Yesterday was the season finale of Stranger Things.
I guess most of my friends haven’t seen it – either because you were dancing, or because you’re too grown-up to watch a horror-roleplay-coming-of-age story.
Well. I am not.
Despite my best efforts to become a valuable part of society as a psychologist, I ended up as a tango teacher and roleplaying-games (RPG) creator – inventing settings of music and fantasy, somehow escaping from the bleak world around us.
Stranger Things is a TV show about RPG horrors that suddenly invade the real world. And about the misfits who confront and conquer the dark. And although the show itself was not consistently good – and my suspension of disbelief was seriously challenged at times – I was profoundly moved by the finale yesterday.
Let me tell you why.
Growing up in Germany, there was never such a strict division between the popular crowd, the followers, and the misfits. My friends were a very mixed bunch who defied those categories entirely. At school and at university, I was well integrated, had good grades, and didn’t display any obvious flaws – apart from the tendency to speak up whenever I saw something I found unjust or wrong. (I never masked my inner Buffy very well.)
But when I discovered RPGs in my mid-twenties (very late!), I definitely bonded with the nerds. The ones who did not quite fit – because they were neither conventionally attractive, sporty, nor particularly outgoing. Most of these young guys didn’t have girlfriends, and many of them were far on the spectrum. And yes, there were almost no (young) women present.
And yet, I still fit in. Maybe because I am not as shiny as I look – but mainly because we shared a love for stories, for history, for the power of made-up worlds in which our characters could overcome inner demons and outer dangers. (Okay, maybe also because I was relatively successful in “normal society”, I usually played tragic, broken, or handicapped characters. I was never particularly interested in playing the flawless heroes that many of my RPG friends preferred.)
Still, I was deeply involved in RPGs and with the nerds – something many of my “normal” friends found strange at best. But they had to accept my nerd-friends into their circles and so, in my world, the geeks and the normies were joined. But I know that even today, many of my tango friends don't understand my fascination with this phenomenon. Some may even look down on me, because they find it childish.
Back to Stranger Things: the entire show – and especially the finale – was not just an homage to roleplaying games. It was a dedication to us, the nerds. Yes, I count myself in!
We throw ourselves completely into a topic and read everything about it, even if it doesn’t seem interesting or useful in everyday life. We know everything about medieval weaponry, obscure history, arcane technical details – and yes, we are also the ones obsessed with computers and the internet. When I started RPGs in the early 90s, I was still very opposed to computers, but my nerd-friends convinced me and now, the world has changed entirely because of them. Like it or not, but the geeks were the vanguard.
And there’s more. Roleplaying games might seem silly to you, but at their core they are incredibly complex simulations of life. They are spaces where people don’t just practice problem-solving, tactics, and strategic planning, but also experiment with and develop social skills: The pimply kid may only be charming while playing an attractive bard – but give him time to grow, and he’ll show the same skills in real life, if someone is willing to overlook that he isn’t as muscly as the good-looking baseball player. Because you cannot actually fake these social or intellectual skills in RPGs either. They need to grow in you and RPGs can help with that.
And this is why Stranger Things made me oddly happy: The series truly acknowledges the nerds and their obsession with RPGs. In the 80's roleplaying games was not only seen as weird, but even as dangerous. Now, so many years later, it has been elevated into the canon of "cool-things-to-do". I love that!
Sure, the trope of “the glorious nerd” was already celebrated in Buffy and The Big Bang Theory. But those stories focused on young adults. In Stranger Things, we see the nerds as insecure kids, see them grow up, save the world, and find their place in society – without losing what makes them unique.
Dustin’s valedictorian speech at the end of this season summed all of this up beautifully.
So here’s what I’m saying: stick to the nerds. Because – when the zombie apocalypse comes, it will be them who solve the problems.
Okay, to be fair, some of those problems might well be created by the older generation of successful nerds – but hey, let’s not ruin the story here.
Because to me, stories matter.
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