#but more how they both are influencing dustin's development at this crucial point in his life
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dustin + the importance of his dynamics with steve & eddie
this one has been a long time coming and rolling around in my brain for a while but I really want to talk about the importance of both Steve and Eddie in Dustin’s life and how, even though from a writing perspective they both function in a same way as older male role model / brother figures and the Duffers did kind of repeat a similar storyline and not really handle it in the best way, there are actually a lot of subtle differences in how Dustin views them / grows from their influence in his life. they are both equally important to his development ( and future development ) in different ways.
the most important preface to discussing Steve and Eddie as brotherly figures ( because I do kinda hate the whole “co-parenting” “they’re both Dustin’s dads” trend within the fandom when it’s not for fun/the memes, they are only 5-6 years older than Dustin and as he gets older, that age gap will become much less noticeable ), is that Dustin is absent a father figure. unlike Will, however, who it is established early on has Jonathan, Dustin is deliberately set up in s2 to be living with only his mom, which then helps facilitate the fledgling brotherly relationship that goes on to develop between him and Steve. the writers often talk about them both being the spares within that season who are paired off with each other: Steve needed something to do after Nancy goes off with Jonathan to investigate the lab, and Dustin needed someone ( preferably older ) to help him with Dart and then lead the junkyard squad with Max and Lucas. they also very clearly don’t want to be around each other at the very beginning: Dustin only asks for Steve’s help because he’s the first person he can find to help him out with Dart, and it’s clear that Steve would rather be trying to fix things with Nancy, right up until he realises that Dart is actually an Upside Down monster and Dustin genuinely needs his help.
the two of them are worlds apart in terms of personality and character. Steve is the most popular guy at school ( in spite of his star beginning to wane in favour of Billy ), plays sports, has ( up until this point ) been successful with the ladies, is not naturally book smart and has never had to try very hard in order to get what he wants. Dustin is a self-proclaimed nerd, is not naturally athletic, is extremely intelligent but lacks a lot of common sense, and doesn’t have really have any friends outside of the Party. the two also have very little in common, but they do get to bond over girls as they lure Dart to the junkyard — however the turning point in their relationship imo doesn’t happen until Dustin, Steve, Lucas and Max are attacked by the demodogs.
this is, for me, the most pivotal moment in how Dustin’s attitude towards Steve shifts. he even says to Lucas before the dogs attack, “nobody is around. why else would I be with Steve Harrington?” but the moment that Steve decides to leave the bus and act as bait for the demodogs with his nailed bat, Dustin’s indifference to Steve’s completely changes, to the point where, as Max says “he’s insane” for going out there alone, Dustin’s only response is: “he’s awesome.”
it’s no secret that Dustin uses D&D and fantasy tropes to contextualise the Upside Down — he does this both in a narrative sense in order to flag to the audience exactly what kind of monsters the group are facing ( he is the one who gave the Mind Flayer and Vecna their names ), but also I believe he does this as a coping strategy too considering the danger that he has been around for three years of his young life. in that moment, then, that Steve headed out of the bus and fought three demodogs with just his baseball bat with nails, he quite literally was the white knight who leapt out of the pages of one of his storybooks. he was the fighter / paladin class from D&D that their group of heroes needed, protecting the party at great personal risk to himself, and this is where Dustin’s hero worship of Steve began.
it’s not clear to Steve that Dustin idolises him, but it’s very clear to everyone else lmao. I think, particularly at this point, Steve is the sort of person that Dustin aspires to be like, in the same way that he might look at a character like Han Solo or Aragorn and aspire to be like them. he fills the void of an older male role model that Dustin needed; he might be different to him in terms of enjoying sports and not understanding the nerdy references, but the fact that the gap between s2 and s3 establishes that the pair were close enough to learn a Star Wars-themed secret handshake shows that Steve was open-minded enough to at least try to engage with the nerdy stuff. it’s also heavily implied that Dustin was Steve’s only close friend during that time.
however, that also means that I don’t think Dustin ever looked at Steve as someone who was necessarily fallible: he knows that the dude is uncultured, book dumb sometimes, kinda bitchy and a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to shooting down dangerous ideas, but Steve is still the hero who will always pull through in the end. even when Steve is beaten up by Billy, Dustin is the most visibly concerned out of the kids ( and is the one who convinces the others to bring Steve along in Billy’s car and not leave him in his concussed state back at the Byers house ), but Steve is still able to recover enough to lead the group into the tunnels and assume that caretaker role. he has never failed to protect Dustin when he needs him, and he is always there: in s3 when Dustin is left with his Cerebro by the Party, it’s Steve that he goes to in order to vent and then share the contents of his secret Russian transmission. in s4, as soon as Max comes to him about Eddie, Dustin seeks out Steve at Family Video.
the dynamic definitely does Dustin a lot of good: as Gaten himself says, Steve helps Dustin with his confidence, and he also helps Dustin to be brave. this isn’t to say that Dustin isn’t brave in s1 because he is, but in the first season a lot of his bravery comes from being around Mike and Lucas and El. on his own, I don’t think Dustin would ever consider himself a brave individual, but then Steve came along and threw himself repeatedly into danger with only minor complaining, the very picture of the errant hero, and that made Dustin want to be brave like that too. the contrast between s2, when Dustin let Steve head down into the storm shelter to deal with Dart on his own, and s3′s “if you die, i die” isn’t just a reflection of how much Dustin and Steve’s friendship has developed in that time. it is also an indication of how, through knowing Steve, Dustin has become more courageous and willing to dive headfirst into danger as a result. in s3, he takes the lead in his and Erica’s rescue attempt of Steve and Robin which, while kinda unrealistic if we’re being picky about it lmao, is an extremely big deal for Dustin. Erica is younger than him and he’s not with Mike, Will or Lucas ( or any of the other older teens or adults ), but he goes back for Steve and Robin anyway, without hesitation.
but on the flip side, this dynamic does create an unrealistic ideal for Dustin to live up to ( which is no fault of Steve’s or his own ), and this is perfectly illustrated by the snow ball scene at the end of s2. in that scene, Dustin takes on not only Steve’s confidence, but also his appearance in the way that he also uses the Farrah Fawcett spray to style his hair. however, unlike Steve, who I’m sure has never had to try very hard with girls until it came to Nancy, Dustin comes up against immediate rejection from his female peers and ends up completely alone, crying on the sidelines at not having a dance partner of his own. it’s interesting that it’s Nancy who actually rescues him, considering Steve’s influence on Dustin’s self-expression is at its strongest in this scene, but I digress: this highlights the limitations of Dustin’s hero worship and wanting to be like Steve. Dustin is not Steve: their experiences, particularly of a social setting like school, are completely different, and the Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington King of Hawkins High rules for socialising are not rules that necessarily apply easily to Dustin, being a nerd and not athletic or interested in “popular” pursuits at school.
I imagine this is a difference between them that would have reared its head again in those first few weeks after Dustin first started high school, between s3 and 4. we hear him talk to Max about the fact that nobody was nice to him or Mike ( except Eddie, who I will get to in a minute ), and I can picture a similar thing happening: Steve offering him plenty of well-meaning advice in the run up to semester starting, Dustin taking a lot of it on board, but none of it really working out that well when he actually gets there. Dustin is not destined to be a jock or the most popular guy at school like Steve was, and that is a good thing! being a jock and being popular wasn’t really that good for Steve either. Eddie’s advice and influence is actually good for both of them.
the way that Dustin’s dynamic with Steve ( subtly ) shifts between s2 and s4 is also interesting. from s2 to s3, the pair become very obvious best friends who share secret handshakes and a single brain cell ( there is no season that they are closer than in s3 tbh ), but in s4 that close camaraderie becomes, in some respects, a little more mean-spirited jibing, especially from Dustin’s end. there is tension established early on between them as a result of Dustin’s new friendship with Eddie and Steve’s jealousy over having his position as his older male role model stolen away from him because Dustin and Eddie actually share a lot of common interests. but also, Dustin is growing up and has reached high school and his teenage years where he is starting to develop his own sense of self. Steve, also, finally has a friend his own age in Robin, so their need to be constantly in each other’s company has naturally lessened as a result. as the primary and at this point constant older male figure in Dustin’s life, there is an element of not quite rebellion in this instance, but push and pull to be expected. he’s growing! Steve has been in Dustin’s life for two years now and Dustin is finally reaching that tumultuous period of his adolescent development where he is deciding who he wants to be.
but most important is the influence of Eddie’s friendship. it doesn’t pull Dustin away from Steve, as Steve might think, but again as Gaten says in the earlier video I linked, Eddie teaches Dustin to be comfortable and confident in his own skin. where Steve was in many ways unconsciously teaching Dustin to wear a different skin, Eddie’s entire being is telling Dustin that it’s okay to be the way he is. it’s okay to not fit in, it’s okay to break the mould and be different and to own those differences. Dustin can also more easily see himself in Eddie: they are both social outcasts, both enjoy nerdy pursuits like LOTR and D&D, and have both endured judgement and mean comments from their peers. they share a commonality that Dustin would never be able to share with Steve, no matter how close the two of them are.
the other difference with Eddie is that he shows Dustin very early on that he is fallible. he doesn’t jump into the action as readily as Steve does, he struggles with his perceived cowardice and he is either horrifically injured or dies at the end of the narrative depending on your perspective. it is important for Dustin to see that and know that he doesn’t have to be perfect — because it is not that Steve is perfect by comparison, but only that Dustin is not witness to Steve’s struggles and doubts and regrets about his past behaviours in the same way. in s3, his slow realisation towards “it’s all just bullshit anyways” is all stuff that he only shares with Robin ( and then later in s4 with Nancy during his speech about being given a thump on the head and enabled to change ). Dustin might tease Steve mercilessly for his faults, but he’s never really witnessed Steve have a crisis of confidence in the same way that he watches Eddie struggle with his label of the freak and his belief that he’s not as brave as the others, or not brave for leaving Chrissy and running away. Eddie is therefore just a little more human in Dustin’s eyes.
one thing that s5 is at least going to take on from s4 is the fact that, seeing the destruction and death and injury that the Upside Down has wrought first hand will change Dustin forever. even if it is horrible trauma for a 14 year old, it is still important that Dustin sees this alternative to the hero narrative that he has in his head regarding Steve — and will also, i hope, or at least i will address it even if the Duffers don’t, allow for Dustin and Steve’s friendship to strengthen even further as a result. what happened to Eddie should be a wake up call for Dustin in more ways than one and that’s the frustrating thing about s4′s ending. with the sudden timeskip, Eddie’s [redacted] isn’t allowed to have a ripple effect on the other characters ( even though we know through word of god that it will have an impact on Dustin in s5 ), and if there is one dynamic that it should impact, it’s Dustin and Steve’s.
#&. headcanon ( dustin henderson. )#&. meta ( dustin henderson. )#i'm not kidding when i say this has been rattling around my head for months lmao#and this doesn't really talk about steve and eddie individually#but more how they both are influencing dustin's development at this crucial point in his life#steve has done a lot and eddie has done a lot too (and should have been allowed to do more)#&. dyn. dustin & steve / harringtontm#&. dyn. dustin & eddie / munsontm
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There’s been a lot of hype building ahead of the launch of Stranger Things 3, the third installment of what was in 2016 something of a surprise hit for Netflix. Before the first season landed on the streaming platform, nobody could have predicted the love the show would elicit, turning it into a major brand in itself and hastening Netflix’s transformation into the veritable powerhouse it is today.
Almost immediately after Stranger Thingsappeared, marketplaces such as Etsy started listing product homages to the show and its characters, whose faces adorned tees, hoodies, tote bags, jewelry, and everything in between. Three years on, what began as fan-made fare has morphed into huge collaborations with some of the biggest players in the game. Nike has just unveiled a sneaker and apparel collection dedicated to the show. Coca-Cola is bringing back a failed ’80s beverage in honor of it. Levi’s has revealed an affiliated capsule. And Highsnobiety is readying the launch its own official Stranger Things 3 collection.
When the new season lands on Netflix tomorrow, July 4, the Highsnobiety x Stranger Things 3 collection will land with it. Our store will be selling eight new limited-edition garms that focus on key locations from the third season, such as Scoops Ahoy, the ice cream parlor where Steve now works, Starcourt Mall, where much of season three takes place, and other vital spots in Hawkins, Indiana.
The garments in our collaboration all feature a distinctly streetwear aesthetic, with graphics designed by Highsnobiety’s in-house team adorning the front, reverse, and sleeves on tees, hoodies, crewnecks, and long-sleeves. The pieces are contemporary but also serve as an emblem of nostalgia, as one cannot think of Stranger Things without acknowledging the myriad of ’80s references peppered throughout the show.
Last year, Vogue told us “Nostalgia Is Officially the Biggest Trend of 2018,” and in streetwear, that has been a fact for a while — and it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down.
In terms of TV-based hat-tips (or any other kind of garm-tip, for that matter), the last few years have seen Supreme pay homage to Pink Panther, a franchise that’s been going since the ’60s. Off-White™ was one of many brands to champion The Simpsons. fragment design incorporated Pokémon. Nike created Friends and Entourage kicks. adidas developed silhouettes in collaboration with HBO for Game of Thrones. Streetwear brand Dumbgood boasts an entire business model dedicated to repping TV shows, movies, and books — the more nostalgic, niche, and pop-culturally relevant, the better.
It’s crucial to note that these aren’t brands that will slap any old graphic on a T-shirt and call it a day. They are serious labels with meticulously curated collections. Brands’ decisions to incorporate nods to a particular show in their seasonal selections aren’t made in haste, and that says a lot about how the appreciation for quality TV has grown in recent years.
The increase in coveted merch is, in part, a tangible side-effect of TV’s growth as an auteurist medium, one the brands mentioned above have sought to align themselves with, shifting fandom from the watercooler to the streets. But it hasn’t always been this way.
To fully appreciate the shift, you only have to cast your mind back to the era many of us channel in our daily aesthetic, the ’90s, and to a little show called Friends. To say Friends was successful is, of course, a ridiculous understatement; it changed TV comedy forever. When it premiered in 1994, it flipped the sitcom format upside down. It didn’t revolve around a family or a workplace. It wasn’t wholesome. It gave the audience something that felt real, something they could relate to.
But when Nike made a Friends sneaker in the mid ’90s, it didn’t even make it onto shelves. The silhouette was a sample for cast and crew only. Nobody really knew the shoe existed until Sean Wotherspoon featured it on his Instagram account early last year. The same goes for the super-rare shoes Nike created in celebration of Seinfeld and Home Improvement. These sneakers were simple, branded kicks that paid homage to the biggest TV comedies of the era, yet they never made it into circulation.
However, as Nike’s Friends version of Kyrie Irving’s signature Kyrie 5 basketball sneaker showed when it dropped in May this year, people are now ready to listen. The Kyrie 5 “Friends” debuted 15 years after the show’s finale and landed straight on our round-up of standout TV and movie-inspired kicks. When Wotherspoon put his ’90s Friends sample on Instagram, the post clocked almost 35,000 likes. Clearly the sneaker industry and its customer base have changed a lot between the two releases.
This thought is reinforced by Jeff Peters, HBO’s VP of licensing and retail, who was directly involved in the Game of Thrones x adidas collaboration released ahead of the fantasy show’s final season. “There was a time when television shows couldn’t really get a whole lot of attention in that type of business. As an art form, as a medium, [it] has certainly grown in both prestige and in audience. That really has shifted,” he says.
Peters also highlights how pop culture has embraced genre shows such as Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and other fantasy, sci-fi, or horror series. “The public out there is really interested in those type of stories,” he says. “Game of Thrones has proven that a fantasy story can be a massive blockbuster, and that is a shift and a change.”
As a consequence, merch in general, including music merch, is changing, becoming more than an item of clothing and instead representing a lifestyle. Warner Music Group senior director Felix Carrasco told Fashionista in December last year that “[merch] has been taken to a new level for the next generation at the moment. Everything is much more on point.”
In a world where media assets, whether albums, TV shows, or movies, are all available digitally, with streaming services eradicating the need to buy a physical product, customers are looking for new ways to connect themselves to culture in a meaningful and authentic way. They’re seeking a way to reflect their interests when the shelves in our homes are becoming increasingly unrepresentative of our cultural tastes.
Naturally, this not only changes the approach to how merch is made but also how it’s marketed. In the Fashionista article linked above, Mat Vlasic, CEO of Universal Music Group’s Bravado merch division, added, “We’re working with our artists to think differently about merchandise. It has evolved from keepsake beginnings to powerful extensions of their personality and brand.”
When asked how the increasing alignment between pop culture and the fashion industry is affecting TV marketing, Peters adds, “I think it really depends on the show and the content of [it. Collaborations] work best when there is something worth celebrating. You have to think about it that way and not just do one for every single show, as it would eventually dilute itself.”
And not only are the contents of a show “something worth celebrating,” but also those involved in making it. Stranger Things is a perfect example, with its gang of teen stars carrying enormous clout.
For example, in 2017, Millie Bobby Brown, who stars as Eleven, signed with IMG Models, fronted a Calvin Klein campaign, and sat beside A$AP Rocky at Raf Simons’ Calvin Klein FW17 show in New York. She also, alongside co-stars Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) and Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), met with Louis Vuitton womenswear creative director Nicolas Ghesquière at the brand’s Paris HQ in 2016.
Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike, is also making waves. He is currently fronting Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent FW19 campaign, channeling major ’70s Bob Dylan vibes. He has also designed his own capsule collection for Pull&Bear, complete with tie-dye tops, tube socks, and dark wash denim. A quick scroll through his Instagram feed reveals a bunch of fire fits, too.
Ditto McLaughlin, who regularly posts shots of his personal style, whether that involves being decked out in new Nike silhouettes, Louis Vuitton boots, MSFTSrep hoodies, or his own merch line Be Your Biggest Fan.
These three factors — TV’s increased validity as an art form, the lifestyle-ification of merch, and the clout of affiliated stars — have merged with streetwear’s new position as an influencer of high fashion, uniting to give us merchandise with a new kind of appeal. And that’s something Highsnobiety is excited to be part of.
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