#I know it’s not byler related but i just feel like byler tumbler is a safe place for me right now. Lol

[mermaid200gucci]

So…Twitter is a very scary place. Seriously…😭 You can’t even be diplomatic. People still attack you (verbally).

[62percentmaplesyrup]

Heyy ima just make a post abt this bc i want to know others opinions

Not to long ago i made a post abt how straight ppl will never understand bts or byler tumbler schizophrenia bc funny

AND not gonna call names or anything but someone said aren't half of byler straight

And mabey they are i have no idea

I have literally never meant one DIE heart fan

But straight ppl will never understand what its like to have this kind ship when queer pll are always represented in the most stereotypical way

and byler like their just nerds who want to be normal....and its the perfect queer representation im my opinion especially someone whos their age but also to those who are older queers who grew up in this era

Its beautiful and i feel like not enough straight ppl ship it bc they cant relate and some dont even see the obvious signs that mikes queer bc they've never experienced internal homophobia or what a beard is or like religious houses that wont let you be yourself and uuuuhhshshsjjsjs like i literally see myself in them and i cant wait to see more queer joy in season 5

Sorry for yapping guys but i literally needed to get that out

[bumblyburg]

These are the tiktok numbers, byler and mileven are just about tied with 1.2 billion views and 1 billion views respectively (which is different than the hashtag follow count that tumblr shows, unfortunately tiktok doesnt show that statistic from what i can see).

It’s important to remember the different demographics — Tumblr is more niche (i’m guessing most tumblr users are queer and in their late teens or older) while Tiktok is more popular (probably skewed younger, and a more even distribution of straight and LGBTQ).

ANOTHER important thing to keep in mind is what kind of content is usually posted on certain apps. Tumblr lends itself really well to analysis & theories because of the blogging format and no text limits. I’m not in the tiktok ST fanbase but if i’d have to guess based on what I know of tiktok, there’s probably more edits/jokes than theories/analysis, mostly because Tiktok is a short video platform with character limits that make in depth analysis/discussions incredibly fucking painful (looking at you, multi part series and “1/?” comments).

So it makes sense that Byler is more popular than mileven on tumblr, but Tiktok has a pretty even split between the two. Tumblr seems to be for people who are interested in media analysis and looking deeper into whether certain ships could be canon, which lends itself really well to Byler because as of right now the entire ship depends on subtext (blatantly obvious subtext in some cases, but subtext nonetheless). Meanwhile an app like Tiktok seems like the ideal spot for more casual fans on either side — short videos that give them quick snippets of content about a ship they like, vs the literal essays on here that analyze every detail. Obviously I’m generalizing here; there’s lots of short form jokes/fanart/etc on ST tumblr, just as there’s probably in-depth theories & analysis on tiktok. But both platforms have specific styles of content that suit them best, so I dont think it’s that much of a stretch to make these generalizations. Back to Tiktok — the edits specifically lend themselves really well to either side, because yes mileven is the canon ship that has had lots of cute moments, but Byler has also had a lot of onscreen time (especially this season, so much edit potential!!). Again i dont know what the Tiktok ST fandom is like, so this is partly conjecture and I’d have to do more research to come up with more substantial conclusions, but I’d say overall the Stranger Things audience is probably somewhat evenly split between Mileven and Byler (and if i’d had to bet on it, i’d say Mileven is more popular overall because Byler is pretty much all subtext rn). I also think Season 4 undermined Mileven as a couple and more fans are starting to pick up on the hints dropped this season — why did mike and will spend so much time together, especially compared to mike and el? Why did something feel “off” about Mike’s monologue? etc. etc. — which explains the uptick in tumbler’s byler tag.

I definitely want to do a longer analysis of social media reactions to Byler/Mileven/ST in general because I find it so interesting how different the fanbase is depending on what app you use. (Also, it makes me want fanbase forums to come back — but that’s a convo for another day). I want to go into instagram more as well, but thats one of the fanbases I interact with the least so I have to do more research. Time to make a bunch of burner accounts so my social media algorithms don’t get overrun by stranger things lmao

(side note: my guess that Tiktok has a lot of fan edits is supported by #byleredit and #milevenedit being the second most viewed tags related to byler or mileven)

i think something people forget about a lot is that tumblr rlly isn’t a popular social media site so you gotta hold your 30k byler:8k mileven ratio with a grain of salt.

the byler tag on instagram only had 285k posts while mileven has 2 million…

i have hope for endgame and i know lots of people are loving byler after s4 but it isn’t a grand majority lol 😭