Stranger Things Boycott Grows Over Season 5 Due To One Actor

Though it’s been a few months since Schnapp’s behavior on social media left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth, it’s clear that not enough time has passed for everybody forgive him.

For those of you who don’t remember, Noah Schnapp garnered quite a bit of controversy this past October after making some polarizing remarks about the Israel-Gaza conflict.

And the Stranger Things star really pushed things over the edge after filming himself handing out those “Zionism is sexy” stickers and sharing it on his social media accounts.

Schnapp wasn’t making too many headlines for a brief while, but Netflix’s Stranger Things promotion reminded everybody that they’re still mad at him.

So what does this mean for Stranger Things, and Noah Schnapp’s future with the show?

While it’s clear that some fans are vehemently opposed to supporting any story arc related to Will Byers, an overwhelming number of fans are simply overjoyed that Season 5 is finally being filmed after so much time passed between production runs.

And out of those users who say they’re boycotting the series, there’s no definitive way to measure if they’re former Stranger Things fans who can’t in good conscience support anything Noah Schnapp has his name attached to, or if they never actually watched the series in the first place.

But if we had to speculate, it’s probably a combination of both.

One fact that needs to be considered, however, is that Noah Schnapp lost nearly half a million followers on his social media after making his original statements back in October.

So if we’re talking about Stranger Things fans who are no longer going to support the show, then we’re talking about a significant amount of people boycotting the series.

Though X users are urging Netflix and the Duffer Brothers to kill off Will Byers early on in the upcoming season, it’s not likely that the narrative will deviate from what the series has been building up to for the better part of a decade.

What’s more, until Stranger Things sees its season 5 premiere, we probably won’t be able to fully understand what kind of damage Noah Schnapp may have caused to the series, if any.

Stranger Things kicked off principal photography for its fifth and final season on January 8, 2024 after many production delays. It also remains to be seen how significant of a role Noah Schnapp will play in season 5‘s storytelling.

But given how important of a character Will Byers has been up to this point in the series, we’d venture to say that he’ll be getting plenty of screen time.

As of this writing, neither Netflix nor Noah Schnapp has commented on the controversy or possible boycott.

Source: Newsweek