Stranger Things has always been a huge influence on pop culture ever since its release in 2016. Recently Stranger Things season five has ended, concluding the series and having a finale that most viewers of the show did not enjoy. The finale episode titled “The Right-side Up” has an IMDb score of 7.7 which makes it the third lowest rated episode followed by season two episode seven “The Lost sister” with a rating of 6.0 and season five episode seven “The Bridge” with an astounding 5.7.

This supposed disaster of a finale had instilled a sense of deceit in viewers. Many viewers had thought that there were so many inconsistencies within the season and show itself, that it had to be intentional. Viewers believed that there must be a secret finale where we learn that the whole season was an illusion created by the main villain of the show Vecna. Examples of the inconsistencies vary, the main one being in season five episode one “The Crawl” where there is a Voltage meter that a character pulls that has a black arrow at one end however, in season five episode five “Shock Jock” it is red.

Many people had thought that this was a deliberate change and that the red version was made to look like a compass similar to something that would be seen in Vecna’s mind.

Other inconsistencies include one of the main characters saying that he loves drinking milkshakes from melvad’s, an in-universe general store that doesn’t sell milkshakes. Another inconsistency is in one of the promo videos for the finale, it shows a character rolling a D20 and on the first day it lands on a twenty to start the twenty day countdown however, the surrounding numbers on the dice are not around a twenty on a normal D20 but are the numbers around a one. 

Conformity gate has ultimately resulted in nothing however as the inconsistencies are just that. The show does have many plot holes that are either forgotten about completely or retconned in some round-about way that have also fueled conspiracy. For example in the final season it is said that Vecna only uses the Demogorgons to kidnap children because they are more malleable than adults. However, in the first season a Demogorgon kidnaps and kills a side character for seemingly no reason other than that she was alone at night and the Demogorgon was “hunting” although we don’t see or hear about Demogorgon’s hunting humans any other time past season one.

Even though the show has ended and the Stranger Things season 5 documentary has been released and Conformity Gate is still going on for some reason. It has also gotten more absurd in reasoning and is debated to only be continued by people making fun of conformity gate believers. The most recent and active theory is that the recent release of  a trailer for “The More She Eats, The Hungrier She Gets” (which is a film directed by in-universe character Jonathan Byers acted by Charlie Heaton.) 

This clearly comical trailer released by the official The Tonight Show account has fueled the conformity gate hashtag to rise again on X although most posts are satire and making fun of the hardcore conformity gate believers. 

Conformity Gate may not be real (or maybe they are waiting for the super bowl to reveal the secret finale) but for viewers, this surge of speculation and theory crafting has only fueled a lot of hate towards the show and seems to only serve as an outlet for people not liking the finale and wishing for something better from the writers.