Whether or not conformity gate is actually another episode or a meta fan experience in which this - the last few days of fan participation and theorising - is the last 'episode' of kinds. I think that the Duffer brothers are talking to us but maybe not in the way we think.
We are the consumer - the more we eat (consume Stranger things content) the hungrier we get (demand more episodes, literally, behind the scenes footage, insights into actors' personal lives, ect ...). Maybe loosing our minds is the point. To showcase how unsustainable consumer culture actually is, and by extension fan culture, has become.
I think there's definitely an argument to be had around the capitalist undertones of this past week. If conformity gate is intentional it's a brilliant PR move, if it's not it shows the life blood of fan culture. Either way I think it shows the exploitative nature of modern entertainment. Whether it's the Duffer brothers exploiting queer fans by queer baiting Byler for a decade or fan cultures unsustainable demands for production, how we've been engaging with stranger things and how stranger things has been interacting with us shows a turning point in modern media.
