Before i begin, no, i have not watched any Stranger Things eps besides the first two and the finale. I don’t care if you call me a “fake fan”, i just think my experience with Byler is relevant to this. (I’m not claiming to be a Stranger Things fan) To start, if you don’t know what queerbait is, it’s a marketing tactic where creators hint at or strongly imply queer romance to attract queer audiences, but never actually delivering on said romance, and this is often done to avoid making homophobic fans feel alienated or having the show censored/cancelled. I HATE this as a queer person. My first time ever being queerbaited was with the tv show Loki. I’d developed a hyperfixation around the character himself, which lead to me reading the comics. In the comics (and in the mythology they were based off of) showed Loki as a genderfluid shapeshifter with no romantic gender preference, and this spoke to me. So when i watched the show and Loki was shown to be bi, i really thought he was going to end up with Mobius (and fans of the show talking about their relationship was the reason i’d wanted to watch it anyway). So when the show started portraying him and Sylvie (a character that was pretty much his sister, being a variation of him) in a romantic light, even having them kiss once, i felt betrayed. And then Loki and Mobius. Never got together. (And this is not so say bi people can’t date people of the opposite gender, Sylki just felt kind of gross to me and Lokius made more sense) And you can SEE the queerbait here. Loki is shown to be queer and his relationship with Mobius is a little to intimate to be just friendly, but then Marvel goes and basically kills off Loki instead of giving them anything, and if you’ve seen SOME (keyword SOME) Marvel fans, the community surrounding most of Marvel’s movies and shows, some of them are kind of homophobic, which would stand to reason why Marvel would queerbait their audience instead of actually giving us an actual happy ending for a queer character. (which is not an excuse, queerbaiting is stupid and cowardly) Now onto a more recent experience i had, which was with Byler. I’ve not actually watched a lot of Stranger Things, but since i’m fairly chronically online, i’d heard a lot about Byler and thought it’d be great if a show made nowadays actually gave a queer character (Will) a happy ending with someone he’s actually in love with instead of just having him “learn to accept himself”. So on New Years, my other queer friend who’d watched Stranger Things fully asked me if i wanted to watch the finale with her, i said sure because i was so hopeful that Byler would actually be cannon. I sat there. For two whole hours. Just to get: “friends? no thanks. Best friends.” What. The. Hell. That is actually so stupid, and the Duffer Brothers KNEW what they were doing. I know there are other queer characters in the show, but seeing Will not get the ending we all wanted for him was crushing, even as someone who barely watched the show. As a whole, this kind of thing in media makes me feel so hopeless. I’m crushing on someone who may not like me back (we’re both boys), and seeing queer characters not getting the ending they deserve makes me feel like i’m never going to find someone who loves me for who i am. Anyways. I get really passionate about queer things so haha. If you ship mileven or sylki or whatever just don’t harass me, i’m allowed to share my opinions and feelings, and i’m not personally attacking you by having them.
Also fyi, i’m using the word “queer” to describe anything or anyone LGBTQIAP+
