#forcedconformity

In Stranger Things, the monsters aren't just the creatures from the Upside Down — they're the way people change when fear and conformity take hold.

The show has always been about people learning to see difference as strength, not danger. But somewhere along the way, the fandom built around that message started reflecting the very thing the story warns us about.

It's been such a joy to follow discussions, get hyped over new promotional material, and theorise about Season 5. There's something special about feeling part of a community that's just as excited as you are.

And yet, that same community can be disheartening to witness. Comment sections fill with hostility; hate laced with homophobia, ignorance met with smug superiority, a need to win. It's a constant reminder of how easily the internet strips away people's empathy.

This is a show about empowering outsiders and accepting people for their differences, and yet the discourse often feels like the exact opposite.

The hate directed at Finn Wolfhard and Gaten Matarazzo simply because what they found most entertaining about a scene wasn't what fans wanted to hear...that's not passion, it's petty.

Likewise, the hostility toward the Duffer Brothers, the cast, the promotional team — with accusations of pandering to "Byler" fans or sidelining "Mileven" fans — comes across as a refusal to step back from a narrow view to consider other possibilities. Most people don't want to seem close-minded, so you'll see demands like "show me the evidence", though rarely with genuine curiosity. Evidence doesn't land when someone feels their sense of self or worldview is being threatened — and if it did, the mountain of analysis already circulating would speak for itself. It runs deeper than just wanting your favourite characters to end up together.

When people snidely remark "it's not that deep," what they really mean is "I don't want to think about it." We've been trained to treat emotional or analytical depth as pretentious rather than participatory, even though curiosity is what stories are for. Anti-intellectualism is a sibling to forced conformity: it punishes those who look closely. People with different life experiences often notice truths we can't yet see — not because they're inventing them, but because the story speaks their language.

And that's what makes the fandom discourse feel so eerily on-theme. The need to be right, to have your ideas affirmed, to silence or ridicule other interpretations — it's all a kind of forced conformity. You can see it play out in every comment section: "Mileven endgame!" and "Byler endgame!" shouted under every post, each side circling back to mock the other with "your ship is sinking" sentiments. It stops being discussion and turns into performance, a ritual of shouting until everyone agrees.

Even language like "Milkvan" the Byler community began using to avoid harassment from Mileven fans, even seems to have been weaponised. The irony is hard to miss: a word invented to create distance from hostility has become another way to signal allegiance.

But the show we're fighting over has been telling us from the beginning that this instinct — to demand sameness, to crush difference — is the monster. The Mind Flayer spreads by making everything a part of itself. When we treat fandom like a battlefield instead of a conversation, we're doing the same thing: trying to force each other into one mind.

The challenge we all face is learning how to stay curious — even when we disagree.

Roll for Insight — Can you spot the monster hiding in plain sight? (DC: 15, disadvantage if keyboard is weapon of choice.)

Other posts in this series:

Roll for Empathy — An Introduction

An introduction to a Stranger Things meta series about difference, fandom, and a fight for empathy.

Sometimes it's hard being part of the Stranger Things fandom.

On one side, there's excitement and community; people sharing theories, edits, fan art, and that electric sense of belonging. On the other, there's a current of anger that's become impossible to not see. Comment sections overflow with hostility between "Mileven" and "Byler" fans, often spilling into harassment of actors, creators, and each other.

I've been thinking about why this happens, and what it says about both the show and us. Because Stranger Things has always been about difference — about how people who don't fit are treated as monsters until someone finally sees them.

This is going to be a series of posts. The following posts are not a debate. They're a conversation about forced conformity — how it operates in the show, in the characters, and in the fandom itself.

Here's what to expect:

Part 1 — Forced Conformity: That's the Real Monster How fandom behaviour mirrors the show's central theme.

Part 2 — What Mileven Teaches Us About Expectation Exploring Mike and Eleven's relationship as a story about pressure and performance.

Part 3 — Why Mileven and Byler Need Each Other How the two relationships work together to tell a story about repression and authenticity.

Part 4 — Don't Close the Gate Reflecting on empathy, conversation, and how fandoms can learn to talk instead of fight.

You don't have to agree with every interpretation. You don't even have to ship anyone. My hope is that, by the end, we all remember the heart of Stranger Things: the real monster isn't difference — it's the fear of it.

Roll for Empathy (Wisdom check, DC: humanity).

Posts in this series:

Part 1 — Forced Conformity: That's the Real Monster

Few parts of Stranger Things spark as much devotion — or argument — as Mike and El’s relationship, but the way it’s idealised says a lot about what we expect love to look like.

Inevitably, this connects to the ship-war conversation, but even setting that aside, El’s arc has never read as one leading toward a conventional romantic ending.

From the show, the scripts, and the cast and creators, it seems clear: El’s story is about self-discovery. It’s about breaking free from the people who’ve defined her (Papa, Hopper, Mike), learning that she isn’t the monster, and understanding what love really looks like through friendship and chosen family. It’s about finding strength without seeking approval.

I'd like to take a moment to look at Mileven from a perspective of social conformity. Mike and El became a couple because that’s what everyone — them included — expected. We’ve been conditioned to expect the boy-meets-girl trope to end with a romantic “they lived happily ever after”. In Season 1, El hasn't had the chance yet to absorb that template, but Mike has.

Even the kiss at the end of Season 2 only appeared because of social pressure; Millie Bobby Brown brought the idea to The Duffer Brothers because she knew so many fans would expect it after seeing the Lumax kiss. It was added out of cultural momentum, not narrative intent.

And yet, the show gives Mileven just enough relationship tropes to hide how flawed it is from the general audience. So many people seem to see Mike and Eleven’s relationship as “aspirational”, and yet, while it does have tender moments, it makes them both deeply insecure.

In a healthy relationship, curiosity and respect go both ways. You listen, you share, you make space for mistakes and accountability.

In Season 1, Mike is eager to show Eleven his world, but she’s often portrayed as disinterested — wandering off, ignoring him, or failing to understand what he’s trying to express. And while they’re only children, Mike rarely shows empathy for her confusion or trauma, and yells “What is wrong with you?!” on more than one occasion, adding to her fear that she is the monster. Mike hides his own vulnerability out of fear she’ll see him as a loser. Those insecurities don’t fade with time; they grow.

In Finn Wolfhard’s words, Mike changes between Season 2 and 3. Mike believes that being in a relationship means being “grown up” — things he sees as "childish" like games, toys, and presents are no longer things he thinks he can enjoy. He represses his feelings, he lies, rarely takes accountability, and he’s desperate to cast himself as El's protector because that’s the traditional role he thinks he needs to fit. El is understandably upset by and suspicious of Mike’s behaviour, but also oversteps boundaries by spying on Mike.

At the end of Season 3, it momentarily feels like these problems are resolved if you only focus on El, but by Season 4, both characters are stuck in a dynamic of performance. El is now the one lying, desperate to fit in and live a “normal” life, while Mike is presenting a "cheap knock-off" of his former self. They both love/care about each other, but they also need each other to fill roles that neither of them can sustain — Mike can’t tell El what she needs to hear, and he feels insignificant next to her. He can’t reconcile what his role is in this relationship if El doesn’t need his protection. When pressure hits, the façade cracks.

Many Mileven fans argue that Mike's confession in the finale of Season 4 resolves these issues, but it doesn't. His monologue, while heartfelt on the surface, leans heavily on clichés and borrowed lines from others. The only parts that sound authentically Mike are small and human: the too-big t-shirt; not being ready to lose her. Everything else reaffirms the superhero fantasy that El previously rejected.

It's also worth noting how Mike's claim, "I love you on your bad days," clashes painfully with how he actually treats her during those very days: "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?", "Lucas was right about you", "What did you do?!", "...she didn't look fine...", "You're being ridiculous!".

After the battle, El barely speaks to him, not just because she's grieving, but because their connection has become hollow. The silence isn't due to lack of time; it's intentional.

Real love is not about being idealised; it's about being known. Mike and El spent all their time fighting monsters and making out — they were never interested in getting to really know each other.

Everything here has focused on what we see on the surface: two people in an insecure relationship, trying to live up to an idea of what love should look like. That's where a lot of the discussion I've seen stops. But Stranger Things rarely stops at the surface. In the next post, I will explore what we're seeing here from another angle — one where I believe Mileven and Byler can coexist.

Roll for wisdom — Can you tell the difference between love and performance? (DC: 14, advantage if you've failed this check before; disadvantage if your OTP modifier overrides your insight score.)

Previously in this series: