Netflix appears to crash amid ‘Stranger Things’ confirmity gate theory
Netflix reportedly crashed for a large number of users on January 7th, following a popular Stranger Things fan theory that suggested a secret ninth episode would be uploaded on the streaming platform.
Netflix allegedly experienced a service disruption on January 7th at around 8pm EST, which is 1am GMT on January 8th, as fans allegedly logged onto the platform in anticipation of the secret ninth episode.
The popular sci-fi show ended on New Year’s Eve with the eighth episode, ‘The Rightside Up’, which tied the series in a bow, a decade after it first went into production.
However, fans began to speculate online that a secret ninth episode, one they dubbed ‘Conformity Gate’, would follow up on the finale.
The fan theory suggested that the ending was an illusion by super-villain Vecna; it used evidence such as Morse code symbolism, specific body language, and suggestive clues in the dialogue between characters.
Though Netflix didn’t comment on the alleged outage, which was shared by fans online and confirmed by the likes of IMDb and Yahoo, they have updated the show’s Instagram bio to now read, “All episodes of Stranger Things are now playing.”
This is not the first time that Stranger Things has caused a service disruption; the first few episodes of the season finale were highly anticipated, and even crashed Netflix for thousands of users upon its release.
Co-creators, the Duffer brothers, have since confirmed that there will be a Stranger Things spin-off that will investigate the storyline of Henry, who also plays Vecna. The new show will aim to answer “lingering questions,” left unanswered by the series finale, but will include “an entirely new mythology.”
The Duffer brothers had also previously insisted that there would be no more Stranger Things episodes to come: “This really is the end of the story of Eleven and Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Steve and all these characters, and Hawkins specifically.”
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