Stranger Things: The Echo of a Generation

 

To say that Season Five of Stranger Things has been mixed would be an understatement. It has been that and more. I'm not wading into any of that today, but focusing more on the feel of it. Especially for a Gen Xer. You know, the generation that always seems to get overlooked.

But not this time. This time, it was about us. And yes, sorry Boomers — not everything revolves around you. The Wonder Years hearkened back to your childhoods. This recalled ours.

Regardless of which season — One through Five; it was, it felt as if a teleport without error spell was cast and bam, there we were once again. The 1980s all over again.

It’s about a place and time. A feeling, however fleeting, of our childhoods before we got overwhelmed with life. That’s not to say other generations didn’t experience childhood, rather, the one depicted here was ours.

Despite not being Gen Xers themselves, the Duffer Brothers tapped into the zeitgeist of Gen X memory and did it well. As I noted previously, I'm likely not alone in this: Stranger Things very much represented our formative years — or at least a very good approximation of them.

• The dawn of the personal computer age
• BMX bikes
• The end-stage of the Cold War
• No cell phones, no internet
• A freedom almost no generation before or since has had

Playing D&D in wood-paneled basements? Campaigns that seemingly lasted forever? The anticipation of going on adventures with your friends?

The feel.

But layered over all of this was simply not knowing how fleeting it would be. All too soon, life would change: obligations, jobs, cars, driver’s licenses… girls.
 

And D&D would recede.

A Quick Note on D&D and Generation Jones

Now, it can be argued that D&D was experienced by Generation Jones (aka the later Boomers), especially when you look at the age cohort of those who created the game. But that’s not the point.

For a certain segment of us in Gen X, it was smack dab in the middle of our adolescence.
I’m a perfect example: born right at the halfway point.
And I suspect, like a lot of us, I never gave that look back much thought — until Stranger Things came along.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see why.
As Xers, we’ve never been a generation that has really been pursued.

This Isn’t About Attention. It’s About Recognition.

So in a sense, this isn't about attention: it’s about being pleasantly surprised, maybe even shocked, that media was aimed directly at us.

Sure, call it dangling key-chains, memory berries, or whatever.
Whatever it was though? It worked.

And as I noted in a previous post, the thing that's landing the hardest?
It’s the finality of goodbye... again.
It was a return, yes; but a fleeting one.

While it’s true the show lasted for nine years, it’s only 34 episodes in total.
Some might say not enough.
Some will say it should’ve ended after Season One.

I’m not here to argue that.

What I don’t think anyone will argue is the effect. Forget the controversies or the actors themselves and simply ask:

“Can you see yourself here again, in the 1980s?”

I think if anyone is honest with themselves, the only answer is: yes.

The Double Goodbye

With the close of the series, we say goodbye to Hawkins, Eleven, and the party.
But at the same time? We say goodbye again to that piece of childhood we never expected to feel so vividly.

And that’s likely why it’s hitting so hard.

It dropped on New Year’s.
Out with the old, in with the new.

And doubly so for my daughter and I. Every holiday we watch all six movies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In our yearly re-watch, we only have Return of the King left, the most emotional of the six (I mean, Sam, c'mon!") and it hits directly in the feels.

And perhaps that’s why this one’s hitting unexpectedly hard too.

Maybe,just maybe, under our Gen X exterior is something besides nostalgic.
Something that is not so stereo-typically “us” in these moments.

Just don’t tell anyone. We won’t admit to it.

The Grey Havens

So as a door opened… and then closed again…
I'm left simply with one saying I’ve heard and used myself:

“Don’t cry that it’s over, smile that it happened.”

Sure, it’ll linger like something melancholy. But like Frodo and Gandalf saying goodbye at the Grey Havens…So it is with Stranger Things.

Until we meet again.

Gaming, Growing Up, and the Ghost of the ’80s

Glad it didn't happen in my town in the 1980s...

Of Stranger Things

As I reflected on THE CAMPAIGN in (Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI ) , I realized how deeply formative that experience was for me—not just as a gamer, but as a early teen navigating the strange and wondrous years of adolescence. Decades later, the memories are still vivid: the characters we played, the choices we made, the jokes, the deaths, the victories. But more than that, I remember the feeling of it all. The time. The place.

Am I filling in gaps? Romanticizing the rough edges? Probably. But does that matter?

I don’t think it does.

In many ways, these memories aren’t about perfect accuracy. They’re about meaning. About resonance. And as I think about this, I’m reminded of something else that tapped directly into those same feelings: Stranger Things.

Later this year, Stranger Things will come to an end. And while the Upside Down didn’t open up beneath my small Western New York town (that I know of), the show still managed to capture something remarkably true. The way it recreates the 1980s—from the mall culture and cassette decks to the friendships forged over character sheets and Mountain Dew—feels like it was pulled from the collective memory of an entire generation.

It’s often called a “love letter” to Gen X gamers. But I think it’s more like a message in a bottle. Something we threw out to sea decades ago, filled with the thoughts we couldn’t quite name at the time. And now, years later, the tide has returned it to us—weathered, a little warped, but still true.

Or maybe it’s a time capsule. Buried and forgotten, until one day it cracks open and you’re face to face with who you were.

That’s how rereading what I wrote about THE CAMPAIGN felt. Like opening something sealed away by time. Like remembering who I used to be when everything felt new and limitless.

There’s a scene in Stranger Things that stuck with me: Will wants to keep the game going, but Mike is distracted—by Eleven, by the changes pulling them into adolescence and away from childhood. That dynamic mirrored what happened with our group. After THE CAMPAIGN we migrated toward Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Twilight 2000, and 2nd Edition AD&D. By our late teens, we had landed in Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The games were still fun—but the magic of THE CAMPAIGN never quite returned.

Not because we stopped playing. But because we were growing up.

That was our zenith. Our Stranger Things moment. And while everything that followed had its own feel to it, nothing quite recaptured the spell of that first, long campaign.

Like the kids in Hawkins, we changed. The world changed. And that’s part of why the show resonates so deeply. It reminds us of what we left behind—not just dice and character sheets, but a sense of discovery, of possibility, of unbreakable bonds forged in basements and dimly lit bedrooms. And rock-hard stale pizza left over from the week before.

Yes, some of us stayed friends. But life took us in different directions—careers, families, moves across the country. In my case, I eventually found myself back in the town where it all started.

As Season Five approaches, I suspect Stranger Things will be about more than monsters. It’ll be about endings. About letting go. Maybe even about what comes after. But for those of us who lived that era—not just watched it—that ending is going to land differently.

It’s going to mean something.

I’m looking forward to it. But I’ll admit—I’m also bracing myself. Because saying goodbye, even to something that only existed in fiction, still stirs up everything we thought we left behind.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the point.