It would be fairly surprising to find that anyone who’s been circling fandom spaces long enough would be unaware of at least some of the discourse and drama around Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things. The first three seasons were fairly uneventful with ships developing mostly around Jane and Hopper (ship name Jopper) and Steve and Billy (ship name Harringrove) with a few here and there for Nancy, Jonathan, or any number of the main cast. Discourse for the first few seasons was mainly targeted toward those who were developing pornographic materials depicting the underage actors involved in the series, with one incident even involving RPF written over questionable screenshots of the child actors. Nevertheless, with the addition of Stranger Things season four and the introduction of several side characters with whom the fandom has fallen in love, more issues have arisen—mostly issues with, you guessed it, anti-shippers.
Actress Grace van Dien, known for her role as Chrissy in season four, is a fairly normal, run-of-the-mill actress, having played various parts in other productions here and there until she found herself on the set of the well-loved Netflix series. As a person and a celebrity, she has been one of the most easily accessible, having a discord server dedicated to fans that she does, in fact, interact with, and even having a Tumblr account by which people can get in touch and interact, not to mention her Twitch stream where she plays several games. Many actors and actresses keep their internet presences down to an absolute minimum, loathe to be in any kind of position where a person might be inclined to stalk or harass them, but Grace has, so far, been reluctant to move away from social media. This reluctance has had its predictable outcomes but Grace is for the most part undaunted though she has addressed several times her nervousness at somehow facing in-person violence from anti-shippers.
But why would Grace be facing harassment from anti-shippers? Why would anyone want to hurt her? Unfortunately, it comes down to ship wars. Season four of Stranger Things has introduced a few side characters onto which the fandom has latched, with the most prominent of those ships centering Joe Keery’s Steve Harrington and Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson as [spoiler] Bill Hargrove’s character met an unfortunate end and was unavailable for shipping after the final episode of the third season. Some “Steddy” shippers and “stans” of Joe Quinn felt that their ship or romantic fantasy was somehow threatened by the shipping that was gaining ground between Joe Quinn’s character and Grace van Dien (ship name Hellcheer). The psychology behind ship wars is still nearly inexplicable and this case is truly no exception as it is difficult to comprehend how in the world Hellcheer might at all be able to push out or overwhelm a separate ship with absolutely no common element aside from a single character. What makes a negligible amount of sense aside from this is the logic that perhaps those who found themselves smitten with the idea of Mr. Quinn might be facing some kind of jealousy at the idea that their fantasy man may have feelings for a person who isn’t them (and worse: a woman). For most of us, this is a fairly foreign concept, as the amount of parasocial connections one would have to make in order to feel this amount of distress seems a little over the top.
Nevertheless, this issue is exactly what is at the heart of the discourse concerning the types of interactions these “stans” are having with Ms. Van Dien and “toxic” doesn’t even begin to encompass the environment that has been created in the relevant fandoms. Whether it is on Tumblr, TikTok, or Twitter, Stranger Things fans of Joseph Quinn, known to the fandom as “Quinnies,” have often created communities around not just their love for Mr. Quinn but their hatred of Van Dien. One in particular, Twitter user marvelousgab, went so far as to postulate on what would happen if Van Dien was put into the same room as alleged human trafficker and abuser Andrew Tate and though “Gabby” provided several insincere excuses as to why she would wish for such a thing, she ended up tweeting in her “Circle,” “I was right to wish andrew tate on her” [sic].
True to form for anti-shippers, many have accused Ms. Van Dien of “pedophilia” for her shipping her own character with that of Eddie Munson, claiming that Eddie was 21 and Chrissy was under the age of 18, a claim that was refuted by Van Dien herself when she posted the casting call for Chrissy in which she is clearly stated as being of-age. Still, the claims go on as she is accused of sharing Not Safe For Work (NSFW) materials on her Discord. Her official Discord has no NSFW channels and evidence of these materials has yet to be provided. All of these accusations do seem to be the result of anger toward Van Dien simply for “knowing and actually being friends with Joseph” according to Twitter user GraceVanBlue who compiled a thread of all of marvelousgab’s harassment against Ms. Van Dien, which fortunately ends on a relieving note with an announcement on the actress’ Tumblr that marvelousgab will be restricted from access to the Philadelphia FanExpo in June due to her threats not against Van Dien but against other fans. True to her name, Van Dien provides lots of grace to “Gabby,” stating that she hopes she is able to safely and sanely meet actors she admires another time—a sentiment that not all of us could conjure if we’d been threatened with a pelting of basketballs.
So with what does this leave us? An anti-shipper whose words have come back to haunt her with real-world consequences, but will this be something that happens more commonly now that this is becoming a more visible issue in fandom? It seems that the visibility of anti-shipping is beginning to lead to the ideology’s inevitable ousting among art communities (which are often by default transgressive) and certain fan communities merely for the inherent violence that is common in their rhetoric. It is functionally impossible for most individuals or groups to tell the difference between a credible threat and one that serves no purpose other than to cause problems and so most of them are going to be treated as if they are exactly the same—an outcome that will end up naturally excluding anti-shippers should they ascribe to the typical ideology and method of operations. All this just to end up with a quote from a famous video: “When will you learn? When will you learn?! That your actions have consequences!?”