Stranger Things 3 is the most-watched Netflix show over opening weekend

Netflix announces that Stranger Things 3 destroyed the four-day viewing records. The 80’s series had tens of millions tuning in over the 4th of July weekend.

In what I am sure is not news to anyone who keeps track of the Stranger Things phenomenon, the streaming giant released the four-day viewing ratings for Stranger Things 3. Netflix also confirmed Stranger Things 3 had shattered the record for opening weekend viewing.

Netflix announced the news on Twitter. The streaming network claimed 40.7 million accounts have started to stream the season since Thursday, July 4. They also claimed early half, 18.2 million, have finished the series since it dropped four days ago.

And, that’s only total households. There are probably millions more who watched via shared accounts.

This news does not surprise me, considering how many of my friends have finished the season. I finished on the third day, and I’m tempted to re-watch the entire series again!

Check out the tweet from Netflix below.

One does wonder if the timing of the release was at least partially responsible for the jump in numbers. With a summer holiday weekend premiere, many households had a few days off to sit and binge. Season 2 premiered in Oct. 2017, and Nielsen said that first episode had 15.8 million U.S viewers. Less than half of what season 3 just brought in.

Season 2 of Stranger Things was the first time Nielsen started to track the viewership and had announced only two weeks earlier that they would start doing so.  I would think that the fact we had to wait nearly two years between seasons also drew in fans to binge right away. We were starving for our town of Hawkins.

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Netflix has claimed multiple times that Nielsen’s ratings for their shows are wrong, so you can take that how you will.

Part of the reason the series is so successful may be due to the nostalgia feel that pulls in people like me who grew up in the 80’s. Their attention to detail makes me devour each episode as I partially relive my own childhood. Of course I wasn’t worried about battling literal otherworldly creatures but I did grow up in the mountains of Alaska so I did have multiple bear encounters.

If you haven’t yet binged and joined in the millions of others who have, you really should jump on board! This season left so many questions and I can’t wait for season 4.

Are you surprised so many people tuned in to Stranger Things 3? Are you one of the people who had to finish the entire season this weekend? Let us know in the comments section below how you feel about the news.