People Are Still Arguing About Season 5 Of “Stranger Things”

—by Adam Bumas

In case anyone was waiting for an update, there was no secret gay post-finale episode of Stranger Things. Instead, there was a documentary, one which was supposed to celebrate the show’s production, but really only raised further questions. Fans are now speculating (and arguing, of course) over barely visible details from the behind-the-scenes footage. It’s easy to see why, and it’s not just because there’s no more show left to theorize about.

One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 started streaming on Netflix on Monday. Any conversation about it means it’s doing its job. Netflix was willing to give up $30 million to movie theaters so people could see Stranger Things’ finale on the big screen, all for the buzz they’d get around making it a social occasion. The documentary is one more part of the company’s enormous marketing apparatus, selling everything from their immersive Pennsylvania mall experience to film-accurate KPop Demon Hunters ramen.

But how, exactly, is the documentary selling Stranger Things? One Last Adventure was released less than two weeks after the final episode. Historically it’s unusual to show detailed production work so quickly, when the final product is still fresh in the conversation — classically, these were promotional clips because the actual result isn’t finished yet, or bonus features to sell home media.

In the past few years, though, making-of documentaries have picked up the pace. Avatar: Fire and Ash had one out on Disney+ a month before the movie released. There are still streaming services to sell, but the film and TV industry has a new competitor, thanks to the rise of generative AI. The documentary sells the show as being created, not generated.

Which meant it was a problem when fans started digging into a few brief shots of the Duffer Brothers’ computers as they wrote the scripts for the final episode of Stranger Things. There’s a lot to comb through, beyond the fact that they write the scripts in unformatted Google Docs. The computers have a litany of tabs open in the background, including at least one Reddit page, a Zillow listing, and three tabs that some think show the favicon for ChatGPT.

Calling this a Rorschach test is barely a metaphor. It’s too blurry to be certain either way, but that just means you can argue about it as long as you like. Anything could be in those tabs, and users have made some wild claims, like calling it proof of the Duffer Brothers violating WGA contracts, or using fan theories to write the show. Others have dropped the extra steps and are saying it justifies how much they hated the last season.

The official response has not helped things at all. The Duffers themselves declined to comment to the Hollywood Reporter, but the outlet did speak to the documentary's director, Martina Radwan. Radwan said she didn’t witness “unethical use of generative AI” while filming her documentary, but asked, “doesn’t everybody have [ChatGPT] open, to just do quick research?” Which makes that “unethical” question murkier, which keeps the online speculation going.

Which, to bring things around, is the opposite of what the documentary is trying to do here. There still isn’t an established term, but people have tried “proof of reality” and “proof of craft.” Either way, it’s become especially common for Hollywood productions, which are the most expensive way to make images and video, and so need that proof the most. That’s why Tom Cruise, with his characteristic speed, has been making the production a focus of his movies’ marketing for years.

So it’s an existential problem if a behind-the-scenes look at a huge TV show convinces people generative AI made the show. Especially since, after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023, any use in a major production is both a marketing issue and a labor issue. Even passive or quiet moves towards generated content have ended badly. A month ago, YouTube terminated multiple accounts that post AI-generated trailers for real movies, after a report from Deadline found the studios were secretly taking ad revenue from those trailers.

As the Stranger Things hype machine warmed up last year, we saw yet another discourse cycle over a supposed artificial actress competing with real actresses. The most prominent argument in favor of “Tilly Norwood” was from the gritty muckrakers at The Free Press, where Tyler Cowen wrote she appealed to people “who wish to see a virgin on-screen.” Even setting aside how those people could do that any time with the power button (gottem), it’s a complete misunderstanding of what keeps the machine running.

Sure, it might save some headaches for Netflix if they used sex-crazed Grok chatbots to replace David Harbour or Millie Bobby Bon Jovi. But it would destroy their engagement figures — our Garbage Intelligence data showed Millie was Instagram’s most popular account in December. It would also erase any chance for the awards Netflix is still desperate to win, and hobble the nostalgic marketing strategy that’s gotten any discussion of the show so prominent in the first place.

The first season of Stranger Things aired in 2015, meaning the show is older than both OpenAI and the tech that makes ChatGPT work. Generative AI’s big selling point is being cheaper, faster and more efficient, but that’s not always desirable for premium products. Audiences for prestige filmmaking are used to standards of production, where “the same thing cheaper and faster” means “direct to Redbox sequel,” a comparison Netflix’s biggest TV show can’t afford to invite.

This discourse cycle hasn’t given us any definitive answers for whether generative AI was used to make Stranger Things. But it’s shown how completely the industry would have to change to adopt the technology in a complete sense. No one would watch a making-of featurette that was just the Duffer Brothers doing prompt engineering.

A Real Good TikTok

Are Video Podcasts A Form Of Union Busting?

Netflix is moving into the video “podcast” space. The Pete Davidson Show is premiering on the platform at the end of the month. And there are a ton of existing shows launching there as well. And I have some questions!

First, exactly what makes these shows “podcasts?” We’re well past the days of podcasts being just audio, but Netflix’s original “podcast” with Pete Davidson doesn’t even appear to have an audio option, or, most importantly, an RSS feed. I assumed all of this was just an attempt at cashing in on the podcast (or, primarily, Joe Rogan) aesthetic that’s so popular right now. But Vulture critic Kathryn VanArendonk pointed out something I hadn’t considered.

“This one weird trick will let you make a talk show but not have to pay union rates,” she wrote on Bluesky this week. It’s unclear if Davidson’s “podcast” is a union production, but if anyone involved with the show wants chat, email me at ryan@garbagebeday.email. Very curious to learn more here.

But let’s spin back to the aesthetics idea because I do think it’s important. It’s clear that the public perception of “podcasts” is changing. They are, for all intents and purposes, becoming a catch-all term for “talk show.” Specifically talk shows where you can see the microphones. Which seem to be a signal of authenticity for viewers who are tired of the aesthetics of TV. And I don’t think it’s a crazy prediction that basically any unscripted, non-reality show will eventually just be called a podcast. Which will probably be very confusing for a while!

One Of The Biggest Songs In The World Right Now Is An AI Cover Of Stromae

An “afro soul” version of Stromae’s 2013 track “papaoutai” just hit #168 on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs Global chart. I’ve found different uploads of the AI version on YouTube, all with millions of views. And what’s super interesting is that a ton of the users in the comments are all saying that they decided to look the song up because of an Instagram Reel.

I found the Reel everyone is talking about. It has over 16 million views and it was posted by a Nigerian animator named Willy Kanga. Kanga made an animated skit (without AI) and set it to the AI cover, which went super viral, which then made the song chart.

Not only is this another fascinating example of an AI song going viral because of a meme — like with the Brazilian funk song that went viral late last year — but it’s also more proof that Spotify lives downstream of short-form video apps like TikTok and Instagram. Which is something we’ve been tracking in our monthly Garbage Intelligence reports. Spotify might be where people are listening to music, but it’s not where they’re discovering music.

Italy’s Far-Right Otaku Prime Minister Is Visiting Japan Right Now

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is on a state visit to Japan right now and decided to celebrate by posting a selfie with the country’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first woman to hold the office. Unfortunately, she is also a far-right maniac. And, of course, Meloni fed the photo into an AI anime filter.

Meloni was also gifted art of her favorite anime, Fist of the North Star.

Takaichi is currently trying to dissolve the country’s House of Representatives and call a snap election in a bid to consolidate more power, while also trying to align Japan closer with the Trump administration’s trade war with China. While Meloni is under pressure to distance herself from Trump’s imperial ambitions in Greenland. “What do you mean we must distance ourselves, in the sense that we must leave NATO? We must close American bases? We must sever trade relations, we must storm McDonald’s,” she said at press conference last week.

Anyways, this is all to say that we live in hell and everything is embarrassing everywhere all the time.

Unraveling The Mystery Of Whether Or Not The Little Caesars In Saco, Maine, Ever Had An Arcade

We have a good old fashioned Reddit mystery on our hands: Why does the Little Caesars in Saco, Maine, have so many Google reviews that mention it having an arcade when it does not have an arcade and seemingly never had an arcade? The redditor who shared the post about this claimed that the people working at the Little Caesars got extremely hostile when he called and asked them about it. And even stranger, the redditor claims that they got a call from someone claiming to be law enforcement telling them to stop investigating this.

The best guess from the comments about what’s happening here is that Google data about a nearby go-kart track may have become entangled with the Little Caesars listing on Google Maps. There’s another guess that this is one long prank that some guy in the town is playing on the Little Caesars, which may explain why the employees are not exactly thrilled about getting calls about it.

ChatGPT Plays Pokémon

Some Stray Links

P.S. here’s a good TikTok.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***