Using Our Brains to Predict Not-so Stranger Things? š§Ŗšµš”
Let me preface this by saying it is a proven scientific fact: our brains share similar physical responses to commercials and movies. But some brands and studios take "audience testing" a bit further, using neuroscience to predict exactly how adults and children will respond to certain ads and shows.
The Illusion of Reality š§ š§Ø
How do we turn flickering pixels on a flat screen into a new reality? It starts with our mirror neurons. Brain cells which fire both when we perform an action and when we watch someone else perform that exact same action. Mirror neurons produce a kind of subconscious motor simulation.
That's why we physically feel the weight of a heavy box a mime pantomimes; we are mentally experiencing the objectās physical properties.
While mirror neurons are primarily bottom-up processors, they function as a bridge that instantly connects those raw senses to top-down cognitive understanding. This "top-down processing" is where our brains "fill in the blanks," tricking our visual centers into perceiving the unseen, much like an optical illusion.
This neural patchwork is exactly why we perceive movies and television to be reality. We do a lot of the mental guesswork ourselves, actively erasing the cuts, transitions, or digital glitches on the screen.
Film editors rely heavily on this phenomenon, but itās also the bane of their existence. When there is a minor glitch, continuity error, or a flash frame blip in a cut, we often don't even process it the first or even the fourth time.
Our brain tends to "delete" what it doesn't expect to see. This cognitive blindspot explains so many facets of lifeālike why we often fail to see obvious truths about ourselves or others because they simply do not fit our established expectations.
We also imagine an ongoing reality for those pixels, wondering what characters do between takes, while feeling their kinetic energy furthers this illusion. We discovered this psychological process long ago.
First, there was the Kuleshov effect, where the juxtaposition of sequential images triggers a specific psychological and emotional response. Later came affect theory, which suggests humans have nine innate affects triggered by different stimuli that produce visceral, biological responses.
By turning an actor's physical story into our own subjective reality, we form "scripts" to make sense of and guide our future responses. These scripts act like cognitive cheat codes, ultimately forming the tropes, visual language, and narratives we expect from modern media.
Sythwave, Color Theory, and You're On Camera š
Beyond narrative, the brain is naturally wired for rhythmāwhether it's the rhythm of cuts in a scene or a musical beat that makes your foot tap. When media targets the hippocampus (our musical memory bank), it triggers deep sensory recall.
For example, the steady, predictable beats of 80s Synthwave can cause our brainwaves to "phase-lock" to the rhythm, linking our auditory cortex with motor areas to keep us engaged without overstimulation. A predictable beat can alleviate our cognitive fatigue, giving the brain a resting baseline while keeping us locked into the story.
In this space, comfort and nostalgia emerge. These are compound emotionsāor the careful regulation of a single basic affect, joyāwhere placing the viewer in a stable and comfortable baseline allows for InterestāExcitement to flourish. All this triggers a hypnotic "flow state" that keeps us watching for hours.
Stranger Things uses these subjective filmic elements masterfully, especially through its highly intentional use of color in lighting. This is why we refer to "warm" and "cool" tones, even though light and color possess no actual physical temperature. Pure sensory recall.
A āfunā neurological fact: the color yellow is entirely generated by neural mixing. We do not actually have a yellow cone inside our retina. Our brain has to do the heavy lifting to synthesize this color. This triggers the left, analytical side of the brain.
While yellow triggers the release of serotonin (a neurotransmitter linked to happiness), it can also cause intense eye strain and trigger frustration in large doses, leading to visual fatigue and overstimulation.
This can be explained through the lighting design of Stranger Things. The sparse amount of warm light in the blush-ish cold Upside Down that Nancy's gang plays with triggers a ticklish or giddy sensation of hope because it releases just enough serotonin to contrast the dread.
On the flip side, entering a space like the Abyss with a harsh yellow filter causes fatigue and frustration. A tiny yellow smiley face makes us happy, but a massive, close-up one, filling the screen, is almost maddening.
So there is a reason yellow has long been a literary symbol of gaslighting and the denial of autonomy, most famously illustrated in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic The Yellow Wallpaper.
The Neuromarketing Weapon In The Basement š¦ š²
Depending on the cut, the color, and the dynamic movement of a scene, scientists and filmmakers can now accurately predict how audiences will react to a piece of media by measuring brainwaves.
In 2012, a study analyzed the brainwaves of 16 people while they watched mainstream television. The study's results accurately predicted the preferences of large TV audiencesāup to 90 percent in the case of Super Bowl commercials.
Furthermore, brainwaves recorded during a The Walking Dead commercial predicted 40 percent of the associated Twitter traffic, while also predicting 60 percent of the Nielsen ratings measuring the overall audience size. Also that year, a commercial featuring a dog and a beer performed the best, while one with a couple kissing performed the worst.
These neuro-testing methods are proven to be far more accurate than traditional "self-reports." People naturally conform their responses to align with their own "values and expectations." Brainwave analysis bypasses this conscious, top-down filter, directly targeting our mirror neurons and primal responses.
Brands and media companies can literally leverage our mirror neurons to make us buy, consume, and conformābut they can't make us love, that variable is harder to predict.
In neuroscience, a neuron's cell membrane functions as a biological capacitor, accumulating and storing electrical charge until it fires. While this is a fitting metaphor for how media builds up anticipation, itās @acecreamsandwich's conformitygate post pointing out an interesting parallel between Stranger Things and The Boroughs that triggered this whole discussion.
Joyce says the radio station has a āflux capacitor,ā told to her by Robin. Then Claireās fix on the old TVās disrupter machine targeted the āsilver mica capacitor.āĀ
Silver mica capacitors are stable components used primarily in older television and radio equipment used to tune them, but can develop āSilver Mica Disease,ā a deteriorationĀ forming silver oxide that causes static.Ā Neurodegenerative diseases are linked toĀ chronic oxidative stress. Therefore, The Boroughās static is a sign to dementia a major theme. Media is represented as deteriorating our mental capacities.Ā
The use of the word āflux,ā and callback to a nostalgic property, is a direct tie to that nuerological hypnotism mentioned earlier too. Then they mention music, where listening to a nostalgic song with steady rhythm can jump-start a process called neural entrainment, where brain waves physically synchronize to the beat. This synchronization acts as a clear signal cutting through the static.
While this āflux capacitorā sequence plays out, we see Steve jump start the WSQK van, Dustin becomes aware of the static, and Will figures out that Vecna is targeting children. Later on once the radio cables are cut, memories start to get confused againālike Will mixing up āgetting lost in the woodsā with a fun time. Meanwhile, during the coming out scene, he starts listing off non sequitur brands.
Then this idea is literally written out to us in Brennerās newspaper:
The wrong person can snatch your thoughts and ideas have price tags, this is awfully familiar to the Twitter study, where brainwaves predict return on investment.
Meanwhile, this is connected to the birthday debacle of Joyce forgetting when her own son was born. Then Lakeview connects to Loverās Lake. All of these gates loverslakegate, birthdaygate, and conformitygate deriving from Twitter/X.
Meanwhile, Willās storyline, that deals with love and memories, is snatched. Twitter/X, a brand, is run by reactionaries and conservatives with conformist values who want you to preform as little top-down processing as possible and submit.Ā
"In Conclusion, Class..." š§Ŗš
Ultimately, what weāre seeing with conformitygate isnāt just a bunch of continuity errors or weird narrative quirks.
Using codes, thereās a secret commentary on how modern media and corporate brands hijack our neurology to predict, profit from, and control how we behave. When you map real-world neuro-testing metrics onto Stranger Things, you realize the show is exposing how easily our brains can be engineered into compliance.
We looked at how communication tech is used throughout the series. Plus, all the device static, like the walkie-talkies, the radio tower, the Wheelerās TV... it all mirrors a kind of neurodegenerative decline, dulling our capacity for critical thinking as we buy Eggos because El ate Eggos.
Eleven is basically the ultimate human capacitor. She literally tunes the static, like silver mica (Mike?), or a "silver cat" package delivery under a "Kaufman"Ā Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind nod first introduced in code. A signal of how a massive global IP like Stranger Things has to "tread lightly" around sensitive topics just to survive international markets even though Netflix is completely banned in places like China.
Memory-wiping consumerism lets Joyce forget her gay son's birthday, or has Willās coming out scene be branded. Our most intimate human experiencesālove, identity, memoryāalso weaponized by homophobic platforms like X and Reddit who discourage us from thinking critically, actually wanting a return to the materialistic 80s.
Conformitygate is a warning to never blindly surrender to the screen's hypnotic flow state at the risk of letting brands rewrite our internal scripts, trade our autonomy for clicks, and turn our impressionable children into branded test subjects.
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