#phreaking

Have y'all heard of "phone phreaking?" You know, the form of pre-internet hacking that used specific frequencies (including an infamous Cap'n Crunch whistle) to mask the location of a caller, make long-distance calls for free, and other early computer system exploration?

"What does this have to do with Stranger Things," you might ask? Well, I think we can arguably say we saw Murray doing some evolution of phone phreaking in S4E2 ("Vecna's Curse"), when he & Joyce called Enzo in Russia "his way."

Also, I heard a really interesting Stuff You Should Know podcast episode about phreaking a while back, and it keeps popping back up in my mind whenever I'm pondering about Cerebro, and the recurring use of the words "freak" and "tone" (in S4 & S5), and the introduction of Eleven's "kryptonite." Here's some of the scenes I'm thinking about:

These, too:

While I think the story of one of the OG phreaks, JoyBubbles (and other young, often blind, wiz kids of the era) is fascinating & sweet, I mostly suspect that the story of controversial figure, John Draper (aka "Cap'n Crunch"), might've been an influence on the ST/The First Shadow lore.

Dude's dad was an Air Force Engineer, so he had access to discarded military equipment to build a home radio station as a kid.

He joined the Air Force, and helped fellow service members make free phone calls home when based in Alaska in the mid-1960s.

He created his own "pirate radio station" when based in Maine in the late-60s.

**I also learned in this deep dive that the guy (allegedly) has a bit of an ego and has benefitted from being at the center of phreaking's history - not correcting the record when certain discoveries are incorrectly credited to him (but that's not my point here).**

I'm reeling us back in now...

If nothing else, I think there's something fun about Cap'n Crunch whistle coming from a cereal box, kind of paralleling the Ovaltine-sponsored Captain Midnight Spy Scope, decoder badges/whistles, and/or the radio that Henry explains that he won in a Captain Midnight contest (in The First Shadow play).

Isn't it kind of wild to think of much the Captain Midnight-stuff was also an (corporate-sponsored) ARG?

Tale as old as time, I guess.

Damn you, Slim Jim!!

I know frequencies/signals/interference have already played a major role in the series. As a reluctant #conformitygate-r, though, I just can't help but think that additional material may eventually come out that provides more explanation for things, and I wouldn't be surprised if something akin to phreaking is provided to either further contextualize the universe's lore and/or better resolve our characters' predicaments.

Just think about it:

Dustin uses his ham radio to talk to his girlfriend whenever/wherever he chooses.

The squealing over the graduation speakers in the epilogue seems to heighten Mike's awareness that this world might not be "real" (a la Truman Show).

Also, whatever the hell this t-shirt design is, it alongside this ST4 promo poster (source), seem to suggest that a scream is as viable of a choice as running or fighting, when facing a demogorgon (weird!).

[[It'd be fun to win a radio if we're somehow "decoding" this, Netflix]]