This weekly trip through the youth pop culture landscape takes us from turmoil in Stranger Things fandom, where many fans refuse to let the show end, to the kids’ Wild West of Roblox, where age-verification is changing the landscape in a massive way, and all the way to Africa, where online mega-celebrity IShowSpeed is livestreaming a fascinating travelogue that people are watching all over the world.
What is “Conformity Gate?”
The final episode of Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things aired on Dec. 31 and it seems that many fans are not happy (shocking, right?). Some feel that the finale left too many loose ends, some that it all happened too easily, or that it was rushed, sloppy, and that it just kind of sucked. Some fans were so unhappy with the end of the series that they concluded it couldn’t really be the end; there has to be more to it. Thus was born “Conformity Gate,” the fan-conspiracy-theory that states there is a secret, real ending to Stranger Things that Netflix hasn’t released yet.
In a nutshell, Conformity Gate imagines that the events depicted in the last episode didn’t actually happened in reality. The show’s antagonist, Vecna, is in control of the story, and the seeming ending is an illusion that the characters (and audience) have been fed. The evidence is scant—props are slightly different from season to season or episode to episode, characters get small details wrong in dialogue, and other small differences. These are, I’m confident, the result of continuity and editing errors mixed with fans overanalyzing.
I suspect the overarching issue with the end of Stranger Things is the same problem that has plagued other ambitious TV shows—Lost, Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, etc. There isn’t a fully worked out ending when the show is pitched, leaving the show’s creators to try to “work something out” for the ending, as opposed to going into it knowing exactly how it’s going to come out. This is also why the first seasons of good shows are almost always better than the seasons that follow: The show’s creators have fully plotted out the arc of the first season, but future events are more vague so the story feels slapdash instead of inevitable.
Anyway, Charlie Heaton, who plays Jonathan Byers in Stranger Things, called the Conformity Gate theory “insane,” and the bio on Stranger Thing‘s X account was changed to read “ALL EPISODES OF STRANGER THINGS ARE NOW PLAYING (all-caps are theirs.) This doesn’t close the case on Stranger Things, though. There’s still money to be made on the franchise, so I’d bet we see new content at some point; it just probably won’t be a new ending.
Roblox age verification launched
The new year brings a world-shaking event to videogame Roblox: mandatory ID or facial verification. It works like this: if unverified users try to chat on Roblox, they are directed to give the game permissions to use their camera, then follow a series of online instructions so a verification algorithm can divine their age group based on their features. Users over 13 can submit a photo of an identification card instead. Roblox promises any images or videos taken during the verification process will be deleted after it is complete. Players who don’t want to verify can still play Roblox, but they won’t be able to use communication features within it. Once Roblox knows users’ ages, it only allows them to chat with others in similar age groups. Here’s how the company breaks down who may chat with whom:
The move is in response to longtime concerns about child safety within Roblox, which include organized groups of online predators like 764 using the game to recruit victims, Roblox mini-games with questionable content that are/were open to younger players, and at least 24 reported arrests of sex predators using Roblox to find victims.
An age-verified Roblox account is a positive step, but it’s far from perfect. Videos like this are popping up on TikTok, where users seem to be sharing ways to get around the filter system. I have no idea if this would work, but if it does, not only would it let kids have more “grown up” accounts, it also could lead to grown-ups getting “younger” accounts. Online groomers often mimic the age group they’re interested in, and a verified account seems like it would make this much easier. Another area of concern: Last week, users on X were linking to eBay accounts specifically advertised as “13-15 age group accounts.” Those auctions seem to have been taken down by eBay, but in the darker corners of the internet, I have no doubt that trade in verified Roblox accounts is brisk.
What is a Choppelganger?
This week’s slang word combines the words “chopped” and “doppelgänger” to deliver a massive insult. “Chopped” (as you can read in Lifehacker’s glossary of Gen Z and Gen A slang) describes a person who is ugly, and doppelgänger means “a ghostly duplicate of a living person,” so a choppelganger is someone who looks like you, but worse. The term was coined in this post on X :
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And it was soon adopted by TikTokers who posted videos like these:
It’s probably not the most widely used slang—there aren’t too many places where the idea actually would come up—but it’s definitely clever.
Viral video of the week: Speed does Africa
These are dark days for humanity, but there’s some sunlight breaking through. This week’s conformation of the essential goodness of people comes from YouTube legend IShowSpeed, who is in the middle of posting an epic series of livestream videos documenting a trip to Africa. The internet is responding, both in America and in Africa, with tens of millions of views.
So far, Speed has visited Rwanda, Zambia, Kenya (where he and his crew went on safari and visited the Maasai Mara where Speed got a traditional tattoo, among other adventures) and more. Many more stops are planned in the coming days, including Liberia, Morocco, and Botswana. Speed is like an informal ambassador for America’s people, and his open, honest, hilarious videos are acting as a cultural exchange program or a bridge between two worlds. The comments are amazing, with African people posting things like, “No words can capture the depth of what we feel as Africans. By simply revealing our humanity, you have compelled the world to witness the true brilliance of our continent—its beauty, its dignity, its spirit,” and Americans saying things like, “I didn’t know Zimbabwe was lit like that” and posting emotional reaction videos like this:
If you need some hopium, you should definitely go to IShowSpeed’s YouTube channel and follow along on his adventures, even if you’re an old fart like me.
