Coming into age in a horror show
Stranger Things has released the latest episodes of the mash-up coming-of-age 80’s nostalgia (my god, yes, that’s a thing), horror movie, gang hang together, good vs. evil series.
I’ve become a fan, with too much time available to catch up on old episodes and a deep dive into stuff I never learned about.
A portal to the mind
Thirty years ago, I wandered into a gamer’s hangout shop, looking for my early adolescent son. A Dungeons & Dragons marathon was underway, and a young, good-looking attorney from work was deeply involved in the game. I felt like I had stumbled into a portal in the back of his mind, the part that was still a 12-year-old boy.
That’s what watching Stranger Things has done for me. Like one of the characters, I have been inhabiting the mind of someone completely different. But there are, of course, universal themes.
Now, this post is not a recommendation. Stranger Things features pedestrian, even boring dialogue. But it is of the cultural moment, and I started out trying to understand it, and now I am hooked.
Part of the hook for me is like the documentary series Seven Up, which I do recommend, which revisits the same people every seven years in their lives. We learn what constitutes a life well lived from very different points of view. It’s a bit like being 70 or older.
I usually hate coming-of-age stories. It’s been a long time since I came of age, and was that angsty. I am a fan of Crows Feet on Medium and other geezer stories, though, and I guess old age is another coming-of-age story. I will revise my biases.
The social clique/hierarchy experience
Middle school and high school have universal everyday experiences, at least in the American versions: the popular kids, the outsiders, the geeks. Generational changes create new labels, but the same hierarchies have been documented since the 1950s, if not before. The rest of life can feel like a revision of high school.
The preferred world of stories
I have come to live in a world of stories like the adolescents portrayed in Stranger Things. Given the current real world, which feels like an apocalyptic horror story, I choose to live in a world of various fictions or different accounts. In that fictional world of Good vs. Evil, Good wins. The monsters are really monsters, not just metaphors.
Plus, I missed the 1980s pop culture. I was having kids and coralling toddlers. I mostly listened to sing-along Raffi, and didn’t know who the popular singers were, though I know the Raffi lyrics that are about llamas in pajamas. I watch 1980s nostalgia to learn about the 1980s, the significant parts I missed.
The young actors from Stranger Things are in their 20s (the first season filmed 10 years ago) and have a worldwide fan base. I have heard some actors’ names and can now put faces and backstories to them. As far as I can tell, the series appeals to those who are age peers and to those who came of age in the 1980s.
Women characters have leadership and hero roles as well as men. Coming out is a thing; being gay or lesbian is not yet normalized, but it is more acceptable than when I was growing up. Boys still use sexist and homophobic language as insults. Mean girls are still mean.
I discussed his life basics with a young in-law at Christmas, my visit to the 20-something world of the Stranger Things fan base. Affordability limits his dreams and expectations. This, too, is foreign to me. Working at a chain grocery store and sharing an apartment with friends is his norm, and I don’t see plans to change it.
Summary
I look back at those friends who hung together in middle school and high school as people I really know. Remembering childhood phone numbers, or names of pets, or what their parents were like, shortcuts a lot of years. As I age, I reach back. Maybe that’s one of the stranger things.
So this is what I’ve learned.
We are all coming of age; it’s just a new age.
Stories can be better than real life.
The decades for nostalgia keep getting upped.
Middle school and high school are baselines for comparing the rest of life.
Life goes better with a few friends along the journey.
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