The hit Netflix series Stranger Things has been forced into a quiet but swift edit after its passionate fanbase spotted a glaring historical inaccuracy in the show's penultimate season.
The Anachronistic Apparel
Following the release of the first part of season five on 25 December 2025, viewers quickly noticed that the character Holly Wheeler, played by actress Nell Fisher, was wearing a shirt with a visible Under Armour logo. The scene in question occurs in episode seven while Holly is trapped in Vecna's lair. The significant problem? The episode is set in 1987, but the sportswear brand Under Armour was not founded until 1996, making the clothing item nine years ahead of its time.
Social media, particularly X (formerly Twitter), lit up with comments and jokes about the mistake. One fan quipped, "Didn’t know under armour was in the upside down," while another remarked, "Holly wearing Under Armour in season five of Stranger Things is more unsettling than Vecna." The error was seen as a distracting break in the show's meticulously crafted 1980s atmosphere.
A Swift Digital Correction
In a testament to the power of fan feedback in the streaming era, the show's editors acted with remarkable speed. Within just one week of the volume's release and the subsequent online reaction, the co-creators had the offending logo digitally removed from the episode. This stealth edit was completed ahead of the release of the final batch of episodes, volume three, which is scheduled to premiere on New Year's Eve.
Fans who revisited the episode spotted the change immediately. "Stranger things trying to ‘Mandela effect’ us. They really went and edited out the UnderArmour logo on Holly’s shirt," one viewer posted. Another confirmed, "Just rewatching the last episode before the finale... looks like they’ve fixed Holly’s under armour sleeve." Netflix has not publicly commented on the edit.
Not the First Production Gaffe
This type of editing oversight is not without precedent in major television productions. The incident is reminiscent of the infamous Starbucks coffee cup that was accidentally left in a scene from the eighth season of HBO's Game of Thrones in 2019, a gaffe that required a public statement from the showrunners. That series later faced further scrutiny when a water bottle was spotted in its finale.
For Stranger Things, the anachronistic clothing was not the only point of criticism for the fifth season. Some viewers have expressed disappointment with the pacing and storylines of the new episodes, which were released nearly a decade after the show's 2016 debut, hoping for more action and significant narrative twists.
The final ever episodes of Stranger Things will be available for streaming on Wednesday 31 December 2025 at 8 p.m. ET (1 a.m. GMT on 1 January 2026), allowing fans to see if the conclusion meets their expectations, free from any modern brand intrusions.
