This video features in a responsive display in the museum that presents the moments, stories and memes capturing the zeitgeist by going viral on the internet.
Stranger Things has introduced Zoomers to another 80s icon: pop star Kate Bush. In season four, Max (Sadie Sink) is saved from villain Vecna’s spell by her friends playing Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”. Not only did the scene shoot the song into Billboard’s top 10 for the first time in 37 years, it’s been adopted by internet users who’ve wondered what song would save them. One Twitter account tried answer that question by remixing contemporary songs into the scene, showing how online ingenuity can bridge the cultural past and present while allowing viewers to participate in moving image making.
Social media users across the internet have also used special effects programs to show themselves levitating, or running out of the Upside Down from Vecna, often to their favourite songs, which they’ve edited into the visuals. This has allowed the scene to spawn numerous meme templates.
The personal element of the narrative - that your favourite song can save you from evil - and the nostalgia of the series lends itself to users contributing their own songs (and associated emotions) to the visuals, creating a personal but collective, shareable experience.
Another prominent meme created from Stranger Things 4 relies on sound. Before claiming his victims, Vecna makes them hallucinate a ticking grandfather clock (among other things) and its ominous chime (used to great effect in horror movies forever) has become an eerie indicator that he’s coming for you. Naturally, TikTokers have appropriated the sound for comedic effect. Know Your Meme traces the first use of it to user @marcusbtv, who hears it in a skit about gaming, removes one headphone and says “Nope….. not getting me”, before going back to playing.
It’s now been repurposed and reused across the internet, with users often engaging with an invisible clock (they’re hallucinating) or even Big Ben.
The original scene from Stranger Things, featuring Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill"
Related works
How to watch
This work has been digitised but due to rights and access requirements can only be viewed by approved researchers or by an access request.
Collection
Not in ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
Curatorial section
The Story of the Moving Image → Moving Minds → MM-09. Catch of the Day
Object Types
Moving image file/Digital
Materials
Screen recording from @cmebacktoearth's Twitter feed