The world is high on nostalgia, says “Streaming” columnist NICK OVERALL, reporting that there’s a new season of “Stranger Things” about to drop.

TURN on the radio and odds are it won’t be long before the ’80s-inspired synthwave melody of “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd plays – a song that’s been streamed on Spotify nearly three billion times since its release in 2019.

Walk through any major city and somewhere there’ll be a bar designed to make its patrons feel like they’re in another decade. Go to the cinema and posters of reboots, remakes and sequels plaster the walls. This year alone follow-ups to “Top Gun”, “Scream” and “Jurassic Park” promise to be among the biggest box office hits.

Audiences are entranced by the aesthetics of eras gone-by. Now more than ever before, people are hooked on the idea of escaping to another time period.

Perhaps there is no greater example of this nostalgia mania than “Stranger Things”, Netflix’s horror sci-fi sensation set in the ’80s that feels like the lovechild of a Steven Spielberg movie and a Stephen King book.

Fans have waited three years to return to Hawkins, the fictional Indiana town whose residents are perennially locked in battle with creatures from another dimension. Its fourth season, out this week, promises to be its “weirdest” yet and will see its now iconic crew of characters face off against an enemy that not only threatens their quaint little town, but the world itself.

“Stranger Things” is streaming royalty. Netflix has pumped a staggering $270 million into season four, or the equivalent of around $30 million an episode. It’s even bigger than the budget of the battle-clad, final season of fantasy epic “Game of Thrones”, which drew in more than 10 million viewers an episode.

While “Stranger Things” has now become one of the most popular shows of all time, it’s strange indeed to think this pop-culture hit was actually rejected multiple times before making it to the screen.

Show creators and brothers Matt and Ross Duffer pitched the idea to numerous networks who didn’t believe a crew of children from the ‘80s facing off against interdimensional evils would resonate with audiences. 

However, Netflix spotted the genius.

To audition for the show, thousands of kids read lines from the 1986 coming-of-age classic “Stand By Me”, a film with an on-screen friendship that the Duffer Brothers wanted to recapture the feeling of in their own TV show.

Somehow, they did. The cast of “Stranger Things” have become some of the biggest names in modern entertainment, each with their own career launched thanks to the show. 

That’s especially true for Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, and who has become a household name. 

Now, six years since the series first appeared on people’s Netflix feed, and the kids have pretty much become adults. Audiences have watched this group of friends grow up together and with a fifth and final season also planned, they’ll well and truly be beyond their teens by the time things wrap up.

One only needs to take a look at Harry Potter to realise how watching a group of friends grow up together solidifies itself in pop culture in the long term. 

All of this has made “Stranger Things” a modern force of nostalgia. Every aspect of its production is intricately designed to make viewers feel something from another time, even if they don’t consciously realise it’s doing so.

A film grain is overlaid on each episode to give the show a subtly dated feel. The typography could be taken right from the cover of a VHS box. Pop-culture references litter every scene.

These elements come together to create a series that is just so wonderfully addictive. The neon-laden sets and the synthesised melodies of its score work a constant magic on the memories of its viewers, keeping them coming back for more.

Why are people so addicted to this sensation of nostalgia though?

For many, perhaps, that tangible feeling of another time period is the ultimate way to escape from the woes of the present, however briefly that escape is.

Yes, “Stranger Things” may be about creepy monsters, but this series recreates a moment in time that, somehow, seems a little less scary.

“Stranger Things”, season four, is streaming on Netflix.