Netflix juggernaut Stranger Things ended its nine-year run on New Year’s Eve 2025, but the internet has other plans. A viral theory dubbed "Conformity Gate" has convinced thousands of fans that Netflix is hiding a secret ninth episode, and that today, January 7, 2026, is the day it drops.

Apparently, a fake countdown clock went viral on TikTok, leading to a website that was just an internet troll having some grim fun at the expense of the ridiculous conspiracy theories floating around about a secret episode to Stranger Things ' fifth and final season.

A popular "Stranger Things" theory is taking over the internet, leading fans to believe the hit Netflix show will release a secret episode Jan. 7.

In a bizarre turn of events, Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays Henry Creel aka Vecna in the sci-fi series, seems to be accidentally encouraging the new fan-founded conspiracy theory taking over the internet known as Conformity Gate.

The rumours surrounding Stranger Things episode 9 on Netflix grew so intense that it crashed Netflix. Rumours went viral on social media that a secret episode 9 of Stranger Things would drop on January 7 but it turned out to be a hoax.

Stranger Things has come to an end, and as the Upside Down industrial complex prepares to churn out more strange things, the show’s biggest fans have a simple question: Where is the real series finale,

There is no another finale of Stranger Things. The countdown clock on the website was fake and created to fool fans.

While the Stranger Things finale sparked huge backlash and sent the internet spiralling into theories, such as Conformity Gate, the show remains one of Netflix’s biggest success stories ever. Across nearly a decade, it turned its cast into global stars and became a cultural phenomenon.

On that note: what is Conformity Gate? Fans have found clues throughout the finale of Stranger Things that "prove" another episode is coming, which will allegedly reveal the finale was actually a super meta vision being cast by Vecna (who actually WON). The evidence is abundant, and this TikTok lays it out very clearly:

Stranger Things, Netflix’s decade-defining sci-fi phenomenon, has officially ended after nearly 10 years. What began in 2016 in the fictional town of Hawkins with bikes, walkie-talkies, and middle-school heroes grew into a global pop-culture machine filled with Demogorgons,