Beware: minor Stranger Things spoilers ahead.
I am a little Stranger Things piggie. I cannot get enough! Give me more theories, more behind the scenes, more niche references – something to tide me over until the next installment of season four drops on July 1.
Apparently, if you ask, the Netflix gods will ensure that you do receive. Turns out a massively emotional detail has been peppered throughout multiple Stranger Things seasons, right before our very eyes – and most of us missed it. Until now, that is.
According to a recent TikTok from Netflix (so you KNOW it’s legit), a thin blue hair tie bracelet often seen around Eleven’s wrist is a whole lot more meaningful than any of us realised.
@netflix The journey of the blue hair-tie #StrangerThings ♬ original sound – Netflix
In the TikTok, we see the evolution of the blue hair tie. Turns out it actually belonged to Hopper’s first daughter, as we see a pair of them in her pigtails in a flashback scene from earlier the series. As her illness progresses, we see that Hopper has turned the hair tie into a bracelet and he’s wearing it as he reads her a story in her hospital bed.
But that’s not where it ends! As if my heart can take any more.
In a scene from season two, we see Hopper wearing the bracelet as he tells Eleven to only open the door if she hears his secret knock. In the snowball dance scene at the end of season two, Eleven now wears the bracelet, implying that either Hopper has passed it down to her, or there’s two bracelets and it’s a friendship bracelet-kinda situation. Both options make me wanna cry.
Eleven wears the bracelet while shopping with Max in season three, and while reading Hopper’s speech after his, ahem, ‘death’. She even wears it at school in season four.
The internet had an appropriately hysterical reaction to this revelation.
“NO NETFLIX WHY,” said one commenter.
“Hopper is a beautiful Dad,” said another.
Now this gets me even more riled up for Volume II of Stranger Things season four. I need to know…what happened to the blue hair tie bracelet?! I demand to know!
