As we get closer to the two-night finale of Stranger Things dropping December 31, 2025 and January 1, 2026, it’s worth remembering one thing: we didn’t just watch a show for a decade .. we lived one.
When Stranger Things started filming, David Letterman was still hosting late-night. Jay Leno had only recently walked away from The Tonight Show. Conan O’Brien was still on TBS. (We really miss him).. It was when late night was waning but two kings were still reigning.
The streaming world was a completely different universe.
Netflix was king and pretty much alone on the throne. There was no Disney+. No Paramount+. No HBO Max. No Peacock. CBS All Access was barely a whisper. Streaming was simple compared to the buffet line it is today.
Politically? Well… it was Barack Obama’s America. Donald Trump hadn’t even been elected yet. There was no constant chaos cycle, no decade of non-stop political adrenaline. If you told someone in 2016 what was coming for the next ten years, they might have said you were living in the Upside Down.
Celebrity culture? Justin Bieber was still with Selena Gomez. Prince William wasn’t even married yet. That’s how far back we’re talking when you think of it…
Music-wise, the world was dancing to “Closer” by The Chainsmokers and “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber. In theaters, people were lining up at midnight screenings of Rogue One, dressing up, filling auditoriums — back when opening nights still felt like events, not a casual option between Netflix binges.
Even in sports, the snapshot is wild:
The Chicago Cubs broke their 108-year curse and won the 2016 World Series.
The Denver Broncos, led by a retiring Peyton Manning, won the Super Bowl.
We were just beginning dabbling in the nostalgia that the mid 2000-teens were about to present us.. We were just waiting for a show to come around and really bring it home.
And television? Entire shows began and ended during the Stranger Things era while we were still waiting for the next season in Hawkins.
Shows like Cobra Kai, The Umbrella Academy, The Good Place, Westworld, and others completed their entire lifespan before Stranger Things even got to its final chapter.
And now here we are…
When we look back at this time capsule — this Upside Down decade, if you will — it shows just how much everything has changed, and how much we have changed with it.
The question becomes:
Did we change the decade, or did the decade change us?
Did we create Donald Trump, or did he create us?
Maybe historians will be arguing about that long after we’re gone.
What we can say is this:
A full decade of life passed while this show unfolded. And our entire experience the this entire reality has altered.
If your child was six when Stranger Things premiered, you’re now staring down the day they get their driver’s license.
If they were Eleven (*like our star*) you are nervously waiting for that first legal drink.
Time moved. Life moved. We just didn’t notice how fast.
We watched these kid actors in a weird, neon-tinted horror-sci-fi show grow up on our screens. And the joke was always, “By the time season five comes out, they’ll be in a retirement home.”
But guess what?
So are we.
Or at least we’re a lot closer than we were in 2016.
The decade went fast .. and slow all at the same time. When we began 2016 the show tapped into nostalgia .. We were immersed in it. But by COVID and the arguments during the pandemic, the age of nostalgia vanished away.. we were instead enraged on an hourly basis, streaming actively and killing cable, staying at home and killing malls.. and wondering what our collective purpose was in this place and time.
Now, as the final season airs a decade on, nostalgia–at least what it was then–is dead. The show seemingly has tried to stay stuck in a time that moved on… a decade is a long time. Especially THIS decade.. THIS upside down period of time..
So take a breath.
Take a moment and look around.
A decade has passed in the blink of an eye.
As we gear up for the final Stranger Things episodes, maybe even seeing it in a movie theater, surrounded by others who’ve taken the same ride, remember this:
This was a snapshot of our lives.
And just like Hawkins, we all came out a little older, a little wiser, and definitely changed.
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