You don’t have to look very far when browsing Stranger Things season five promo to see a dragging of Noah Schnapp. Before October 2o23, the lad who became mega famous for playing Will Byers was someone received predominantly warmly on the internet. Especially as he grew older and started going viral regularly, and receiving an outpouring of love when he came out during the last season cycle of Stranger Things. But after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th, the actions of Noah Schnapp and his alleged vocal support of Israel during the atrocities and civilian loss in Gaza has led to a pretty drastic fall from favour in the eyes of many fans. Here’s why Noah Schnapp is still getting dragged and got cancelled as we gear up for Stranger Things season five.
His support for Israel, and THOSE stickers
In 2023, Noah Schnapp just a few months after the October 7th attack was seen to be part of a group of people who were gleefully handing out stickers that read “Zionism is sexy” and “Hamas is ISIS”. This caused huge uproar at the time and people were calling for the boycotting of the fifth and final season of Stranger Things – which is obviously now nearly here. He was also accused of liking a post that apparently mocked those suffering in Gaza.
In response to the backlash at the time, Noah Schnapp posted a video on TikTok addressing all the backlash.
“I feel like my thoughts and beliefs have been so far misconstrued from anything even close to what I believe, and I wanted to just state from my heart how I feel,” Schnapp said. “I only want peace and safety and security for all innocent people affected by this conflict. I’ve had many open discussions with friends from Palestinian background, and I think those are very important conversations to have and I’ve learned a lot.”
He said what he took away from that “is that we all hope for the same things, that being those innocent people still being held hostage in Gaza to be returned to their families, and equally hope for an end to the loss of innocent life in Palestine — so many of those people being women and children, and it’s horrible to see. I think anyone with any ounce of humanity would hope for an end to the hostility on both sides.
“I stand against any killing of any innocent people and I hope you guys all do, too,” he continued. “And I just hope to one day see those two groups be able to live harmoniously together in that region. And I hope for 2024 online to see people be a little more understanding and compassionate and recognize that we’re all human, regardless of our race, of our ethnicity, of our background, of our country of birth, even our sexuality, of anything. We are all human and we’re all the same and we should all love each other for that and support each other and stand together.”
This went down less well with co-star from Stranger Things, Brett Gelman, who said “I saw nothing wrong. He held up a sticker saying ‘Zionism is sexy’… zionism is the belief that Israel should exist, and that’s sexy to me too.”
Since that all went down and Noah Schnapp was cancelled – he hasn’t managed to shake it off online, so during the Stranger Things promo it keeps getting brought back up.
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