Television

My parents have been committed to it, and my mom made me watch the whole new season when I visited. I've seen the whole show except the last episode now. Still shit. I feel they mostly fixed the tone issue from the previous season and there was more action and stuff to kinda hook you, but it was still worse in pretty much every other way. The writing in general I felt was the worst so far. Lots of plot points that didn't make sense, characters behaving weird, forced conflicts, actors that are visibly too old to be playing the character (particularly Holly), etc... etc...

I've been convinced they're gaslighting us into thinking it's some sort of cultural keystone show like Lost or GoT when they were on the air.

Am I wrong? Have I just been oblivious to the fan base? Either way, the marketing blitz is at least a little disproportional

I dont think you're necessarily wrong, Stranger Things is not an equivalent to those shows and it doesn't have the same scale of hyper-invested fan base. It does have very broad appeal and is very casual friendly, though. That's probably why the mass marketing campaign is being rolled out; everyone has heard of this show and many have watched at least some of it.

In a sense, it is a cultural event because it's a finale that a very wide spectrum of people will be tuning into. Stranger Things was one of Netflix's first big shows and has been a cash cow for a long time. It won't have the same kind of lasting cultural legacy as Lost or Game of Thrones, which modern shows are still frequently compared to, but in the moment I can understand why hype exists. It's a big thing for it to be ending.

I like it very much that you share your observations and ask instead of stating your experiences as a universal rule.

Almost everyone I talked to, has seen – and liked –the first part of the last season. The only "ad" I have seen, was a branded D&D book in a lokal (german) TTRPG store.

So your experience may wildly differ, depending on your age, location, social circles, hobbies, usage of ad blockers etc.

To be honest, I like the show very much. I cannot stand contemporary US culture for obvious reasons, but this nostalgic 80s thing is fine. What makes this show a thousand times better than GoT or (as far as I was told) Lost, is that the last season started out as an absolute banger instead of a rage inducing piece of shit. So I booked a ticket for the hype train. Just a few hours to goooooo 🚂

Not wrong, just corporations saw that hype is real and cultural phenomenons are profitable so now of course they just manufacture it.

Game of thrones -> The Witcher, Stranger Things, Rings of Power. All try to force the hype

A really obvious one is barbenheimer. Truly a weird cultural moment. So now every year they try to manufacture that hype again. Last two years was the same with wicked.