Moon

It is time to address the elephant in the room and to acknowledge, with clarity and honesty, that denying the resurgence of extreme thinness as a dominant beauty standard—and the growing normalization of self-starvation to the point of visible emaciation, whether facilitated by substances like Ozempic or other means—is, in itself, a form of complicity in the misogynistic system that produces it.

We are living in an era marked by increasingly authoritarian dynamics, where discrimination, racism, homophobia, sexism, and misogyny are not only persistent but, in many contexts, intensifying. Alongside this, there has been a tangible regression in hard-won rights and fundamental human protections. Within such a climate, the re-emergence of extreme thinness as an ideal is neither coincidental nor benign. The growing number of female celebrities conforming to—and embodying—this standard is not an isolated phenomenon. It reflects both the pressures of an industry rooted in competition and the structural demands placed upon women to mold themselves into ever-narrower definitions of acceptability in order to remain visible, relevant, and employable.

Yet beyond this surface-level explanation lies a more insidious function. The idealization of extreme thinness operates as a mechanism of control over women’s bodies—one that not only seeks to discipline but also to weaken. A body deprived is a body diminished, and a person consumed by an eating disorder is often rendered physically and psychologically fragile. It becomes profoundly difficult to assert oneself, to resist, or even to protect one’s own rights when one’s mental and physical energy is monopolized by survival, by obsessive fears of weight gain, and by the relentless internalization of unattainable standards. When the simple act of eating becomes a source of anxiety, guilt, and panic, the capacity to engage with the world beyond that struggle is inevitably compromised.

I speak from lived experience. I have been suffering from a restrictive eating disorder for nearly a decade, most notably Anorexia Nervosa. In 2019–2020, at the age of twenty-two, I weighed only 48 kilograms at a height of 1.68 meters. I had become a mere shadow of myself, both physically diminished and psychologically depleted. I was enduring a severe and profound depression, and one of my most consuming fears—indeed, my central obsession—was the possibility of gaining weight if I allowed myself to eat more than one meal a day.

Even the act of eating twice in a day would trigger overwhelming guilt, often spiraling into intense anxiety attacks. What might appear, from the outside, as a matter of discipline or control was, in reality, a relentless internal battle governed by fear, distortion, and compulsion. This illness is profoundly complex and insidious in the way it embeds itself into both mind and body. Above all, it renders those who suffer from it deeply vulnerable—stripping away not only physical strength, but also emotional stability and the capacity to feel safe within one’s own body.

This is not an abstract observation, but a lived reality. Restrictive eating disorders are deeply complex and insidious conditions that progressively erode both body and mind. They foster an environment in which vulnerability is not incidental but systemic—where individuals are pushed to their limits, physically weakened, emotionally destabilized, and trapped in cycles of control and self-denial that can persist for years. Such states do not empower; they exhaust, isolate, and endanger.

The cultural implications extend far beyond those directly affected. These standards are not merely imposed upon women within the entertainment industry; they are disseminated to a global audience, shaping perceptions and expectations on a massive scale. Young girls, adolescents, and women in the process of forming their identities are particularly susceptible to these influences. Confronted with images that equate extreme thinness with beauty, success, and desirability, many internalize these ideals, often at the cost of their own well-being. The result is a cycle in which harmful standards are continuously reproduced, normalized, and pursued—even when doing so entails significant risk to one’s health and life.

It is crucial to understand that such standards are, by design, unattainable without harm. They function not only to regulate bodies within elite industries but to extend that regulation outward, affecting as many women as possible through the quiet yet pervasive force of aesthetic expectation. The timing of this resurgence is not accidental. Cultural trends do not exist in a vacuum; they are shaped by broader social and political currents. In this sense, the normalization of extreme thinness must be recognized as part of a larger system in which control—particularly over women’s bodies—remains a central objective. Everything, in this regard, is political.

Equally concerning is the discourse that has emerged in response to these visible changes. Over recent years, attempts to raise concern about the alarming thinness of public figures—such as Ariana Grande—have often been dismissed under the guise of opposing “body shaming.” While the intention to avoid harmful commentary is valid, the silencing of legitimate concern creates a dangerous paradox: it prevents meaningful discussion about behaviors and standards that may be life-threatening. Similarly, claims that only a negligible percentage of individuals with anorexia die, or that deaths are predominantly due to suicide, are not only inaccurate but contribute to the minimization of a serious and often fatal condition.

To perpetuate such narratives is to participate—actively or passively—in the normalization of a trend that endangers both the individuals who embody it and the countless others who are influenced by it. It is to obscure the reality of eating disorders, to undermine efforts of awareness, and ultimately, to reinforce the very structures that sustain these harmful ideals. Silence, denial, and minimization do not protect; they enable.

Recognizing the danger of this moment requires both critical awareness and collective responsibility. The glorification of extreme thinness is not a neutral aesthetic shift—it is a reflection of deeper systems of control, and its consequences are real, measurable, and, too often, devastating.

The claim that eating disorders, particularly Anorexia Nervosa, rarely lead to death by starvation and are primarily dangerous only through suicide is not only factually incorrect, but also reveals a profound misunderstanding of their medical and societal gravity. Anorexia is consistently identified as one of the most lethal psychiatric illnesses, with mortality rates significantly exceeding those of the general population. These deaths are not confined to isolated or exceptional cases; they arise both from suicide and from the direct physiological consequences of prolonged starvation. To suggest otherwise is to deny the biological reality of what sustained malnutrition does to the human body.

This phenomenon cannot be understood without acknowledging its medical severity. From a strictly medical standpoint, starvation is not an abstract concept but a progressive and measurable process of systemic failure. The human body, deprived of essential nutrients, does not simply weaken—it undergoes a progressive process of systemic failure. The body, deprived of essential nutrients, begins to consume its own reserves, first depleting fat stores and eventually breaking down muscle tissue, including the heart. The heart, in particular, becomes dangerously vulnerable, as electrolyte imbalances can trigger fatal arrhythmias without warning. Organs gradually lose their capacity to function, the immune system weakens to the point where minor infections become life-threatening, and the brain itself undergoes structural and chemical changes. In this context, starvation is not a metaphor but a biological reality that can and does lead to death. Death, in such cases, is not sudden in appearance but is the inevitable culmination of a body pushed beyond its limits. To claim that individuals with anorexia “do not starve to death” is therefore a denial of well-established medical evidence.

Psychologically, anorexia cannot be reduced to a superficial desire for thinness. Reducing anorexia to a matter of personal choice or superficial vanity also ignores its profound psychological dimension. It is a complex and severe disorder characterized by distorted body perception, obsessive patterns of control, and an intense, often debilitating fear of weight gain. These cognitive distortions are not easily overridden by logic or external reassurance; they are deeply ingrained and self-reinforcing. The illness frequently becomes chronic, trapping individuals in cycles of restriction that progressively endanger their lives. In this sense, the high mortality rate is not incidental but intrinsically linked to the nature of the disorder itself.

Yet to fully understand the prevalence and severity of eating disorders, one must move beyond the individual and examine the broader sociocultural context in which they emerge. Contemporary beauty standards, particularly within industries such as Hollywood, fashion, and entertainment, have normalized an aesthetic of extreme thinness that often borders on visible undernourishment. The entertainment, fashion, and beauty industries play a central role in shaping collective perceptions of what is considered desirable. When public figures—especially women—are celebrated, rewarded, and idealized for bodies that reflect deprivation rather than health, they inadvertently reinforce a dangerous equation: that thinness is synonymous with beauty, success, and worth. This messaging does not remain confined to the screen; it permeates social consciousness and shapes the self-perception of those who consume it. This dynamic sends a powerful and often unspoken message: that thinness is not merely an aesthetic preference, but a measure of worth, discipline, and achievement.

Young girls and women, in particular, are exposed to these ideals at formative stages of identity development. The internalization of such standards has been consistently linked to body dissatisfaction, a well-documented risk factor for the development of disordered eating behaviors. Decades of research have established a clear link between media exposure, body dissatisfaction, and the development of disordered eating behaviors. What begins as comparison can evolve into restriction, as individuals attempt to align themselves with bodies that are, in many cases, maintained through extreme and unsustainable practices. And what is initially framed as self-improvement can gradually become self-destruction. The consequences are neither abstract nor rare; they manifest in rising rates of eating disorders and in the normalization of harmful attitudes toward food and the body.

Historically, the valorization of thinness has intensified alongside broader societal shifts, particularly from the late twentieth century onward. This trend is not neutral. It intersects with longstanding gender dynamics that position the female body as an object to be evaluated, disciplined, and controlled. Women are implicitly encouraged to take up less space, to equate self-worth with appearance, and to demonstrate virtue through restraint. Within this framework, eating disorders can be understood as an extreme manifestation of these pressures—a point at which societal expectations of discipline and desirability converge into self-destructive behavior.

This dynamic is further amplified in globalized entertainment industries such as K-pop, where rigid beauty standards are enforced with striking visibility. Idols are often subjected to intense scrutiny regarding their weight (are often subjected to intense pressure to maintain extremely low body weights) with extreme restrictive dieting practices openly acknowledged or implicitly encouraged and public scrutiny forming part of their professional reality. These images circulate internationally, shaping the aspirations and insecurities of a vast audience. The result is a feedback loop in which unrealistic and often unhealthy bodies are both produced and consumed, reinforcing the very standards that sustain them.

To minimize the lethality of eating disorders (or silencing concerns when a celebrity is visibly struggling with it), therefore is not merely a factual error; it is a form of complicity in a broader cultural system that trivializes suffering and obscures its causes. Eating disorders kill not only through the physiological consequences of starvation or the psychological toll of despair, but also through the social environments that normalize, reward, and perpetuate them. Any discourse that seeks to diminish their severity ultimately contributes to the conditions that allow them to persist.

What emerges from this analysis is a deeply concerning picture: one in which a deadly illness is not only misunderstood, but indirectly sustained by the very systems that shape cultural ideals. Eating disorders do not exist in isolation. They are fueled by a convergence of biological vulnerability, psychological distress, and social influence. To overlook their lethality—or to minimize their causes—is to ignore the structural forces that continue to place individuals, particularly young women, at risk.

In an era where images travel faster than ever and standards are more visible than ever before, the responsibility to question and challenge these norms becomes increasingly urgent. The normalization of extreme thinness is not a harmless trend. It is a public health concern, a cultural issue, and, ultimately, a matter of life and death.

If my post resonated with you and prompted reflection, I encourage you to explore the following videos, which examine this issue with even greater depth and clarity than I have been able to convey here :

What if the horror of Stranger Things Season 4 wasn’t just supernatural, but profoundly historical? What if the show’s depiction of hysteria, moral panic, and persecution mirrored one of the darkest chapters of modern American history—the Satanic Panic of the 1980s?

This essay is the result of extensive research and careful analysis, connecting the real-world moral frenzy that swept across the United States with the fictional chaos unfolding in Hawkins. Beyond the monsters and the Upside Down lies a disturbing truth: Stranger Things doesn’t simply borrow from nostalgia—it reflects the collective fears, cultural repression, and social mechanisms that defined the decade it portrays.

Throughout this exploration, I retrace the true origins, evolution, and consequences of the Satanic Panic—how the media, political figures, and even mental health professionals fueled a nationwide paranoia that destroyed lives under the guise of moral protection. And once you begin to uncover the shocking parallels between these historical events and the storylines of Season 4—the demonization of Dungeons & Dragons, the fear of nonconformity, the vilification of outsiders, and Eddie Munson’s tragic fate—you’ll start to see Stranger Things in an entirely new light.

This isn’t just about pop culture analysis; it’s about understanding how fiction reflects reality—and how the real evil often hides not in monsters, but in the fear that drives ordinary people to destroy what they don’t understand. So if you think you already know what Stranger Things is about, keep reading. The truth behind the Satanic Panic might just change the way you see the entire series.

When we speak of the Satanic Panic, we are referring to a moral panic that emerged primarily in the United States during the 1980s. At its core, this panic was a collective fear that supposedly occult or satanic activities posed a threat to society as a whole. It gained widespread traction as rumors of satanic ritual abuse—often involving children—began circulating throughout the country. Yet, before this wave of hysteria took hold, we must first return to its historical roots.

Back to 1966: That year, Anton LaVey officially founded The Church of Satan, introducing the satanic figure into modern American culture. But 1966 also marked the onset of the American credit crisis. In a period of economic and social instability, the emergence of a religion like LaVeyan Satanism—an anti-religion centered on the carnal nature of humanity—deeply alarmed puritanical circles. These groups feared for the spiritual salvation of the population.

New religious movements soon became the target of public condemnation, particularly from televangelists—religious preachers who used television as a platform for mass evangelization. Their warnings, amplified by the media and prominent public figures, painted these movements as anti-Christian, cannibalistic, and sacrificial cults allegedly engaging in torture and incestuous orgies. The release of Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 only intensified these anxieties. The film depicted the fears of a middle-class woman who suspects her neighbors of belonging to a satanic cult intent on stealing her baby. Once again, the narrative played directly into the anxieties of the white Christian American family, reinforcing the notion that these new religions were a threat to domestic and moral stability.

In 1969, the brutal murders committed by Charles Manson’s so-called “Family” horrified the world. The ritualistic framing of these crimes became one of the most sensationalized aspects of the case. Meanwhile, profound social transformations were reshaping American society. The 1960s and 1970s were defined by movements for civil rights—such as the rise of the Black Panther Party—alongside the first Pride marches, the legalization of abortion, the growing number of women entering the workforce, and the liberalization of divorce laws. Conservative religious groups interpreted these shifts as evidence of a moral decline, which they claimed was responsible for the nation’s economic and social crises.

In this context, these groups began to search for scapegoats. One final detail is essential to understand what came next: the transformation of the traditional American family also led to a surge in childcare centers, as dual-income households became more common. Entrusting one’s children to institutions and strangers, however, remained an underlying source of anxiety—and that fear would soon be exploited by those who stood to gain from it.

In 1972, a peculiar book was published: The Satan Seller. Written by American evangelist Mike Warnke, it purported to recount how the author had been initiated into Satanism during his childhood. Warnke described, in vivid detail, his alleged participation in sexual orgies, drug trafficking, and occult ceremonies. He claimed to have risen to the rank of High Priest of Satanism, taking part in rituals involving magic spells, demonic invocations, and sexual rites that included abduction and rape. Fortunately, according to Warnke, his deployment to Vietnam allowed him to rediscover Jesus and renounce his dark past.

Unsurprisingly, The Satan Seller became a bestseller in less than three months. Numerous Christian media outlets—such as Moody Monthly and The Christian Century—endorsed Warnke’s testimony, lending his book an air of legitimacy in the public eye. His assertion that he had personally led a network of nearly 1,500 Satanists further fueled the growing belief that Satanic cults were spreading throughout America.

However, spoiler alert: the book and its alleged firsthand accounts of Satanic rituals were eventually debunked. Many individuals who had known Warnke personally, along with several media investigations—including one by the evangelical magazine Cornerstone—exposed his story as a fabrication. Unfortunately, this debunking came two decades too late. By then, the damage had already been done.

In 1973 and 1976, two films would leave an indelible mark on popular culture: The Exorcist and The Omen. The first shocked audiences with the possession of a young girl; the second portrayed the rise of the Antichrist, aided by a secret cult. Amidst these cultural tremors, a couple of self-proclaimed paranormal investigators began to attract national attention: Ed and Lorraine Warren. Following their alleged involvement in the Amityville case, the Warrens were presented as divine warriors combating an encroaching darkness.

With the recent emergence of LaVeyan Satanism and the fascination it inspired among the curious and the rebellious, all of society’s moral anxieties now found a convenient scapegoat. Every social ill—from crime and corruption to the erosion of family values—could now be laid at the feet of “Satan.”

In August 1979, an event occurred that would leave a lasting mark on the United States. James Dallas Egbert III, a university student hailed as a child prodigy, mysteriously disappeared in Michigan. When police efforts failed to locate him, his family hired a private investigator after two weeks. This investigator would become the first to discover that Egbert had been a player of Dungeons & Dragons.

At the time, the game—first published in 1974—sold only about a thousand copies per month. It was still considered an obscure, underground pastime. The detective speculated that Egbert had been exploring the steam tunnels beneath his university to play a live-action version of the game, and that he had vanished during one such session. With no concrete evidence to support this claim, several media outlets nonetheless seized upon the theory, presenting it as fact.

Eventually, Egbert himself reached out to the detective, who found him alive in Louisiana. It was later revealed that he had indeed entered the university’s tunnels—but with the intention of taking his own life. After surviving the attempt, he had gone into hiding, moving between the homes of various friends. Further investigation revealed that his disappearance stemmed from profound psychological distress: he suffered from depression, an addiction to methaqualone, intense academic pressure, and inner turmoil over his attraction to men—something he had never felt safe enough to disclose to his family.

Despite these facts, both the media and his mother attributed his troubles to Dungeons & Dragons. Tragically, Egbert took his own life the following year. Ironically, his story caused sales of Dungeons & Dragons to quadruple between 1979 and 1980.

Yet even amidst these shifting social dynamics and growing anxieties over children’s safety and the new pastimes of adolescents, one single event would push American society over the edge into what would later be known as the Satanic Panic.

That event was the publication of a book — Michelle Remembers.

We are now in 1980. That year, Ed and Lorraine Warren released their bestselling book The Demonologist, a biographical account of their alleged paranormal investigations from the 1950s to 1980. In it, they wrote the following passage:

“The fundamental problem is that this century has witnessed a major collapse of religion, which means a major collapse in the teaching of mystical knowledge, so that once again, people must learn by error. While millions of people play with fire by dabbling in the occult, other quasi-religious cults operate in America—some invoking negative spirits to serve as their ‘guides’ through life. At an even darker extreme, there are groups actively engaged in the rituals of black witchcraft; not to mention Satanists, who evidently prefer the ‘buttocks of Satan to the face of Jesus.’ There are probably more people practicing black witchcraft today than at any other time in history.”

The Warrens, whose careers thrived on public fascination with the supernatural, exploited the emerging Satanic Panic to promote their work—and, in many ways, their deceptions. Yet it must be understood that the panic which would soon engulf the 1980s ultimately proved beneficial to their reputation and their business.

However, The Demonologist was not the publication that truly defined the decade. That distinction belongs to Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient—later his wife—Michelle Smith. The book was based on a series of hypnotherapy sessions conducted over fourteen months, totaling more than six hundred hours. It purported to unveil Michelle’s “repressed memories” of childhood experiences with Satanic ritual abuse in Victoria, Canada, during the 1950s.

According to the account, at the age of five, Michelle was subjected to torture by her own mother for eighty-one consecutive days as part of “elaborate Satanic rituals.” At the climax of these ceremonies, a portal to Hell supposedly opened, and Satan himself appeared—only to be banished by the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael. Conveniently, no physical evidence of abuse was ever found, which the book attributes to a miracle performed by the Virgin Mary, who allegedly erased all traces of Michelle’s suffering.

Michelle Remembers described months of imprisonment in a basement, acts of human sacrifice, and demonic invocations—all presented as authentic recollections recovered through therapy. The book served as a catalyst for the Satanic Panic, as it was marketed not as fiction, but as a genuine psychological and spiritual testimony. Pazder even coined the term “ritual abuse” to describe these supposed Satanic practices involving children.

Published amid a wave of moral and religious conservatism, the book was immediately embraced by right-wing media and religious groups more concerned with moral decline than with verifying its authenticity. Yet, upon its release in November 1980, journalists and academics began to publicly challenge its credibility. Within months, outlets such as Maclean’s magazine published investigations revealing inconsistencies between Michelle’s stories and the testimonies of neighbors, teachers, and family members.

For instance, there was no record of any prolonged absence from school that could match the period during which Michelle claimed to have been held captive. A 1955–56 yearbook from St. Margaret’s School even included a photograph showing a healthy, smiling Michelle—precisely at the time when she claimed to have been imprisoned in a basement. Furthermore, Michelle’s own father and sister openly rejected the veracity of the account, a stance which, paradoxically, only deepened public suspicion toward them rather than discrediting the story itself.

In essence, from the moment of its publication, no tangible evidence supported the veracity of Michelle’s “recovered memories.” To make matters worse, the first edition of Michelle Remembers directly accused Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan of being responsible for the rituals described. LaVey promptly threatened to file a defamation lawsuit, after which Pazder quietly removed the accusation from subsequent editions.

Beyond the absence of evidence, experts had already warned of the dangers of Pazder’s therapeutic methods. Memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus was among the first to publicly denounce “recovered memory” therapy and the use of suggestive hypnosis, publishing studies and giving lectures throughout the early 1980s on how such techniques could easily produce false memories.

From an ethical standpoint, the situation was equally troubling: Pazder not only turned Michelle into his patient but later married her—despite a thirteen-year age difference—illustrating a clear abuse of professional authority. Similarly, experimental psychologist Nicholas Spanos published several early-1980s studies emphasizing the subjective and unscientific nature of memory-retrieval hypnosis, underscoring the lack of empirical validation for any of its so-called “discoveries.”

But at the time, the voices of scientific experts were largely ignored. Instead, self-proclaimed “moral authorities” began to dominate public discourse. They appeared on television talk shows and news programs, warning of hidden cults, Satanic symbols, and child sacrifices. The media, once again, amplified the panic—turning speculation into “truth,” and fear into fact.

In 1982, the CBS network delivered yet another blow to Dungeons & Dragons with the release of a made-for-television film adaptation of Rona Jaffe’s novel Mazes and Monsters—itself loosely inspired by the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, whose story we discussed earlier.

The film follows a group of four college students who regularly play a tabletop role-playing game. Eventually, they decide to take their fantasy adventures into the real world through live-action sessions. Robbie Wheeling—the character portrayed by a very young Tom Hanks—gradually loses his grip on reality, blurring the boundaries between his in-game persona and his actual life. This psychological unraveling culminates in a breakdown and his disappearance.

Unsurprisingly, the film reignited public debate about the psychological impact of role-playing games on young people. Many came to believe that exposure to such games—and their supposed engagement with occult themes—could lead vulnerable minds toward Satanism.

As a result, popular belief in the existence of a secret network of Satanic cults abusing children through occult rituals grew even stronger. Parents began to fear not only for their children’s hobbies, such as role-playing games, but also for the safety of schools, daycare centers, and even their own neighborhoods.

It is within this context that we arrive in 1983 — a pivotal year in the history of the Satanic Panic. That year, Judy Johnson, the mother of a young student at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, reported to the police that her son had been sexually assaulted by her estranged husband as well as by Ray Buckey, a teacher at the McMartin Preschool and the grandson of its founder, Virginia McMartin. Mrs. Johnson’s conviction that her child had been abused began when her son started experiencing painful bowel movements. She subsequently filed a complaint against the school, alleging that it was harboring a pedophilic network.

This marked the beginning of what would become the longest, most influential, and most expensive trial in American history. The police sent a form letter to roughly two hundred parents whose children attended McMartin Preschool, warning them that their children might have been victims of abuse and urging them to question them at home.

In 1984, Lawrence Pazder — whose book Michelle Remembers had already popularized the notion of satanic ritual abuse — was brought in as a consultant for the prosecution, lending further credibility to the accusers’ claims. Shortly thereafter, over one hundred preschools across the United States faced similar allegations, which were reported with sensational enthusiasm and little critical scrutiny by the media.

The Children’s Institute International then conducted its own interviews with the children who had attended McMartin. Many of the resulting accusations were extraordinarily bizarre, echoing the growing public hysteria surrounding satanic ritual abuse. It was claimed that, in addition to sexual assault, the children had witnessed witches flying, taken hot-air balloon rides, and been led through secret underground tunnels — halfway between The Wizard of Oz and The Goonies.

The problem, however, was that these videotaped interviews were later found to be in violation of California’s official guidelines for investigations involving minors. According to Dr. Michael Malone, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry, the interrogations were “inappropriate, coercive, leading, problematic, and adult-oriented in ways that pressured the children to conform to a predetermined narrative.” He concluded that:

“Many of the statements made by the children during the interviews were generated by the interviewer.”

The problem, however, was that Pazder and Smith — buoyed by the success of their book — came to be regarded as legitimate experts and were soon consulted by American law enforcement and social service agencies. They began delivering lectures to train officials on how to identify and prove the existence of alleged satanic networks. Pazder’s preferred method, that of so-called “recovered memories,” quickly became a cultural and therapeutic phenomenon, spreading rapidly among psychotherapists and trauma specialists. All the necessary elements were now in place for the Satanic Panic to swell into a full-blown moral tsunami — one that would leave a devastating trail in its wake.

From that point on, the stage was perfectly set for a massive conspiracy theory to emerge. Television programs — especially those aimed at children — came under scrutiny. In 1983, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe made its debut on American television. To a growing faction of religious puritans, it was nothing short of a satanic work designed to lead children away from God.

That same year, a woman named Patricia Pulling became one of the key figures responsible for amplifying this moral panic. She joined forces with psychiatrist Thomas Radecki, then director of the National Coalition on Television Violence, an organization founded in the late 1970s with the stated mission of combating televised violence, particularly in children’s programming. Together, they established BADD — Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons.

BADD positioned tabletop role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons, as instruments of satanic recruitment that allegedly drove young people to suicide, murder, and ritual abuse. This conviction, however, did not emerge from nowhere. On June 9, 1982, Patricia Pulling’s son took his own life. Although the investigation into his death revealed several instances of severe bullying that had led to depression, Pulling became convinced that her son’s suicide was in fact linked to Dungeons & Dragons.

She filed a lawsuit against the school principal for permitting the creation of a D&D club — a case that was swiftly dismissed. She then sued TSR, the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons — again, unsuccessfully. Out of these rejections, BADD was born. Through this organization, Pulling began publishing pamphlets and essays propagating her belief that D&D promoted satanism and suicide.

In one such publication, she described Dungeons & Dragons as:

“A fantasy role-playing game that employs demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sexual perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic-type rituals, gambling, barbarity, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromancy, and other practices.”

And, of course, with every teenage suicide, every family tragedy, every school shooting, BADD would reappear in the media to highlight Dungeons & Dragons’ alleged influence in these events — even when no connection whatsoever existed.

Meanwhile, in 1983, another movement was born: the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). It was founded by four women — Tipper Gore, Susan Baker, Pam Howar, and Sally Nevius. The catalyst came the previous year, when Tipper Gore bought her eleven-year-old daughter a copy of Prince’s Purple Rain. Upon hearing the song “Darling Nikki,” she was scandalized by its explicit sexual references. Around the same time, Susan Baker expressed similar outrage after discovering Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”

The four women, soon dubbed by the media the “Washington Wives,” launched a moral crusade of their own — this time targeting the music industry. They quickly garnered massive support from America’s conservative Christian community, bolstered by their social status as white, affluent women married to influential men in Washington’s political and financial elite.

Their stated mission was to raise parental awareness about the presence of sexual, violent, and drug-related content in popular music. To that end, they compiled the now-infamous “Filthy Fifteen” — a list of fifteen songs they deemed particularly offensive or morally corrupt, some even explicitly “satanic.” Among these were “Into the Coven” by Mercyful Fate and “Possessed” by Venom, both accused of promoting occultism.

The list was widely circulated through national newspapers, and the PMRC demanded that record labels cease releasing music containing “immoral” material. After a prolonged standoff with the music industry, a compromise was reached: albums deemed explicit would bear a label reading “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics.” (Yes — the very sticker still found on countless albums today originated from this controversy, and notably, it was introduced without the artists’ consent.)

Ironically, this campaign only made such albums more appealing to teenagers of the time. Yet, the PMRC’s crusade did not stop there — the group also sought to vilify heavy metal, claiming the genre was violent and that it drove adolescents to suicide, satanism, drug use, and even pornography consumption (as though one needed music for that).

The real danger, however, lay in how these narratives spread. Such claims were reinforced through “awareness seminars” — public meetings led by self-proclaimed experts or alleged survivors of satanic abuse. These sessions targeted not only parents and educators, but also law enforcement officers.

Consequently, an alarming number of Americans became convinced that a vast satanic network existed — one that murdered thousands each year in occult rituals and used popular culture and youth education as tools to recruit new members or future sacrifices. According to this growing paranoia, the reason no one spoke out was because Satanists had infiltrated the media and the highest levels of government. Even more absurd theories suggested that Satanists had taken over funeral homes and crematoriums to dispose of bodies legally and undetected.

As a striking example of this propaganda, BADD released in 1984 a short comic pamphlet titled “Dark Dungeons.”Designed as a cautionary tract, it portrayed role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons as gateways to occultism, moral decay, and death. Over time, this bizarre publication became a cult artifact within the role-playing community, inspiring numerous parodies and adaptations.

In 1986, social worker Carole Darling testified during a court case that a vast conspiracy had infiltrated the United States government itself. Her husband, Brad Darling, went on to give a series of public lectures asserting that a Satanic cabal had existed for hundreds of years and was now deeply embedded within virtually every American community.

Among the many theories circulating at the time, one particularly grotesque claim suggested that the reason more women than men were reported missing was because Satanists were using their bodies for forced breeding — producing infants to be sacrificed in occult rituals. Disturbingly, such ideas gained traction. Some therapists began incorporating explicitly Christian psychotherapies or even performing exorcisms on patients they believed might have been affected by ritual abuse. Support groups sprang up, led by self-proclaimed “anti-Satanic warriors,” while the entire movement was indirectly legitimized by government policy: federal funding for child abuse research increased significantly, with portions of that money allocated to conferences promoting the belief in ritualistic Satanic crimes. It became a self-perpetuating cycle of fear and confirmation.

Then, in 1988, television host Geraldo Rivera aired a sensational two-hour NBC special titled “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground.” Broadcast nationwide, the program presented the supposed existence of Satanic networks committing ritual crimes. The show featured alleged survivors, self-proclaimed experts, police officers, musicians, and even individuals identifying as Satanists. At one point, Rivera declared — and I quote —

“By conservative estimates, there are more than one million Satanists in this country, and they are linked together in a highly organized, secretive network.”

Once again, such programming reinforced and legitimized the widespread belief in a vast Satanic conspiracy, further fueling America’s growing moral panic.

In 1989, nearly a decade after the publication of Michelle Remembers, Oprah Winfrey invited Michelle Smith onto her talk show alongside Lauren Stratford, author of Satan’s Underground, a book describing her alleged survival of ritualistic Satanic abuse. The experiences of both women were presented by Oprah as unquestionable facts; not once did she challenge or scrutinize the authenticity of their claims.

The following year marked the long-awaited conclusion of the McMartin Preschool trials. After seven exhausting years, the case resulted in no convictions, and all charges were ultimately dropped. It remains the longest and most expensive criminal trial in United States history, with legal costs exceeding fifteen million dollars. Yet, despite the total absence of evidence or substantiated allegations, conspiracy theories only escalated in complexity. A new narrative began to circulate: that a Satanic cult composed of powerful and respected figures within society had orchestrated a mind-control program designed to create alternate personalities in unsuspecting individuals — personalities that could be activated through coded words. This program, the theory claimed, was managed by a former Nazi doctor, allegedly of Jewish descent, who had been recruited by the CIA. The logic was as outrageous as it was implausible — and yet, somehow, it spread.

According to proponents, victims of this program were trained to become assassins, prostitutes, drug traffickers, or even child sex workers on command, explaining their “missing” memories by attributing them to separate identities. This sensational claim reached the public sphere through psychologist Corydon D. Hammond, who asserted that he had uncovered this information from his patients while they were under hypnosis.

Fortunately, scientific inquiry soon began to challenge these narratives. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) appointed psychologist Gail Goodman of the University of California to lead a comprehensive research project titled Characteristics and Sources of Allegations of Ritualistic Child Abuse. As principal investigator, Goodman conducted a rigorous four-year study examining no fewer than 12,000 allegations of ritualistic or religion-related abuse.

In her 1993 report, she concluded — and I quote:

“There is no evidence of a well-organized, intergenerational Satanic cult that sexually abuses and tortures children.”

However, Goodman clarified that there were indeed credible cases involving isolated offenders or couples who either claimed to act in Satan’s name or used that claim to intimidate their victims. In other words, while instances of abuse committed under a supposed “Satanic” justification did occur, investigations revealed no genuine affiliation with any organized Satanic group. At best, these were pseudo-Satanic ritual abuses — perpetrators invoking Satan ex post facto as a form of psychological or symbolic justification. To put it simply: saying “the devil made me do it” does not make one a Satanist.

This raises an essential question: how could Goodman have investigated over 12,000 allegations of ritual or religious abuse and still found no verifiable evidence of genuine Satanic activity? The answer lies in examining the sources themselves — which, as she notes, stemmed almost entirely from two categories:

Children’s testimonies describing alleged ritual abuse;

Adults’ “recovered memories,” retrieved through hypnosis or suggestive therapeutic techniques.

It has been established that in approximately 95% of adult cases, memories of alleged abuse were recovered during psychotherapy — and in most instances, these were therapies specifically designed to elicit recollections of satanic ritual abuse. Unfortunately, the claims obtained from the so-called victims by mental health practitioners consistently lacked any verifiable evidence.

In one study involving a sample of 29 patients from a medical clinic who claimed to have survived satanic ritual abuse, not a single allegation could be substantiated — neither through medical records nor through corroborating testimonies from family members. Another large-scale survey, conducted among 2,709 American therapists, revealed that the overwhelming majority of such allegations originated from only 16 practitioners.

It has also been demonstrated that the investigative techniques employed to gather testimony from young children evolved throughout the period of the satanic panic, becoming increasingly leading, coercive, and suggestive. Investigators often pressured children to provide statements, prompting them to fabricate stories in order to satisfy adult expectations. When these problematic and manipulative interview methods were altered or removed, the allegations of ritual abuse virtually disappeared.

Sociologist Jeffrey S. Victor examined 67 cases of reported satanic ritual abuse rumors across the United States and Canada — incidents that had been covered by newspapers or television — and found no credible evidence of any murderous satanic cults.

To this day, no forensic or corroborating evidence has ever been found to substantiate claims of satanic ritual abuse, whether cannibalistic or homicidal in nature, despite numerous exhaustive investigations. Even when isolated crimes are considered — those in which individuals personally identified as Satan worshippers — the widespread fear and societal reaction to the supposed threat of satanic ritual abuse are now regarded as profoundly disproportionate to the actual evidence.

In 1994, when Kenneth Lanning released his FBI report summarizing the investigations he had conducted, several convictions based on allegations of satanic ritual abuse were overturned, and the accused were set free. Meanwhile, Michelle Remembers—the book that had ignited much of the satanic panic—was largely discredited. Though it presented its claims as factual, not a single piece of verifiable evidence was ever provided to support the authors’ assertions. Investigators described the book’s content as being largely derived from popular fictional narratives of its time, such as The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen.

According to a scholarly study by Joseph Laycock, patients who were hypnotized by therapists to “recover” memories of satanic ritual abuse “often appeared to recall scenes directly inspired by those films.” The decline—if not the outright end—of the satanic panic in the United States is generally placed between 1992 and 1995.

The latter year is particularly significant due to the release of the HBO television film Indictment: The McMartin Trial. The film leaves little ambiguity about its message: the McMartin family were victims of moral panic rather than perpetrators of ritual abuse. It denounced the era’s blind willingness to believe without evidence and exposed the dangers of a judicial system that followed hysteria instead of truth. Though a dramatization, it remains to this day a seminal work illustrating how collective fear and flawed investigation can destroy innocent lives. One might say, that should sound familiar by now.

Gradually, the satanic panic began to lose its grip across the globe—only to be replaced by new cultural fears, such as the supposed dangers of video games. And yet, it would re-emerge decades later, reborn in digital form. In 2017, on the imageboard 4chan, a new conspiracy movement was born: QAnon. This theory recycled all the tropes of the satanic panic, adding, metaphorically speaking, “vomit on top of excrement.” Daycare centers were no longer the alleged sites of ritual abuse; now, Hollywood liberals, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking officials were accused of having intimate ties with Satanism and child exploitation.

It is true that cases of child abuse have been uncovered within powerful social circles—just as they have in lower ones. However, the individuals most often highlighted by conspiracy theorists tend to be celebrities, which conveniently serves their narrative. In reality, these cases typically involve people with immense wealth, power, and influence—individuals who exploit their privilege and virtual impunity to act above the law (hello, Trump, P. Diddy, Epstein, Weinstein). That does not make them part of a global satanic cabal. Ironically, the vast majority of these individuals are adherents of the world’s major Abrahamic religions. Whatever they learned, it certainly wasn’t from Satan.

Sociological data show that citizens most inclined to believe in satanic conspiracy theories are rural, conservative families with minimal formal education, often living in deep anxiety over job insecurity. A demographic profile that, strikingly, mirrors that of Donald Trump’s voter base—a rather poetic irony, isn’t it?

Today, however, Satanism has somewhat fallen out of fashion. The new scapegoat is “Wokism.” Evidence of this can be seen in the United States, where laws are being passed to ban drag shows, censor books exploring LGBTQIA+ history and culture, cut private funding for Pride events, and even remove rainbow crosswalks. Add to this the steady regression of women’s rights—restricted or outright banned access to abortion in over half the states, prohibitions on mailing emergency contraceptive pills, and, astonishingly, public figures such as defense ministers openly suggesting the removal of women’s voting rights.

Satanism. Wokism. Both serve as convenient scapegoats—embodiments of a supposed existential threat—when a society is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Russia, for instance, passed a law on July 23, 2025, banning an entity known as “the International Satanist Movement,” an organization that, quite simply, does not exist. But its nonexistence is precisely what makes it so useful: it allows the state to target anyone it wishes to, whenever it becomes politically expedient to do so.

Conclusion:

Now that I’ve laid out the full context and history of the Satanic Panic in the United States, doesn’t reading all of this remind you of something? That secretly gay teenager who plays Dungeons & Dragons and mysteriously disappears—the very same game that becomes the object of moral outrage and public demonization. Those grieving mothers, driven by pure maternal instinct, each reacting in her own way: some desperately seeking someone to blame, others using their children’s tragedies to wage a moral crusade they believe to be righteous, never realizing that their actions only amplify the very evil that harmed—or even killed—their children.

“The conformity is what kills the kids,” said our beloved Eddie Munson, the central victim and target of Stranger Things’ own version of the Satanic Panic in Season 4. The series doesn’t merely recreate the hysteria—it mirrors the psychological and social mechanisms that sustained it. There’s also the question of responsibility: the psychologists and therapists who, in real life, exploited the vulnerability of their patients and the gullibility of society, manipulating public fear through their psychological expertise to validate their personal beliefs or professional agendas. Some even achieved fame and wealth by doing so, exploiting the notion of “recovered memories.” That very theme echoes through Eleven’s storyline in Season 4—trauma, memory, manipulation, and the blurred line between truth and fabrication.

Everything aligns—even the key years that define the show’s timeline: 1983, 1984, 1986… It’s clear that Stranger Thingsdraws heavily from real historical and cultural events. The show captures the spirit of the 1980s not only through aesthetics or nostalgia, but through the collective anxieties that shaped the decade—whether it be the AIDS panic, which runs as an emotional undercurrent throughout the series, or the Satanic Panic, which serves as both literal depiction and metaphor. These two social panics—AIDS and Satanism—are in fact two sides of the same coin.

Both emerge from a society that believes it is protecting itself, its loved ones, and its moral integrity, yet in doing so, it turns its fear against the innocent—the very victims of the conditions it refuses to confront. In the process, it perpetuates the harm, playing directly into the hands of the true sources of corruption and decay: capitalism, conformity, and authoritarianism, which thrive by weaponizing their most effective tools—fear, ignorance, poverty, and hatred.

And this same cycle continues today, merely under a new name: the so-called war on “Wokeism.” When we analyze the parallels, it becomes evident that the real history which inspired Stranger Things is not so distant from our current reality. And perhaps there is no better way to challenge this ongoing hysteria, this conformity, this culture of fear, than to expose it through one of the most-watched series on Netflix. To bring it full circle—by allowing its central character, the very first and most symbolic victim of both supernatural and social persecution, to finally triumph, to live freely, and to find love with the man he loves.

Masculinism is not merely a disagreement with feminism; it is an ideology rooted in resentment, fertilized by fear, and cultivated in the shadow of women’s emancipation. It constructs feminism as an adversary and casts equality as dispossession. Born in reaction to the steady, hard-won expansion of women’s rights, it narrates progress as persecution. In its telling, men are the aggrieved party, besieged by a society in which women are said to hold all the power. It speaks gravely of a so-called “crisis of masculinity,” as though manhood were a dethroned monarch awaiting restoration to a “natural order” that history itself has already exposed as constructed.

Statistics reveal the depth of this sentiment: 57% of men aged sixteen to thirty-four believe that society is relentless toward them. Such a perception does not arise in a vacuum; it is shaped, amplified, and rehearsed within digital echo chambers where grievance is polished into doctrine.

Through social media, young boys become the primary audience of a discourse often disguised as self-improvement. What appears at first glance to be guidance on discipline, confidence, or romantic success gradually mutates into something more corrosive: dubious life advice, predatory seduction strategies, and at times even rhetoric that edges toward the normalization of sexual violence. Masculinism is not confined to inflammatory posts or provocative videos; it is a structured political project, supported by economic incentives and cultural networks. Its explicit ambition is to “restore male dominance” by waging an influence war against feminism, seeking not dialogue but domination.

The consequences are tangible and grave. Feminist activists and women in public life endure coordinated waves of harassment, their voices drowned beneath orchestrated torrents of abuse. In matters of health, organizations such as Sidaction raise the alarm: certain influencers disseminate false medical information and encourage high-risk behaviors, including the rejection of condom use, thereby endangering lives in the name of bravado. The report of the High Council for Equality (HCE) establishes a direct link between online masculinist rhetoric and acts of violence against women: in 2025 alone, three masculinist attacks were thwarted in France. Ideas, once trivialized as mere opinions, reveal themselves as rehearsals for action.

The cultural penetration of this ideology is equally troubling. Sixty-six percent of men aged sixteen to thirty-four are familiar with at least one masculinist influencer. Forty-three percent believe that a woman with multiple partners “does not respect herself.” Twenty-four percent consider it normal for a woman to consent to sexual relations out of obligation or to please someone else. Fifteen percent judge that a victim of sexual assault may be partially responsible for the violence inflicted upon her. These figures do not simply describe attitudes; they sketch the outline of a moral regression, a quiet erosion of empathy disguised as common sense.

The spread of masculinist ideas is also a lucrative enterprise. Social media platforms, driven by engagement metrics, often prove reluctant to regulate or restrict such content. Algorithms do not measure truth or justice; they measure attention. Outrage generates clicks, and clicks generate revenue. Thus, incendiary rhetoric is propelled forward, rewarded for its capacity to provoke. Influencers accumulate fortunes through online courses, private coaching sessions, and sponsored content. Yet the economy of outrage demands escalation: to retain an audience, one must outdo yesterday’s extremity. It becomes a race toward the most shocking statement, the most transgressive claim, the loudest declaration of contempt.

What, then, are the remedies?

Legal frameworks struggle to keep pace with the rapid ascent of this ideology. Justice systems, methodical by nature, falter before the velocity of digital radicalization and the immediacy of its consequences in women’s lives. In the meantime, much of the resistance is sustained by feminists, collectives, and associations whose labor is often unpaid, whose efforts are rooted in education, critical thinking, and the patient deconstruction of harmful narratives. They operate as a counterweight, a fragile yet determined counter-power.

But the responsibility cannot rest solely on their shoulders. The State must confront the gravity of this ideology and acknowledge its potential for harm. To treat masculinism as a harmless subculture is to mistake sparks for harmless light, ignoring the dry forest they fall upon. If equality is a house still under construction, then indifference is the wind that threatens to undo its scaffolding.

When Vecna asks, “Can you see them… William? Can you see the children?”, he is not merely referencing his victims. He is forcing Will into the same perceptual state that has defined his life since Season 1: the ability to see what others cannot, to perceive suffering, danger, and emotional truth before anyone else. Vecna is deliberately collapsing the boundary between past and present, victim and observer, reminding Will that he has always been different—always attuned to the psychic undercurrent of the Upside Down.

The question “Do you know why I chose them?” is not rhetorical. Vecna is rewriting the narrative of trauma itself. By labeling the children as “weak in body and mind… easily broken, easily reshaped”, he is attempting to frame vulnerability not as something imposed upon them, but as an inherent flaw. This is classic abuser logic. Vecna is not describing reality—he is constructing a justification. And then he turns that logic directly onto Will.

“And you… Will. You were the first. And you broke so easily.”

This line is the emotional core of the scene. Vecna is not saying Will was weak because he suffered—he is saying Will suffered because he was weak. The flashbacks that follow are not neutral memories; they are weaponized recollections, carefully selected to reinforce a single message: your pain defines you. By showing Will being hunted by the Mind Flayer, possessed on the field, and collapsing in Joyce’s arms as he begs for the pain to stop, Vecna is reframing moments of survival as moments of failure.

But this is not the truth of Will’s story—it is Vecna’s distortion of it.

When Vecna says, “You showed me what was possible, what I could achieve,” he reveals something crucial: Will was not simply an early victim. He was a proof of concept. Will demonstrated that a human mind—especially one shaped by sensitivity, imagination, emotional depth, and isolation—could be partially inhabited, reshaped, and used as a bridge between worlds without being fully destroyed. Will did not just survive the Upside Down; he endured it while remaining himself. That contradiction both fascinated Vecna and enraged him.

The next line—“Some minds, it turns out, simply do not belong in this world”—marks Vecna’s ideological pivot. He is not talking about strength or weakness anymore; he is talking about belonging. And the flashbacks chosen here are deeply telling. We are no longer shown supernatural horror, but emotional devastation: Will destroying Castle Byers after his fight with Mike, and Will silently crying in the van after suppressing his love to protect Mike and his relationship with El. Vecna is deliberately linking Will’s queerness, his emotional repression, and his sense of alienation to the same category as supernatural trauma.

This is not accidental. Vecna is telling Will that his pain did not begin with the Upside Down—it merely confirmed what the world had already rejected.

“They belong in mine.”

This is not a threat. It is an offer—one Vecna has been extending to Will since childhood. The final flashback, showing Vecna forcing the vine into Will’s mouth in the Upside Down, is not just a memory of violence; it is a reminder of first contact. This moment, which chronologically occurred in Season 1 but opens Season 5, represents the origin of Will’s psychic imprint. Vecna is reminding Will that their connection predates conscious resistance, predates understanding, predates choice.

And this is precisely the point.

Vecna did not come in Episode 4 to kill Will, nor even to reclaim him outright. He came to destabilize Will’s narrative of himself. By reframing Will’s greatest moments of vulnerability—his fear, his love, his queerness, his emotional honesty—as evidence that he never truly belonged in the human world, Vecna is attempting to erode Will’s autonomy from the inside.

The opening of Season 5 retroactively reframes a moment we thought we understood: the scene in Season 1 in which Vecna—then unseen, unnamed—forces a vine into Will’s mouth in the Upside Down while whispering, “We’re going to do beautiful things together, William. Such beautiful things.” Chronologically, this is the beginning of everything. Narratively, it is the origin point of Vecna’s fixation on Will—and the foundation of the monologue delivered at the end of Episode 4.

That scene was never merely about physical domination or survival. From the very beginning, Vecna’s language reveals intent. He does not threaten Will. He does not rage. He speaks with intimacy, almost reverence. He uses Will’s name. He touches his face gently. The horror of the moment lies not in brutality, but in appropriation. Vecna is not trying to destroy Will—he is trying to claim him.

This is what makes the echo between the Season 5 opening and the Episode 4 monologue so powerful. When Vecna later tells Will, “You were the first. And you broke so easily,” he is not revisiting a failure; he is revisiting a success. In Vecna’s mind, that moment in the Upside Down was the first time a human consciousness partially yielded to him without being annihilated. Will survived—but he did not emerge untouched. The vine was not simply a tool of control; it was a psychic tether, a mark, an implantation. From that moment on, Will was never fully severed from Vecna’s world.

The phrase “beautiful things” is essential. Vecna does not define beauty as joy or creation in the human sense. To him, beauty lies in reshaping, in bending a mind until it conforms to his vision. What he sees in Will is not weakness alone, but plasticity: emotional depth, imagination, sensitivity, empathy—traits that make Will profoundly human, but that Vecna interprets as susceptibility. Will’s mind is open, porous, receptive. Where others resist or fracture, Will endures—and that endurance fascinates Vecna.

This is why Will is not just a victim, but a prototype.

When Vecna later says, “You showed me what was possible, what I could achieve,” he is acknowledging that Will was the first proof that a child’s mind could serve as a bridge between worlds. Will was the first vessel not chosen randomly, but recognized. Vecna did not stumble upon Will—he identified him. Will’s isolation, his emotional repression, his unspoken difference, his fear of rejection: all of these preexisted the Upside Down. Vecna did not create Will’s vulnerability; he exploited it.

And crucially, Vecna’s goal was never simple possession in the traditional sense. He was not trying to overwrite Will entirely. He was attempting something far more insidious: psychological corrosion. If Will could be made to believe that his pain defined him, that his sensitivity was a flaw, that his love and fear and difference meant he did not belong in the human world, then he would come to Vecna willingly—not as a captive, but as a convert.

This is why the Season 5 monologue focuses so heavily on reframing Will’s memories. Vecna is not reminding Will of what happened; he is telling Will what it meant. He takes moments of terror, grief, shame, and heartbreak—many of them tied directly to Will’s love for Mike and to his queerness—and weaves them into a single narrative: You were always meant for me.

In Vecna’s worldview, Will is “the first vessel” not because he was empty, but because he was full—of emotion, of longing, of imagination. Vecna believes that by hollowing out that fullness and replacing it with his own ideology, he can perfect what the human world rejected. This is why Will represents both Vecna’s greatest achievement and his greatest obsession. Will is the living contradiction to Vecna’s philosophy: a boy who was violated by the darkness, marked by it, tethered to it—and yet never fully claimed.

That is what Vecna cannot forgive.

Ultimately, Vecna is not trying to reclaim Will’s body or even his powers. He is trying to reclaim authorship over Will’s identity. He wants Will to see himself not as a survivor who loved and was loved, but as something broken that only ever belonged to the Upside Down.

And that is precisely why Will is the one person Vecna can never truly control.

Because every attempt to corrupt Will psychologically—to make him ashamed of his fear, his love, his difference—has failed. Not because Will was untouched, but because he chose connection over isolation, love over resentment, and truth over denial. The very traits Vecna mistook for weakness are what made Will impossible to fully reshape.

Will was the first vessel.

But he was also the first to resist from the inside.

And that is the beginning of Vecna’s end.

This is also where Mike become essential.

Every flashback tied to emotional pain is tied, directly or indirectly, to Mike. Vecna understands something Will has only recently begun to accept: Mike is not merely Will’s love; he is his anchor to the human world. Love is what broke Vecna’s control in the past, and love is what threatens it now. That is why Vecna’s next move is not to attack Will directly, but to target Mike—because destabilizing Mike destabilizes Will, not through fear, but through attachment.

In short, Vecna’s monologue is an attempt to claim authorship over Will’s life story.

But what Vecna fails to understand is this: Will did not survive because he was weak enough to be reshaped. He survived because he was strong enough to remain compassionate, loving, and human in a world that tried to erase him. And unlike Vecna, Will’s mind does not belong to the Upside Down—it belongs to the people who love him, and who choose him back.

That is why Vecna will lose.

And when we take all of this into account, it becomes easier to understand how Robin’s words, combined with Will’s childhood memories with Mike, Joyce, and Jonathan—the very same memories that were able to reach him during his possession by the Mind Flayer in Season 2—were capable of awakening his powers. The answer, each time, is love.

Vecna tried to convince Will that he had never truly belonged in this world, that his rightful place was beside Vecna, that because he was weak and broken he could not be saved—and that this had been true long before his disappearance. Yet it was precisely Will’s memories of childhood, of happiness and unconditional love, that gave him the strength to activate his powers rather than succumb to the darkness.

This leads to a crucial question: was it Vecna’s plan all along to awaken Will’s powers?

Perhaps Vecna failed to trigger them by exploiting Will’s self-hatred, but succeeded instead by threatening Mike’s life in front of him—forcing Will to draw upon his happiest memories in order to fight back. Even if the method differed from Vecna’s original intent, the outcome was the same: Will activated his powers, and it became clear that he is far more powerful than anyone had anticipated.

Did Vecna expect Will to be this strong? Or was this a test—an experiment designed to measure the true extent of his abilities? Vecna does nothing without purpose, and this monologue was no exception. It served a precise and deliberate function.

Will is not merely one victim among many. He holds a singular significance. And I believe this is precisely because he is the bridge between the two worlds through his powers. Vecna wants something from Will.

This is why the Season 5 monologue focuses so heavily on reframing Will’s memories. Vecna is not reminding Will of what happened; he is telling Will what it meant. He takes moments of terror, grief, shame, and heartbreak—many of them tied directly to Will’s love for Mike and to his queerness—and weaves them into a single narrative: You were always meant for me."

I struggle to understand how so many people so easily fell for Billy’s weak redemption arc. He doesn’t deserve it. I am in no way minimizing the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father—it was horrific, and no child deserves that. And I understand that his abusive behavior is quite literally a coping mechanism for what he went through—that he repeats what was done to him in an attempt to reclaim power and avoid being in the victim’s position as a defense mechanism. But that in no way justifies his actions or the abuse he inflicted on others. Not to mention his blatant racism and homophobia.

Yes, social and familial influences play a role. But not all victims become abusers. These are choices people make as adults. Billy knew what he was doing was wrong. He only felt remorse because he knew he had no chance of survival. By the end of season 3, his only choices were to remain possessed by the Mind Flayer and be its slave until the end of his life or to die immediately, putting an end to all his suffering. He was already doomed. He simply made the choice that would help others but, more importantly, would end his own pain.

I find it deeply unsettling how many people conveniently forget all the harm Billy deliberately and consciously inflicted on others, especially Max. He nearly killed Mike, Dustin, and Lucas in season 2—he was inches away from running them over with his car, purely out of sadism and a desire to emotionally hurt Max. And in season 3, even making him a victim of the Mind Flayer was nowhere near enough to warrant sympathy for him or justify a redemption arc. The truth is that audiences have a soft spot for him because of the actor’s immense charisma. And yes, he is excellent in the role—he has a striking presence, and he is undeniably attractive and sexy, sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that Billy was a bad person, an abuser, and that he would have continued his behavior had the Mind Flayer never chosen him or had he survived.

And all this energy people put into dismissing his actions because of his past or his so-called "sacrifice" resonates deeply with two things I have personally experienced and witnessed.

My aunt’s son, my cousin, was born in the 1970s—we are about thirty years apart in age. He is approaching his 50s, while I am 27. His mother, my aunt, was a deeply troubled woman who quickly spiraled into alcoholism. She had a tendency to be involved with violent, toxic, and highly problematic men. Jérôme, my cousin, never knew his father, but he was severely mistreated—emotionally, physically, and psychologically—by his stepfather. I won’t go into detail about the abuse and humiliation he suffered, but it was truly... truly horrific. And my aunt’s alcoholism, of course, did nothing to help. Given the childhood trauma my mother later revealed to me, there is every reason to believe that my aunt fell into her vices and toxic relationships as a way to cope with the incestuous abuse she suffered at the hands of her grandfather. To escape her demons—her unspoken, unhealed traumas—she drowned herself in alcohol and toxic relationships, and that in turn was inflicted upon Jérôme. The cycle of abuse... there it is again.

Had my mother not stepped in to take custody of Jérôme when he was 15, he would likely have ended up as either a serial killer or dead by suicide. My mother helped him immensely and raised him as her own son from the age of 15. She allowed him to become a respectable man, and he worked hard to secure a stable job that provided him with a decent living. Throughout my childhood, I saw him as a responsible, funny, and mature adult cousin.

But when he eventually went through a divorce and my parents took him in, allowing him to live under our roof, I started seeing who he really was—a toxic, abusive man who cheats on every woman he dates or marries, who sees feminism as a threat to his status quo, who clings to his privilege as a white, cisgender, heterosexual man and refuses to engage in any social discourse that might challenge his comfortable worldview. "Poor people shouldn’t complain; they should just work harder. Racism and homophobia don’t exist—proof? He has lesbian friends who were able to adopt a little girl." You get the picture.

But the worst part was that when he was living in my home, I was going through a deep nervous breakdown. I was on antidepressants and anxiolytics, a mere shadow of myself—I was so fragile and weak. And he made me his target. He screamed at me, verbally assaulted me, humiliated me, insulted me—he was on the verge of physical violence. And because he was an excellent manipulator, and because my mother still saw him as the abused child he once was, he weaponized that perception so that my parents would minimize his behavior toward me.

"He had a difficult childhood, that’s why he reacts this way—don’t take it to heart."

I won’t go into the details of everything he put me through, but it got to the point where I would skip meals just to avoid being in the same room as him during dinner. He made me feel like a pariah in my own family, in my own home—I no longer felt safe, I no longer felt welcome. No matter how much I talked to my parents about it, they kept telling me I was exaggerating, that they couldn’t just kick him out (as if he didn’t make enough money to rent a small apartment with his salary, huh…). They gaslit me constantly, making me feel like I was losing my mind. I felt trapped, like I was talking to walls.

And the worst part isn’t even Jérôme’s abuse. It’s realizing that my parents—whom I once believed to be an eternal source of protection—were capable of letting him abuse me right before their eyes, refusing to see the problem, minimizing it, and making me feel like I was the one causing trouble, the one starting conflicts, when all I was doing was begging for help and for it to stop. I was no longer safe in my own home… in my own family. I had no place anywhere.

I was being abused, and my own parents did not protect me. They told me to endure it in silence because he had suffered in his childhood. I was bearing the consequences of trauma I had no part in, trauma that happened thirty years before I was even born. This went on for two years before he finally moved out, and only after yet another humiliation he inflicted on me in front of everyone at Christmas last year did my parents finally say enough. My mother cut ties with him—but not without pain, suffering, and tears. The cycle of violence.

For two years, my parents justified and minimized the abuse their own daughter endured simply because he had suffered as a child.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

The second example is the case of the Giselle Pélicot rape trial. I assume you’ve heard about it, as it was widely covered internationally. The defense lawyers’ main argument for minimizing the crimes of the perpetrators was that they had been victims of abuse (including sexual abuse) during their childhoods. As if that could justify... anything.

90% of victims are women, and the vast majority of them never go on to inflict the same abuse they suffered onto others. So this excuse is invalid.

The fact that someone has endured abuse does not justify their actions today, nor does it make them deserving of redemption. They do not deserve it.

Billy does not deserve redemption. The only tragedy here is how deeply his actions hurt Max, to the point where she bore the consequences with Vecna, suffering the aftermath of the abuse Billy inflicted upon her.

Stop minimizing the actions of abusers by using their childhood trauma as an excuse. It’s tragic, it’s unfair, and they never should have gone through that. But they had a choice. A choice not to repeat what was done to them. A choice to take accountability for their actions.

"And the worst part isn’t even Jérôme’s abuse. It’s realizing that my parents—whom I once believed to be an eternal source of protection—were capable of letting him abuse me right before their eyes, refusing to see the problem, minimizing it, and making me feel like I was the one causing trouble, the one starting conflicts, when all I was doing was begging for help and for it to stop. I was no longer safe in my own home… in my own family. I had no place anywhere.

I was being abused, and my own parents did not protect me. They told me to endure it in silence because he had suffered in his childhood. I was bearing the consequences of trauma I had no part in, trauma that happened thirty years before I was even born. This went on for two years before he finally moved out, and only after yet another humiliation he inflicted on me in front of everyone at Christmas last year did my parents finally say enough. My mother cut ties with him—but not without pain, suffering, and tears. The cycle of violence.

For two years, my parents justified and minimized the abuse their own daughter endured simply because he had suffered as a child."

Robin barely even seemed to tolerate Vickie in the finale, and then she was gone. No Enzo's date. That's only for straight couples.

What purpose did any of it serve? I guess they made the straight characters look better for accepting Robin and Will. Steve benefited from it. Mike got his absolution from Will in the tower scene. But none of it mattered for the actual queer characters.

The best we have to look forward to is acceptance, I guess. Love only exists for straight characters, and "crushes" and high school love only last if you're straight, too.