Walking away from Stranger Things.

It’s time I let this show go and stop forcing myself to enjoy it.

There are plenty of things I enjoyed during my teen years that I still love in my 20s. The one thing I can genuinely say I have outgrown is Stranger Things. Many factors played into this, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about who that demogorgon decides to kill. That’s how much I no longer care.

Recently, I saw a post from a content creator who got the chance to attend the Stranger Things premiere for the final season. The post rubbed me the wrong way because this is a creator who has openly shown support for Palestine. The comment section received backlash because this is a creator who posted about her solidarity for the country, as there is a genocide going on there. More and more people spoke about how they felt regarding this. She deleted the post.

The context for those who are unaware of it all.

Noah Schnapp, the actor who plays Will Byers in the series, thought it was cute, quirky, and funny to make jokes about the genocide going on in Gaza. He is not the only one to do something like this; there have been other members of this production who have said and done anti-Palestinian things, from the things they have said in passing and signing a pro-Israel document to former United States president Joe Biden.

To quickly sum it up, Stranger Things features a noticeable number of cast and crew members who are anti-Palestinian. Because of this, it has turned plenty of people, including me, completely off the series. Yes, not everyone is going to be aware of what’s going on in every subculture, but the situation with Noah, at least, was very LOUD.

Now, about the content creator: I am not writing this essay to speak negatively about her, nor do I want anyone to attack her, because that’s wrong. I have nothing against her, but this instance reminds me of how I feel about the current stages of advocacy. This piece isn’t even entirely about her. I pretty much said everything I wanted to say about that.

It is so much more than just going to a show’s premiere: it’s what this one particular show has become because of the actions of those behind the scenes. It also has to do with how social media treats real-world tragedies and disturbances as trends, because there has been significantly less support from content creators, not just for Palestine but for other issues as well. While I do agree that content creators are not obligated to address everything going on in the world, I wish they wouldn’t treat serious issues this way. You also don’t have to say yes to every opportunity or sponsorship presented to you.

It is not my place to tell people to let go of things that bring them joy. But also, you should stand on that shit when the time comes.

I will say that standing in solidarity isn’t always easy either. Advocacy is not supposed to be easy. Simply not engaging with something does more than what people realize. Look at Sydney Sweeney: Because of the distasteful American Eagle ad she did in 2025, and because she obviously didn’t understand why it was problematic, people have decided not to buy tickets to see her movies. People did, in fact, stand on that shit when it came to her.

Maybe I am able to stand on that shit easily with this show; it’s because I had already started to become disconnected from Stranger Things before Noah showed his ass over things that happened before that incident.

You know the saying, “Never meet your idols?” Yeah. Never work on that show you like, either!

It’s no secret that I worked on Stranger Things as an extra; I have talked about some of my experiences on the show. What most don’t know is that I had a terrible time working on the production. I have been quick to open up about my negative experiences working on Legacies, but Stranger Things is another can of worms. I self-published a book in 2023 about my experiences working as an extra in the film industry and why I quit. Many of those stories came from my time working on Stranger Things. Comparing the Legacies set to the Stranger Things set, I pick the Legacies set. Legacies was not perfect, but my experience was not nearly as emotionally and physically draining as Stranger Things. Leading up to the final days of working on the series, I cried so much because I did not want to keep going. I slept through my alarm for one of the days; I never sleep through my alarms. That was the sign that I was truly unhappy. This wasn’t just me; I came across numerous people who worked on this show expressing how much they could not stand it.

Shitty work environment aside, I was also starting to take issue with the writing for the Black characters in this series. I have had people leave comments on my posts about how the Stranger Things team writes Black characters in a distasteful way, and I couldn’t speak up about it because I was literally booked on the production at the time. But I fully agreed with what everyone was saying, and I cringed as I saw the actors work with the material given to them. When you’re an extra, you literally have no say in anything for a production. They just pay you to show up and be the background, so the environment doesn’t look like a ghost town. My place was to shut up. But in my mind, I had so many opinions.

I honestly do believe my negative experiences being on the show in the background, along with being sensitive about the way white people write Black characters, did not make it so difficult for me to drop it.

I don’t think people truly understand how bad Noah Schnapp’s actions were unless they have done research on what’s been going on in Palestine since the 1900s, let alone seen pictures of it. I have been contacted by quite a few Palestinians asking me to share their mutual aid, and I have donated what I can. Having personally contacted these people truly did change me. This is a tragedy I do not think anyone should have to go through, and I hate this so bad for them. So, no, I don’t believe Noah Schnapp saying “zionist is sexy” was ok, and it says so much more about how he was not held accountable. The only people who seem to have held him accountable were those on social media who were disappointed with his behavior.

It’s time I let this show go and stop forcing myself to enjoy it.

I am in no place to tell other people what shows they can and can not watch; everyone is their own person and can make their own choices. But people have valid reasons for not wanting to watch this final season of Stranger Things, given everything that’s happened along the way.

At the end of this personal essay, please send some support to Ismail, who is doing all that he can to protect his family during this genocide. He recently told me about how they needed baby formula for his niece. Like I said earlier, no one should have to deal with something like this.

https://chuffed.org/project/148206-support-ismail-and-his-family