they did for 4 second acting as soon as the teaser came out on Sunday were truly sincere, they would have been present and loud when Riman Hassan and Greta Thunberg needed viral tweets to put pressure on Israel and the complicit politicians who threatened a sailboat with a European MP on its way to help Gaza as I pointed out here.

But NONE even bothered to give a retweet. Because you don't care about the Palestinian cause and all that it implies geopolitically for the whole world and humanity. You want to keep your scapegoat and you don't want to admit that you went too far with him, it would be too hard to admit that you abandon your humanity to do harm when it is to denounce these actions that you started your campaign of hatred against this young man.

What I'm saying is that Kanye West and Chris Brown, who said and did 100 TIMES WORSE for over ten years, didn't get the same treatment and for 10 years they were treasured. (and I'm firmly convinced that the fact that they're not queer and not Jewish has something to do with it).

This was a very long statement, but I needed to get it out of my system. I thank in advance anyone who took the patience to read me, who will have the kindness and presence of mind to share it. You are free to ask me questions or send me your opinion by ask or comment. The important thing is that we can exchange and communicate so that we can unite. And I think that given the spirit that Stranger Things gives, in this Pride month during a period where violence is only increasing, it is more than necessary that we put our foot down so that we all move forward together and stop normalizing any violence against anyone and use our energy to beat the real culprits: the far-right systems of politicians who actively act with Israel. Noah Schnapp, as a young gay and Jewish man is just as much a target of these ideologies, do not believe otherwise. The Zionism of the Israeli government does not care about true Judaism, they only use it to justify their crimes against humanity exactly as the Nazis did to Jews, gays, resistance fighters, communists, socialists (anyone who does not submit to their monstrous ideologies).

In light of everything that's happened in the last few days—namely Netflix releasing its first teaser for Stranger Things Season 5—many are returning to Stranger Things spaces online here and elsewhere for the first time in months. Maybe years. So, it's time to have this conversation again, because many people weren't here when some of us were having this conversation in the lull between content; and we're due for an update.

Buckle up—this is going to be long. I intend for this to be a mega post on the whole situation in so far as I can cover it, with receipts and screenshots.

The Conversation Around Noah

Put bluntly—the vitriol around Noah Schnapp has become dangerously insane. It's been that way for 2 years, but the renewed spotlight on Stranger Things, especially as Noah is set to take center stage in a Will Byers-centric season, has revived some of the worst elements of the conversation.

"What do you mean?", you may be asking. Well, I think it might just be better to show you:

This is just a sampling. If I showed you every tweet — every post — every video I've seen with this rhetoric, I'd need another medium to do it. A tumblr blog alone couldn't contain it all. But I take it you see my point now.

How Did Things Get This Way?

There are people on this app and on #that app who will say this behavior/treatment is warranted. They'll tell you that Noah is a "genocide supporter." That he "cheered for the deaths of Palestinian babies." That he "celebrated as people were being murdered." But none of this is true.

As a reminder, this was what Noah actually said—his very first comments on the matter—right after the Hamas attack that happened on October 7, 2023:

Important to note:

"...we will hope and pray for safety, justice, liberation, and self determination in Palestine."

and

"...we will say a Jewish prayer for peace for all Israelis and Palestinians."

That is the literal antithesis of support for a genocide or the wholesale slaughter of anyone.

The very next thing to happen was the infamous "sticker video" about which the most lies have been told, so let's debunk them one by one:

He did not make the stickers.

He did not wear the stickers.

He did not hand out the stickers.

He did not hold up the stickers.

He did not even touch the stickers.

He did not post the video on any social anywhere.

I've posted a pair of screenshots here that give you the gist in lieu of the video itself, but you can Google the video and watch the entire thing to see that I'm telling the truth.

What actually happened was that Noah was taken to a restaurant by a pair of influencers who were his guides while on a school-sponsored trip to Israel. Both were significantly older than him, were responsible for the video in question, were the only ones in it (aside from the waitress) to actually touch the stickers in question... and yet? Noah bore the brunt of the hate that ensued. When the backlash came, they abandoned him and left him to the wolves. (And perhaps because of that, he no longer associates with either one of them, nor follows any related social media accounts—all of which he was required to follow in the first place as terms of going on the trip through his school.)

Noah had just come out of the closet earlier that year and was 18 years-old. He would only turn 19 years-old in the ensuing weeks.

He has addressed these events several times. Most famous was the TikTok that he made explaining his actual position (that he doesn't want anyone, Palestinian or Israeli, to die). Less famous were remarks he made to fans on Snapchat:

I'll post his remarks here for those who can't read the text:

Hey guys! I appreciate you reaching out. To give you context, I did not post this language or this sticker. I was at breakfast with friends, it happened to be an Israeli cafe, and a girl was handing out stickers. Someone photographed me and posted and tagged me. As you guys know better than most people, social media can be used however people want to use it. I understand the weight of the situation and take it very seriously. I have friends of friends who are currently being held hostage in Gaza right now. My friends kids were killed in the massacre at the Israeli music festival. Standing up against this terrorism is important to me and why I made my statement after the attack. As one of the only few Jewish people with a platform, I absolutely think it's important to share my message about hatred for Jews around the world right now. However, everyone online is obviously twisting everything and saying I support genocide and am Islamophobic which is obviously entirely false and never have I stated either of those things. Seeing what is happening to the innocent people in Palestine pains me so much and I wish it would stop. I fully support everyone in Palestine as I said in my post on Instagram. One of my best friends in college is Palestinian and we talk about this issue allllll the time and agree on most things. I think people on social media are just animalistic right now so it's hard to even chime in because they just rip me apart so now I'm staying out of it.

I'll let that stand on it's own. I think it provides the context behind his remarks, the situation with the video/stickers, and his actual views versus how social media portrays his views. It also explains why he hasn't said anything else in almost 2 years.

The key takeaway: He was speaking out against antisemitism and the attack on Jewish people on October 7 and he supports an end to what is happening in Gaza and fully supports Palestinians. He literally says it.

And this support, by the way, has been corroborated by his own actions and the word of mouth from Palestinian organizations he has contributed to:

What Has Happened Since?

It would be easier to list the things that haven't happened; but I'll try anyways:

Noah has been called antisemitic slurs; gay slurs and targeted with gay stereotypes; been compared to antisemitic caricatures; he's been threatened with death and had posts go viral fantasizing about his brutal murder; his family has been threatened; he's been threatened with rape and sexual abuse; there are massive accounts on Twitter that doxxed his location while he was filming Season 5—particularly targeting him when he was alone; he's been hacked, had personal pictures leaked; he's had lies spread about his treatment of his cast mates (all of whom have spoken out and said that they've loved him at some point since, making these claims unequivocally false.

Here are a few examples:

Again, I can only post a sample. I hope that sample is enough to get the message across.

It's hard to overstate how cataclysmic this has been. Obviously, he's recovered and healed a lot since the initial incident; but the damage done needs to be acknowledged. These attacks drove him into a dark place by his own admission. He talked about needing therapy on his (now deleted) private spam TikTok account. And they are starting up yet again.

And Then There's the Fandom

The Stranger Things fandom in the wake of all this has been an irritating place to be. Not just because of the above behavior but because of the blanket hypocrisy.

The shipping sub-fandoms in particular have been rank with antisemitism and homophobia—even the Byler fandom, which is predominantly queer. People have:

A) Taken pre-Stranger Things photos—like his baby pictures or pictures with his family—to use as part of their content, their profile pictures, their banners, their fan art, their fan edits, etc.—violating his and his family's privacy for "Will" all while calling him "ugly," a "fag," and lobbing the above-listed threats at him. B) Tried to recast him with a fan cast. These fan casts are almost never Jewish actors, you'll notice. In fact, there's someone on this very app that recast Will Byers as himself. This is gross and absurd. Will Byers is intrinsically tied to Noah Schnapp. Tied to his identities as a Jewish person and a gay man. Tied to his experiences being a character he helped bring to life during his formative years. C) Persist in stanning or support his cast mates despite the fact that they continue to associate with him. This, in particular, is gross hypocrisy. If you're going to be mad at Noah Schnapp for being in a restaurant around stickers you object to—guilt by proximity/association, in other words—those SAME standards should apply to his cast mates, who continue to hang out with him outside of work, state that they love him, and post him on their social medias. I have a whole post about that here.

Instead, the cast is continually afforded blanket immunity while he is singularly targeted for continued abuse and harassment.

It should give the fandom some pause that openly pro-Palestine actors like Maya Hawke not only continue to hang out with him; but in her Instagram story, even stated that she misses it (check the link above for a screenshot of said story). She wouldn't do that if she thought he somehow supported mass-murder; and she knows him way better than any one reading this blog. That goes for the rest of them, too.

They know him better than you. They know his moral compass and what he believes. And they haven't abandoned him and obviously aren't going to. So, are you going to stick to your guns and apply your anger evenly; or maybe consider that you don't have the full picture?

So, Why Care?

I get this in my Asks so often. "Why do you care?" "He's a celebrity." "He don't know you." "He's not your pookie."

I know. It's not about that.

Yes, full disclosure, I am obviously a fan of Noah's. Have been since the show started. And no it's not because I'm gay and he's gay or because he plays my favorite character in Stranger Things.

Like many of his fans, I've spent the last decade seeing his lives on Instagram and TikTok, seeing his fan interactions, watching his vlogs and videos, and I've come to respect him as a human being quite apart from Will Byers or his role as an actor. Fundamentally, I really believe he is a kind and caring human being. The word of mouth from everyone who knows or has met him bares this out—and, yes, he's even been kind to me in the few conversations we've had.

This is only one example from Instagram during The First Shadow premiere this year; but I think it encapsulates what I like about Noah most. He's kind. He goes out of his way to be kind. He does things he doesn't have to do, contractually or just in general, for the sake of being kind. He always has been.

He's also stood up for a plethora of causes. Black Lives Matters, trans rights, the rights of women. He's known to be his cast mates' biggest supporter—and they'll tell you as much, too.

But quite apart from my personal feelings about him and more importantly: this is wrong.

Antisemitism is wrong. Homophobia is wrong. Both kill. Still, to this day. As I am sitting in my kitchen writing this, the news just broke that an Indigenous gay man and a celebrity was shot dead in front of his husband—after having his home burned down and dogs burned alive—in the United States. Yesterday, news broke that a gathering of peaceful Jewish protesters (which included children and the elderly) demanding the release of hostages still held by Hamas was firebombed in Colorado. Luckily, they all survived, but six people were injured in that attack.

Violence and bigotry are ascendent everywhere right now. Minority communities are being targeted. Normalizing the behavior I've described and shown above kills marginalized people. Regardless of your feeling about Noah as a person or celebrity, normalizing the violent and bigoted remarks, tweets, and behavior towards him harms Jewish and LGBTQIA+ people—all of us.

And just as an example of that, I give you the treatment Finn Wolfhard is now receiving just for the "crime" of shaving his head and being deemed no longer conventionally attractive by the fandom:

Yes, the general audience found out about Finn's Jewish heritage and now he's a target, too.

And this fandom is at fault for it.

You cannot normalize bigotry towards one person and expect it to stay contained to that one person. It will always harm everyone in that community. Finn Wolfhard—or any other actor/actress—being your favorite is not going to spare him from the consequences of a discourse you started.

ALL antisemitism and ALL homophobia needs to be called out. The people who insist it's okay that they do that for ANY reason—regardless of if they themselves are LGBTQIA+ or not—need to be ejected from the fandom and never let back in.

Noah Schnapp is a human being. He does not deserve this treatment. No one does. No one is saying you have to like him or even care about him. But you SHOULD care that this is how he's being treated and the impact it is having on others. The impact on Jewish people. The impact on queer people. Standing up and saying that does not mean you support genocide or murder or bigotry of any kind. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I am a person with left-leaning values. I'm tired of those values being spat on and dragged through the mud by people who think THIS is activism or is in any way helping a cause. It's not. All it is doing is perpetuating harm on a real person and real communities—queer and Jewish alike. And it needs to stop.

Related Blogs:

I've compiled some related blogs that expand on other elements of the situation that I've mentioned above in greater detail. This post was already long enough. I'll be updating this as more content comes out.

Examples of Noah’s Support for Gaza and Palestine (by @nymphus-fan-account)

The Evolution of a Lie

No, the Stranger Things Cast Does Not Hate Noah Schnapp

It's quite weird to me that so many Bylers continue to publically crap on/use abusive language toward Noah while stanning Will Byers, their precious baby boy. I just came across a post earlier today that had someone expressing their sadness that Will Byers was getting hate post-teaser because of his actor, and while it was ok that Noah Schnapp, the real human being, was receiving this harassment, hating Will (a fictional character) was simply unfair. I want to shake these people and remind them-- if Byler receives negative backlash, Noah, the REAL gay young person, will be receiving the brunt of that hatred and you know that.

I have no feelings toward those who don't care to support any particular actor for political reasons, but I find it very offputting when people try and dismiss Noah's contribution to Will Byers, which was informed by his very real experiences coming of age and to terms with his identity. Those who try and remove Noah from Will Byers, or fancast some other (usually non-Jewish lol) actor as Will-- it feels extremely gross to me. Noah's formative years from 10-18 were on this show, and he IS Will Byers, whether you like it or not. No one else could do it like he does.

Don't even get me started on those of you who censor him out of photos posted by people who clearly care for him and want him around despite your coping and seething! And then will turn around and use toddler/young child (pre-Stranger Things) photos of him for Will Byers fan posts--pictures which were probably taken by his family! Do they not see how weird and violating that is? Some people's cognitive dissonance even goes so far that they fantasize about or sexualize the character Noah plays while speaking unkindly or abusively about him online. It's not just unkind, it's dehumanizing.

With Stranger Things Season 5 coming out this year, we are unfortunately going to see a revival of the debacle around Noah, even though by then it will be an almost 2 year old subject. So, I thought I would get ahead of that with some of my thoughts based on what I've seen these last few weeks and more broadly over the last 6 or more months I've been on this scene.

Spoiler Alert: This is going to be a long one. It'll probably be my new pinned post.

Why Still Talk About It?

Frankly? Because it's still going on. Keep in mind, Liam Payne died in October 2024 (just three months ago), right around Noah's birthday, and THIS is how Twitter responded to that.

And just in case anyone thinks I had to dig back a whole 3 months to find Noah-hate-content on Twitter, here was just random things I grabbed from the last week:

Which brings me to the next point.

Why Do You Even Care?

"Noah doesn't know you." "He's not your pookie."

I know that. The funny thing is, from what little I know about Noah, I'm pretty sure if he DID know me beyond the ONE DM conversation we've had, he'd probably tell me to chill. Dude is very non-confrontational and nice. So, why do it?

Because I think the online movement in favor of Palestinian self-determination has been hijacked by teenagers and performative leftists who care more about looking good for their peers than practicing what they preach.

Because (as you can see above and in screenshots like the one below), people who claim to hold my liberal/progressive/left-leaning values have used this as an opportunity to be openly homophobic and antisemitic towards a then-19-year old who had JUST come out of the closet.

Proponents of the hate campaign against Noah have said that they are just "holding him accountable" or "criticizing him" in the hopes he "learns something."

Look up. Point to me which image is accountability. Point to me the valid criticisms.

There are none. There is just flagrant homophobia. And then there are posts like this one, coming from the same crowd:

This behavior is wrong on its face.

It is violent. It is bullying (which doesn't seem like strong enough of a word) and it's bigoted.

Wanna see more? Look up @noah_schnapp on Twitter/X. See what they've done to his account.

Inevitably, some of the people participating in this will see this blog post. If you've made it this far, this is for you:

This behavior discredits your activism. It makes you look performative and fake to say in one breath that you are a "Leftist" who cares about Palestinian lives as well as the lives of minority groups worldwide, and then to turn around and talk like this about a Jewish person and a gay KID. Because he WAS a kid when this started. Furthermore, it makes it clear to those of us who actually hold the beliefs we claim, that you are vapid enough to use Palestinian suffering for your own personal vendettas. That the APPEARANCE of goodness is more important than goodness itself. And that you will shuck solidarity with minority groups the MOMENT one of them steps out of the lines you have drawn around them.

Not to mention...

It's Based Mostly On Lies

As a reminder, this is what Noah Schnapp actually said shortly after October 7, 2023:

Read that again.

"...we will hope and pray for safety, justice, liberation, and self-determination in Palestine." That was part of the very first thing he ever said about the issue.

And then this happened:

This was the image he was crucified for.

Stickers that weren't even his. That he wasn't holding up or making. He was in a cafe, someone else came up to him with them, and he was videoed with that person.

That's it. That's all. All those tweets you saw above? The fake stories made up about him like this one?

All of that was supposedly "accountability."

The harassment of his family. Murder threats. Rape threats. All for stickers that weren't even his.

There's even a paid Stranger Things author on this very site, styling herself as a Byler shipper, who has contributed to the lies that have further added to the hate campaign I've described.

As an aside, Noah wasn't the only one in that video. The influencers that actually posted the video and HAD THE STICKERS?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

And just to be clear - I don't think they should get hate. I think non-Jewish online Leftists appropriated a term from Jewish culture, redefined it, and are weaponizing it to beat down Jews all over the internet—which is par for the course for this charcuterie board of performative activism.

Yet the point stands. Noah was specifically targeted; and the homophobia that IMMEDIATELY came from the Left suggests to me that it was his sexuality and cultural/religious identity that motivated the attacks.

Again, I'll say, this is wrong.

Noah Has Since Responded

It hasn't stopped the bullying.

Didn't stop him from withdrawing from spaces he loved. From needing therapy from what we've learned from his now-deleted second TikTok.

And that really says something, does it? He cleared up his point. He tried to clarify and even apologize.

They didn't accept it. Not because it wasn't good enough. Not because it was "too late." Because this was the point. They wanted to keep doing it. They get sick joy from it.

Which is why...

I'm Not Shutting Up About This

This post doesn't even nearly cover the whole situation. The Byler fans who try to replace Noah's image in fan art and fan fiction. Who fan cast themselves as Will instead of Noah. The stalking and doxxing on Twitter. People reporting to GIANT hate accounts his location and when he's alone, PRAYING for him to be hurt.

I wish I could cover it all.

We have to stand up to this. On tumblr, on TikTok, on Threads, Twitter/X—everywhere we see it.

For our gay and Jewish siblings who see how Noah was attacked and feel less safe in their online spaces as a result, we have to speak up and say something.

And yeah. We have to say something for Noah, too.

The person who replied to me like this:

Him?

He did it because he needed to see a show of love from his fans. Doesn't mean he's perfect. Doesn't mean he won't mess up or do something in the future.

And no. Standing up for Noah, or for Jewish people, or other gay folks does not make you a genocide supporter or apologist. It doesn't mean you want any innocent people harmed. Don't give them the power to talk down to you like that. It's bullshit. You know it, and I know it.

All standing up to this vile shit is is an acknowledgement that Noah is a living, breathing person, as some of these people tend to forget.

And he didn't deserve this.

Any of it.

Related Blogs: