Strange Things Research Articles

Shattering Reality: Monsters from the Multiverse

Kaijū media frequently features dangerous scientific experiments as a central theme, invented by scientists who are falsely convinced that they both completely understand and control their advanced technology. In the past few decades, this has included the introduction of high-energy physics (HEP) experiments—especially mammoth particle accelerators—that, among other destructive results, allow for the entrance of equally large and dangerous creatures into our world from parallel dimensions. Public concerns voiced about the safety of the creation of two groundbreaking energy accelerators—the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe—in the early 21st century are tied to related science fiction media that capitalize on such fears (including Godzilla vs. Megaguirus [2000], Pacific Rim [2013], The Cloverfield Paradox [2018], The Kaiju Preservation Society [2022]). Particular attention is paid to the Netflix original series Stranger Things (2016–) as a detailed case study. This study concludes with an analysis of scientists’ attempts to embrace the popularity of Stranger Things in their communication with the general public, and suggests that ongoing issues with conspiracy theories have been fueled in part by such attempts, coupled with long-standing issues with the HEP community and their peculiar scientific naming conventions.

Linguistic Strategies for Identity and World Building

Over the past decade, the medium of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons has risen exponentially in popularity thanks to shows like Stranger Things and The Legend of Vox Machina as well as actual-play shows like The Adventure Zone, Critical Role and Dimension 20. Unlike video games and board games, the primary vehicle through which these games are played is language, making TTRPGs an enormous and as of yet rarely explored area of research for linguists and linguistic anthropologists. Participants must play, tell stories and build secondary worlds and selves all through interaction and conversation. Using tools from ethnographic field work, I investigate the features of the register as well as the conscious and unconscious linguistic strategies that are necessary to the function of TTRPGs. I observe and record three TTRPG sessions from pre-established recreational groups both in person and online and broadly transcribe relevant sections for linguistic anthropological analysis. Examination of these real-time improvised conversations reveals their performative nature as well as the conditions required for all players to agree that something takes place in the story that they are building. This paper outlines how players navigate the inevitable messiness and ambiguity that comes with multiple people trying to play a game and tell a story together and how they negotiate agency and control over that reality. Essentially, it considers how adults enact pretend play through language. It also describes the unique participation framework of TTRPG players as writers, characters and audience simultaneously. All of these elements serve to provide insight into this increasingly popular way of using language for entertainment and reveal some of why people find TTRPGs entertaining in the first place.

Bones cracking]: Reading and listening to Foley and captions

Closed captions are a vital tool of sonic access for D/deaf and hard of hearing audio-viewers, detailing dialogue alongside notable sound effects and music. As evidenced by the recent virality of the captions in the Netflix series Stranger Things, captions are increasingly playing a key role in the sonic experience for many audio-viewers. From captions such as [tentacles undulating moistly] to [wet footsteps squelch], captions shape and articulate sounds, working both alone and alongside other sonic elements. Yet, while captions crucially anchor sonic meaning for a growing audience, captions are still a critically understudied dimension of film and media sound. Drawing upon the visceral captions and squelching sound effects of the fourth season of Stranger Things, this article details the parallels between closed captions and the custom synchronized sound effects of Foley. Captions crucially emphasize the narrative and characterizing effects of Foley sounds, from an oozing moist [squelch] that turns the stomach to the vivid snap of [bones cracking]. In turn, Foley sound offers a vital new framework from which to understand the sonicity of captions. As an artistic practice of reconfiguration and substitutions, Michel Chion’s seminal distinction between real and rendered sounds underpins theorizations of Foley, where a broken celery vividly renders the emotive impact of bones breaking. This article contends that captions can similarly be understood as rendering sound, a move that ultimately folds captions such as [wet writhing], [creatures chittering] and [flesh tearing] into larger sound theories, highlighting the sonic significance and generative possibilities of access tools.

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall by Jasmine Warga (review)

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall by Jasmine Warga (review)

Unveiling The Relation Between Product Placement and Consumer Minds in the 'Stranger Things' Series

Product placement is a marketing strategy that involves the integration of branded products into media content. One of the most popular TV series that effectively uses product placement is 'Stranger Things', created by The Duffer Brothers. This paper analyzes the impact of product placement on consumer behavior in the context of the 'Stranger Things' series. This paper examines the brands that have been featured in the series, the value of their placement, and the effect on consumer behavior. This research uses traditional literature reviews, with analyzing data and journals as the main sources of data. The findings revealed that the appearance of branded products in the series has increased brand awareness and recall among viewers. The paper concludes that product placement in 'Stranger Things' has been a successful marketing strategy that has influenced consumer behavior and it is a step that future marketers should consider.

Stranger Things on TikTok: Young People, Climate Change and Upside Down Political Communication

Stranger Things on TikTok: Young People, Climate Change and Upside Down Political Communication

Representasi Father Involvement Dalam Film Stranger Things Season 2

The image of masculinity positioning fathers as central figures in earning a living has implications for the lack of paternal involvement in child-rearing, known as fatherlessness or daddy issues. This research uses the film “Stranger Things” (2017) to provide insights into how father involvement is represented. The study aims to understand how elements of father involvement are depicted in the film “Stranger Things” (2017). The research employs Roland Barthes’ semiotic analysis method, which examines the significance of denotation and connotation. The results show that aspects of father involvement represented in the film are divided into four indicators: (1) authoritarian attitude, (2) portrayal of feminist men, (3) role model for children, and (4) temperamental nature. Thus, it can be concluded that father’s involvement in child-rearing can open new windows into breaking the boundaries of the image of masculinity in societal reality.

Russian roulette: Serbian pop culture and global soft-power conflict

This article focuses on the recent Russian and Serbian pop-political entanglement. Russians usually rely on hard-power elements like military, energy and economics, but in the last several years they became active as sport club sponsors, telecommunication provider’s partners and film producers. The article examines the latter phenomenon of increasing presence of Russian characters within Serbian media culture, whether it is domestic, Russian or American production, like in the case of Stranger Things, where a Serbian actor Nikola Đuričko plays a Russian smuggler. The central figure though is young actor Miloš Biković, hired many times by Russian film producers in the last decade. His film The Balkan Line (2019) is examined in this article as a representative of Russian soft-power influence as well as their geopolitical stance. The Balkan Shadows (2017–present) and Stranger Things (2016–present) are analysed as pro-western counterparts in this superpower struggle within Serbian media culture.

Strange Things in Bottom-to-Strange Decays: The Standard Model Turned Upside Down?

The flavour anomalies are a set of experimental deviations from the Standard Model (SM) predictions in several observables involving decays of bottom quarks. In particular, tensions between theory and experiment in measurements involving a bottom quark decaying into a strange quark and a pair of muons have motivated much theoretical work to explore possible new physics explanations. This review summarises the tumultuous evolution of these tensions, focusing on the most recent experimental results and their implications for physics beyond the SM. We also discuss the prospects for future measurements and tests of the flavour anomalies at the LHC and other facilities.

Stranger things: the vanishing of the Altmetric Attention Score values in information and library science

AbstractThis study investigates the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) fluctuations and altmetrics source stability in Information Science & Library Sciences publications, analyzing 26,474 documents from 2012 to 2021. It finds that 23.7% of these publications experienced AAS fluctuations over a year. Significant influences on AAS variability include Twitter mentions and policy documents, with Twitter mentions showing high volatility, affecting nearly 30% of papers. The removal of the Analysis & Policy Observatory as a policy source led to a notable drop in policy document mentions. Various types of mention vanishing are identified, such as administrative decisions by altmetrics aggregators, technological issues, user actions on digital platforms, and natural changes on platforms like Wikipedia. In response, the study proposes modifications in the tracking and monitoring system of mentions to not overlook these vanishings. This aims to enhance the reliability and stability of altmetrics at a time when there is a call for their use in the research evaluation.

Problems of Communication and Health Information for Elderly Women during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Like mushrooms that grow in the rainy season, the health information that was scattered during the Covid-19 pandemic is also growing rapidly and going fast all the time. Transfer of health information about the Covid-19 case can be accessed easily by anyone and anywhere through digital media in their respective devices. Hoax in health information is not a strange thing anymore, so it is difficult to distinguish the truth from real information. This communication problem is being experienced by society, especially among elderly women in Bandung. This phenomenon has attracted the attention of the author to examine more deeply with the following research objectives: 1) knowing the process of seeking health information for elderly women during the Covid-19 pandemic in Bandung; 2) knowing the reasons for the communication process and the selection of media and health information used by these elderly women. In this case, the uniqueness of the research lies in the research subject, where the category of elderly women with various physical and mental health conditions they experience must face exposure to health information during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study uses a case study method by interviewing 5 selected informants in this research. The results of the research were found to contribute thoughts in the study of health communication in the digital era that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings of this study include the following, (1) the process of searching for health information carried out by informants during the Covid-19 pandemic is unique because it varies through word of mouth and digital media, with information content about various herbal / traditional treatments; (2) the reason for the search for health information is an effort to contain the spread of covid-19, a form of self-awareness and to prevent exposure to covid-19.

Some strange things about the mechanical properties of glass

Glasses and crystals from the same chemical system mostly share the same interatomic bond strength. Nevertheless, they differ by the arrangement of bonds in space, which gives birth to different atomic packing efficiencies. We show in this review that as far as the elastic moduli and hardness are concerned, the atomic packing density predominates over the bond strength. The shear modulus of crystalline phases is usually much larger than the one of glasses with the same stoichiometric composition, thanks to a more efficient packing of atoms in the former. In contrast, the increase in hardness is quite limited, likely because of the additional contribution of dislocation activity to the deformation processes beneath the indenter in the case of crystals (shear plasticity). We also show that the occurrence of chemical heterogeneities (weak channels) at the mesoscopic scale in glasses, which is often associated with the lack of long range atomic ordering, promotes easy fracture paths and is responsible for the low toughness and fracture surface energy.

The risk of DIY dental practices- a look at self-inserted objects in teeth

When patients receive root canal therapy and have their canals left open for drainage, finding foreign items in the pulp chamber or root canal is not uncommon. Concluding the nature, location, and difficulty of retrieving the foreign body require a thorough patient history, clinical examination, and radiographic inspection. Children are more likely to experience this kind of incident since they frequently put strange things in their mouths. The foreign objects could potentially cause an infection, which could then result in a painful condition. This unique example of a metallic pin and several nail fragments extracted from a patient's root canal who had a nail-biting habit is reported.

Building Suspense: A Critical Examination of Foreshadowing Devices in TV Series Opening Credits

This paper explores the intricate use of foreshadowing devices within the opening credits of television series, unraveling the artful integration of visual, musical, and textual elements. Through detailed case studies of iconic shows such as Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Westworld, we dissect the deliberate choices made by creators to engage audiences from the very beginning. The analysis uncovers the narrative nuances embedded in symbols, musical scores, and textual clues, highlighting their role in setting the stage for complex and immersive storylines. Ethical considerations, methodological challenges, and the limitations of the study are also addressed. By contributing insights to television studies and narrative theory, this paper emphasizes the significance of opening credits as a canvas for storytelling in the evolving landscape of contemporary television.

Smart IoT-enabled Healthcare Systems: Real-time Anomaly Detection and Decision Support using Deep Learning Models

Smart healthcare systems that use Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are changing the medical field by letting data about patients be monitored and analyzed in real time. This paper suggests a new way to improve these kinds of systems by adding deep learning models to help find problems and make decisions.IoT devices are used in the suggested system to gather real-time information about things like vital signs, patient behavior, and surrounding factors. Deep learning algorithms, especially convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs), are then used to handle this data and look for changes in the patient's health that aren't normal. These strange things could be signs of possible health problems or accidents, which would require quick action.Deep learning models are also trained on big datasets to find trends and connections in the data. This lets them help healthcare workers make decisions. For instance, the system can figure out how likely it is that a patient will get a certain illness by looking at their present health and their medical background.One of the best things about this method is that it can change and get better over time. More information is put into the models over time, making them more accurate and good at finding problems and giving useful information. This makes the method very useful for keeping an eye on people with long-term illnesses or finding diseases early. In adding deep learning models to healthcare systems that are connected to the internet of things (IoT) is a useful way to make patient care better. These tools could save lives and improve health by finding problems and helping people make decisions in real time.

The Strangest Thing

Abstract: In “The Strangest Thing,” Katharine Rauk explores what it means to be lonely. This poem is a duplex, a form invented by Jericho Brown.

Enchantment of things in the Chinese literary narrative tradition

Abstract The enchantment of things has been found in the long tradition of Chinese literary narrative. This article explores the three salient ways Chinese people have developed of thinking about and writing about their (imagined) relationship with the things around them, i.e., Bo Wu 博物, Gan Wu 感物, and Guan Wu 观物. In the Bo Wu tradition, people described strange things that may or may not have existed in the actual world, and in doing so, they displayed either their extensive knowledge of these things, or the fertility of their imagination; in the Gan Wu tradition, people tried to express some kind of emotional attachment to things, and conceived of them as being able to feel like humans; and in the Guan Wu tradition, people tried to lose themselves in the contemplation of the world of things. The three Chinese traditions are reconsidered in this article in relation to the relevant Western lines of thought and particularly to emerging thing theory in Western philosophy.

CHILDREN'S REPRESENTATIONS ON OTT PLATFORMS: A PERCEPTIVE ANALYSIS OF CONTENT DISPLAY

The portrayal of children on OTT platforms can vary widely depending on the shows or movies, and the intended audience watching it. However, there are some general trends and considerations to keep in mind when it comes to the representation of children in this context. One trend that has emerged on OTT platforms is the increasing visibility and representation of children as main characters or protagonists in both live-action and animated programming. This can be seen in shows such as "Stranger Things," “The class”, “Elite” among others. At the same time, there are also concerns about the potential negative effects of certain types of content on OTT platforms. For example, some shows may include themes or language that is not age-appropriate, or may depict violence or other disturbing content that could be harmful or traumatic for younger viewers.This study explores the connection between children's use of OTT platforms and their engagement with them, taking into account a variety of variables like age, gender, education level, and intention to use the OTT platform. For the study, the researcher gathered both primary and secondary data. Data has been collected from 100 respondents. The majority of respondents concur that, characters on children’s shows represent diverse backgrounds and cultures; diversity on OTT platforms is adequate for children's understanding of the real world. The research showed that majority of parents are not satisfied with the overall quality of children's content on OTT platforms and they often monitor the quality of content their children’s are watching.Finding the factors and elements affecting the portrayal of children on OTT platforms and its impact on their mental health in this study will close the gap in earlier research.

Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theatre of Trump's deselection

On 7 November 2020, strange things were happening in the comments to @realDonaldTrump's tweet erroneously arguing that he had won the US presidential election, ‘BY A LOT’. Posting quote tweets and replies in Armenian in tandem with ‘cursed images’, memes, and creepypasta, users engaged in a spam-like trollish intervention, even as Twitter kept removing the said content in real time. Exploring this online incident through various analytical techniques, this article first attends to absurdity and ephemerality within the polarized social media event. Second, it makes an argument for the productivity of digital methods in cultural studies inquiry aiming to understand the temporal, contextual, and infrastructural aspects of memetic commenting. Third, by focusing on the social (media) theatre of Armenian curses, we make a case for the analytical importance of studying materials deemed niche and anomalous in networked exchanges.

Does a strange particle depend on its permanent non-equilibrium? Comment on “Path integrals, particular kinds, and strange things” by Karl Friston et al.

Does a strange particle depend on its permanent non-equilibrium? Comment on “Path integrals, particular kinds, and strange things” by Karl Friston et al.