The Stranger Things fanbase is completely ridiculous

Everywhere I go I see forums and posts online bashing on Angela because she’s a bully who hurt Eleven and they are often the same type of post over and over again which gets really old after a while, it’s been 4 years, the character only appeared in 3 episodes and adds nothing to the plot, they need to move on already! She’s extremely boring as I legit fell asleep during the stake incident because of how cheesy, cliche, unrealistic, and mind numbingly stupid the scene is (which distracts the audience from Eleven’s derailment that started in s4 and ended with the awful finale) its like they have never seen a tv show or movie where the villain is the most memorable and beloved character? In pop culture: Maleficent, Creulla De Vil, the Joker, most Stephen King villains, Lord Shen, Death the big bad wolf, Regina George, Azula, Bettlejuice, Sue Sylvester, Tammy Swanson, most Marvel villains, and Palpatine are loved by their fans not because they got a redemption arc, but because they were deliciously, unabashedly, and unapologetically evil and are still relevant to this day because they are often the best characters from their respective medias.

They need to reminded that all that type of hate is what lead to Angela’s actress getting harassed online, I swear those people hyper fixate on the wrong things, I even see bad faith criticism towards Steve (especially by the Nancy and Dustin stans) where they point out how awful he is when that is blatantly the point as he grows and learns from said mistakes (it’s called character development) they should pick on a character that’s actually problematic: Hopper who’s character is inconsistent and borderline abusive whereas in season 3 alone he: threatened to kill a minor, acted entitled towards his crush and treated her like property after he boyfriend died saving her and him (who by the way was more compatible with) and had unnecessary violent outbursts over the smallest things and this is treated as comedy, WHAT?!

No one in this show is a saint, no one! Maybe Bob is, but no one is in this show is 100% perfect, people are flawed and the character arcs and villains are meant to be enjoyable rather than create a million threads about black and white morality when that’s not life at all!

I even saw someone in the comment section on a post say: “Max was good in season 4, but she was distant, aloof, and pushed people away and that’s a bad thing!” Of course that’s bad, that’s the entire lesson of her arc. Also her acting that way is extremely realistic considering her home life and how she hasn’t known the main cast for very long (almost 2 years of her life) and her feelings towards Billy are extremely grey which is also realistic opposed to the purists who claim everything is black and white.

If they are going to criticize aspects of this show, they should try to think of the big picture rather than be biased because there’s a reason why Steve and Vecna are so beloved because of how realistic they are and how entertaining they are. They act like these are people you know of real life which they are not! They are fictional and this show is for entertainment above all else and if this show was released in the 80s this bad faith criticism wouldn’t happen as fans are less biased and hypersensitive because god forbid we show uncomfortable scenes of bullies even thought it’s portrayed as bad and only portrayed in a negative light. All shows can’t be preschool shows where nothing bad happens as that’s not life and we need a dose of reality and to acknowledge the bad parts of life because we can learn from them and appreciate what the villains represent thematically.