When Stranger Things first hit Netflix in 2016, it quickly took the internet by storm, becoming one of the most talked about shows in the history of social media. The meteoric rise took many people by storm, including series star David Harbour. In the lead up to Stranger Things 3 next week, we had a chance to speak with Harbour about the upcoming season and the fact the series essentially ended up as an overnight cultural phenomenon.
While chatting about the moment he realized when Stranger Things was going to change his career for the better, Harbour mentioned something that reaffirmed his thoughts on the popularity of the show was when he saw a BuzzFeed quiz involving the characters of the production.
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“…and then Buzzfeed articles started coming out saying “Which Stranger Things Character Are You?” and I just realized almost instantaneously that we had touched a cultural nerve,” Harbour recalls. “I’d been in enough things throughout the years that when they come out, you get occasional texts from people, or emails, or people see you on the street and say, ‘That was great,’ but this was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and I was like, oh, we really hit a nerve. Something that people really, really want. And so, yeah, it was almost overnight.”
When I asked Harbour if he managed to get Chief Jim Hopper — you know, the character he plays in the show — his response was a bit surprising.
“No, I got the monster,” Harbour jokes. “It was the first season quiz, so we don’t have all the characters we have now, but I got Demogorgon. I’m the Demogorgon.”
For the uninitiated, the quizzes are something that gives you a series of questions and at the end, it will spit out a character you’re like the most — using a most-certain tried and true scientific method, no doubt.
Though Netflix is still pretty cagey in regards to viewership stats, a study by Nielsen suggested at least 361,000 viewers finished watching Stranger Things 2 within 24 hours of release in October 2017. That same study also revealed upwards of 15.8 million people watched the premiere of the second seasons within the first three days it was available.
What do you think the group will encounter in the show’s third season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
You’ll be able to binge Stranger Things 3 over the upcoming holiday weekend as it’s set for release on July 4th. The first seasons of the hit show are now streaming.
