Will someone please send me directions out of the Upside Down…

Last night, “Stranger Things 2” debuted on Netflix. It has been a highly anticipated show across the internet since Season 1. Season 1 was one of the most impressive organic growth stories of a TV show driven largely by word of mouth, the most influential mode of awareness. As I was caught up past my bedtime binge watching through the fourth episode I jotted down a note to recap the launch of this amazing series.

You may now enter The Upside Down. #StrangerThings is now streaming. pic.twitter.com/ZdrCsvDIFM — Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) October 27, 2017

Stranger Things: The Basics

Season 1: debuted on Netflix on July 15, 2016. It follows the disappearance of Will Byers in a small town filled with mysteries. Stranger Things feels like you’re following the Goonies with a light level of scariness and an amazing mix of music from the 80s.

Season 2 dropped last night, October 27th. Just in time for Halloween fright nights! It picks up at the end of Season 1 and it might be even harder to stop watching than Season 1! Looking at Google Trends we can wee how the momentum of Season 1 continued fairly strong through October. News picked up in November 2016 on Season 2 along with poster art. Finally, Season 2 just released yesterday. Perfectly timed for Halloween.

Stranger Things: The Momentum

I think one of the best ways to see the popularity of “Stranger Things” is to look at it in comparison to some other recent Netflix produced series with Google Trends, starting with the United States. The clear difference here is the drop off after the series debuts on Netflix. Buzz occurs but it is a quick drop off in the first two weeks.

Take a look at “Narcos”, “Iron Fist”, and “Luke Cage” over the last year. All take a dramatic drop in the first few weeks. “Stranger Things” actually picks up momentum as word-of-mouth buzz continues for the first few weeks and continues for 10 weeks at a nice level. Most shows tend to have the most interest immediately in the first week and then fall off. In week 10 after the Season 1 debut it is at almost the same level of search interest as “Narcos: Season 2”. Based on the popularity, the news about Season 2 even outweighs peak interest from Season 1 and other shows. Read more on Netflix Superhero Favorites.

Globally, there is a similar trend but “Narcos” and “Iron Fist” add significantly more interest vs. the US alone. “Narcos” is driven through popularity in Europe and the Middle East, especially Israel, Spain, Romania, and Turkey. But the same short-tail effect (most shows) and long-tail comparison for “Stranger Things” continues.

Stranger Things: Fan Reaction

Let’s look at Twitter fan reactions through the lens of Trendsmap. Over the last 2 weeks there have been almost 2.7M tweets about the show with a max of 3,500 tweets per minute (TPM)! It comes from a nice even split of 51% female and 49% male. In comparison, the NFL broadcast on major networks and globally, plus having a trending #boycottnfl hashtag has had 3.1M tweets in the same time frame. The impressive part of that is that Season 2 debuted just last night so conversation was lighter ahead of that. October 27th (launch day) had 1.1M tweets vs. the peak of NFL conversations at 339,700 on October 15th. NFL tends to have a more constant conversation with obvious peaks on game days.

Interest is coming from across the globe with heavier activity in the US, Europe, Central America, and South America. From a conversation % standpoint (higher proportion of all conversations) Costa Rica, Argentina, Norway, Greece, and Peru lead the way. Total tweets, the US, Brazil, and Argentina lead with NYC, London, Sao Paulo, LA, and Rio taking tops for cities. Based on that distribution there is a 14% rate of Spanish and 14% Portuguese language as part of overall conversations. Most things we look at here at Bullseye Insights tend to have a 95%+ English conversation just based on our typical US focused posts.

People did not wait to consume or talk about Season 2! Discussion peak volume started right in the morning and continued through the day. In the US, there was a fairly consistent interest through most states without one region having much of a difference. That shows the popularity of the show. This continued conversation % staying close to 10% as you continue to go down the list shows that.

What were people talking about? Binge-watching the Upside Down world, of course! Hopper happens to be the most tweeted about character, followed closely by Eleven. One of the best applied emojis for a TV show also shows up here – an upside down face! Clever!

If you don’t have Netflix, get watching!

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