As Stranger Things ends, here are all the wild IRL events that’ve happened since it began

After a long nine years, Stranger Things is finally coming to an end at the start of 2026. Here are all the wild things that have happened since season one of Stranger Things aired.

We were still part of the EU

Yeah, that’s right. When season one of Stranger Things aired, the UK was still a part of the European Union – the referendum happened only a few weeks before the Netflix series aired. David Cameron was also the Prime Minister of the UK, and was replaced by Theresa May after the referendum.

TikTok wasn’t even a thing when season one came out

@v7rgos

“walk em down” wheelers. #mikewheeler #nancywheeler #karenwheeler #strangerthings5 #fyp

♬ original sound – v7rgos

It feels like we’ve had TikTok forever, but it only launched in September 2016, a whole two months after Stranger Things launched. Before TikTok became the doom-scrolling app we all know and love, it was Musically, an app made for lip-syncing.

Instagram Stories are actually still so new

WHY ARE YOU CRYING IT JUST AN INSTAGRAM STORY pic.twitter.com/SfyoBcD7lr

— shreyas🧋 (@stupidshreyas) December 19, 2025

Stranger Things came out a whole two months before Instagram Stories launched. Now, it’s hard to imagine Instagram without Stories, but back when it first came out, everyone was calling it a rip-off of Snapchat and saying it would never catch on. How wrong we were!

Zendaya was on Disney Channel instead of HBO

via Disney

She’s in lots of serious adult projects like Euphoria and her upcoming film The Drama with Robert Pattinson, but when Stranger Things came out, Zendaya was still on Disney Channel as the main character of K.C. Undercover, after years of playing Rocky in Shake It Up.

Billie Eilish’s entire discography came out after Stranger Things started

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Okay, if we’re being nitpcik-y, Ocean Eyes by Billie Eilish did come out on SoundCloud in 2015, but the actual official release wasn’t for another year. This song absolutely blew up and launched Billie’s career into a global superstar, but when Stranger Things came out, barely anyone knew who she was. She was only 14 years old when Ocean Eyes was released officially, not too far off from the Stranger Things cast members.

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Featured image via Netflix