Stranger Things, Nostalgia, and Aesthetics

in the summer of 2019, the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016–present) partnered with Eggo for a marketing campaign in the build-up to the release of its highly anticipated third season. The show, which follows a group of teens and adults in small-town 1980s Indiana as they struggle to keep at bay a succession of supernatural forces unleashed following the opening of a portal to an alternate dimension, was a surprise hit following its 2016 premiere, and it quickly became the streaming service's most recognizable original production. Eggo waffles—a favorite of Eleven, one of the show's teen protagonists—had seen a surge in sales following the show's premiere and gained iconic status within its fandom, so a partnership capitalizing on the hype represented a logical next step. The two franchises had previously collaborated on a trailer for the series' second season, which premiered during Super Bowl LI, in which a vintage "L'eggo my Eggo" commercial was progressively interrupted and eventually overtaken by scenes from show's upcoming season. The much more elaborate 2019 campaign featured a variety of tie-ins, including an Eggobranded Stranger Things spoiler blocker for fans' internet browsers, recipes tied to each of the upcoming nine episodes, and instructions for making costumes using Eggo boxes. Eggo also bought billboards across the country in cities named Hawkins, the fictional town in which the series is set. These billboards featured the Eggo logo with blood dripping from the E—a nod to Eleven's frequent nosebleeds.

This marketing effort culminated in two larger releases. In June, Eggo claimed to have unearthed a series of unreleased advertisements from 1985 featuring hidden teasers related to the show, which they subsequently posted across social media platforms. Following this, the company also created limitededition boxes replicating the look of the ones they sold in the 1980s—identical save for the "Limited Edition 1985 Graphics" label at the top. These retro Eggos initially were available only online through Amazon but saw a larger release in select stores across the United States following the series' July 4 debut.

The latter two examples, the ads and the box, provide an acute illustration of the hyperaestheticized nostalgia for which Stranger Things is the archetype. The ads, for instance, hinge on a nostalgia for consumer products and advertising that is entirely mediated and thus based on the recreation of an aesthetic object; the nostalgic allure of the ads, in other words, derives from their replication of the style of 1980s ads. Grainy visuals and tape distortions blanket one video showing a "typical" middle-class suburban breakfast table featuring milk, orange juice, and of course, Eggos before cutting to a screen that reads "One Eggo Can Change Everything." These visual imperfections exist even though the ad was produced digitally and published exclusively online, thus bypassing the analog processes that created such imperfections in the ads being copied. The ads, in this way, are simulacra: detailed recreations of objects that never existed but are meant to appear as though they did in order to replicate the same response one would have had toward the originals, had they ever existed. The ad is, in other words, a thing that serves, at best, as a vague reminder of the thing it is parodying, and therefore the nostalgia it seeks to produce is further removed from its actual object.

The boxes also emphasize aesthetics as primary content: while the packaging is retrostyled, the waffles inside—supposedly the product—remain unchanged. The only difference between the Limited Edition 1985 Graphics Eggos and regular 2019 Eggos is the package itself, and thus, in relation to the function or quality of the product, nothing substantial is different. The aesthetic, therefore, is the substance. Consumers buy Limited Edition 1985 Graphics Eggos not for the Eggos, but for the Limited Edition 1985 Graphics. As with the ads, the sole draw of the product derives from its visual recreation of something from the past. The irony, however, is that this recreation is inherently imperfect because the Limited Edition 1985 Graphics label announces the boxes as a recreation, breaking the illusion of...