Strange Lessons

Warning: Major Stranger Things spoilers ahead!

Sonny S (Year 12)

February 25, 2026

Design by Alice H (Year 11)

Over the holidays, I did what half the population seemed to be doing – taking a trip to the Upside Down and binge-watching Stranger Things. Whether you were rewatching previous seasons to jog your memory or watching that final episode on New Years Day, Stranger Things became the unofficial Christmas and New Year’s ritual.

After finally recovering from Eleven’s death – yes, we all know she’s not alive – I was reflecting on the show and was trying to pinpoint what made Stranger Things the most watched show on Netflix, with 1.2 billion views, and counting. It’s easy to say it was the suspense, the 80s nostalgia, the cliff hangers that made you say, “just one more episode”. But the more I thought about it, it seemed to me that a major part of the show’s appeal was the positive life messages and lessons it captured, and it’s only since that final episode ended that I’ve opened my eyes to these lessons.

Now that it has been a couple months and we’ve taken some time to grieve about the ending of this amazing show, let’s take a look at these Strange Lessons we learnt along the way.

1. It’s not just about the hair

Looking at that subtitle, you might be thinking, “These really are strange lessons.” But stay with me. I’m talking about the beloved, and my personal favourite, Steve Harrington.

Season 1 Steve had the hair, the confidence, the popularity. He acted like the king of Hawkins High, defining himself by status and what others thought of him. But while he may have been popular in the show, he wasn’t popular with the audience. He leaned into the “cool kid” image and, honestly, he was a jerk.

Then something changed.

Episode by episode, season by season, Steve lost the popularity and the ego but gained something far more valuable. He became protective, dependable, humble, and empathetic. He owned his mistakes. He put others before himself. He became the person you could rely on.

And suddenly, he was everyone’s favourite.

Not because of the hair (though it deserves some credit). Not because he was popular. But because he chose to grow. That’s the strange lesson: popularity isn’t value. Character is. And your identity isn’t fixed; it’s built by the choices you make. It’s never too late to turn into the most loved character of your show too.

2. The real superpower is friendship

You may think it’s cringe or similar to that “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” cliché, but just because it can be a little corny and predictable, doesn’t mean it should be looked down upon.

Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas start off as nerdy D&D kids who get mocked at school. But when Will goes missing, their loyalty shines through and they show up for their friendship. Yes, Eleven can flip vans with her mind, and yes, Hopper can survive literally anything, but at the core of all the action, Stranger Things reminds us that no one can win alone.

You don’t need to be the smartest or the strongest in the classroom. You need loyal friends who will help you when you don’t know an answer or build you up when you’re disappointed about a result.

Because at the end of the day in Hawkins, the real superpower was friendship.

3. It’s more than just a song

It’s impossible not to mention Kate Bush’s “Running up that Hill”. It became more than a song in that incredible scene in Season 4, it was a lifeline, which is why we can’t not talk about the importance of it.

When Max was trapped, physically and mentally, that song was the one thing anchoring her to reality. It became more than just background music; it was connection and survival. This example reminds us that it can be something like music that grounds us when we are lost. It pulls us back to who we are when pressures try to squash us. And for Max, it literally saved her life.

In the classroom, music can be looked at as a distraction, an escape from the stresses of school, but if Stranger Things has shifted my perspective on one thing, it’s that music is an anchor. Life will have its Upside-Down moments. Stress of exams. Friendships collapsing. Rejection. You need something that can anchor you in the choppy waters, and music has the ability to do that.

Even if it doesn’t literally save your life, music can be the thing that carries you through the toughest moments, the melody that lifts you when motivation is low and the obstacles ahead seem too high. Don’t just hear it as a song, use it as a tool.

4. Being different isn’t a weakness

Nearly every hero in Stranger Things is a bit different. Sometimes in merely superficial ways, sometimes in deep, identity-defining ways. You have the nerd, the weirdo, the misfit, the anxious one, and so on. The show flips the script and shows us that it’s their differences that make the difference… if that even makes sense.

The boys’ love for D&D, something they’re mocked for, actually trains them to think strategically. Dustin’s curiosity and scientific brain, which make him seem “uncool,” repeatedly help solve life-threatening problems. Eleven’s difference is obvious, she doesn’t grow up like everyone else, she struggles socially, but these differences became her strength. And of course, Will’s long struggle to understand and accept who he is ultimately helps him find peace (and a cool new skill).

You might think differently to your friends, have different hobbies, take different subjects, and it’s easy to push your differences aside to “fit in”. The characters in Stranger Things teach us to embrace our differences, because the world doesn’t need copies of the same people, it’s the uniqueness in individuals that is the strength.

Being different isn’t the problem; believing it’s a weakness is.

5. Knowledge is power

When things go wrong in Hawkins, and there isn’t an episode where they don’t, the group doesn’t always just overcome the problem by punching harder. Although it helps having a psychically gifted friend, they almost always solve their issues because someone knows something important, or at the very least, who to ask for help.

Whenever there’s something not even Dustin can figure out, best believe Mr Clarke the kid’s Year 7science teacher knows it all. But probably the prime example of the knowledge is power principle happens in the finale of Season 3 where the characters are trying to close the gate to the Upside-Down, they need a key that’s locked away in a safe, and the code is Planck’s constant which only one character knows. Dustin’s girlfriend Suzie, who is all the way in Utah, saves the day because she is the only one who knows Planck’s constant. Now of course that came at the cost of the iconic “Neverending Story” scene, but it seemed like a fair price to me. Nonetheless, it’s because Suzie knew something that they were able to close that gate.

Being an extraordinary learner doesn’t mean being perfect. It’s being curious like Dustin. It’s constantly asking questions like the kids do with Mr Clarke to grow in your learning. It’s having your own “Planck’s constant” that you can pull out of your back pocket.

In Stranger Things it saves the world, and while it might not be as dramatic in an exam, that formula that you asked your math teacher about might be the reason you get the top mark. So, it doesn’t hurt to take your learning further to know something, because as the famous saying goes… “knowledge is power”.

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Ultimately, if you really search for the heart of what this amazing series is about, it isn’t monsters. Or dodgy doctors. Or weird alternative universes. It’s about what this extraordinary group does when faced by extraordinary circumstances, and it’s in those moments that we discover these Strange Lessons. And maybe that’s why it resonated so strongly, because behind the science fiction and the fantasy, it captures something real.

We’re all going to navigate our own Upside-Down at some point in life, so take these lessons with you and you won’t just survive it, you’ll come back stronger on The Rightside Up.