Matt and Ross Duffer, the twin masterminds who wrote and directed Netflix ’s Eighties nostalgiafest Stranger Things , have a confession: They’re sorta Nineties kids. The North Carolina–bred brothers were born in 1984 — a year after the show’s setting — and, while they have murky recollections of Cold War anxiety, they grew up playing Magic: The Gathering more than Dungeons & Dragons . “We were like, ‘Shit, the kids in the show can’t be playing Magic: The Gathering ; it hasn’t been invented yet,'” Matt says with a laugh. “My brother and I played D&D . We just weren’t particularly great at it.” “We have vague memories of the Eighties,” Ross says. “But we were still pre-Internet and pre–cell phone for most of our childhood. We were the last generation to have the experience of going out with our friends to the woods or the train tracks and the only way our parents could connect with us was to say, ‘It’s time for dinner.’ … We were also movie nerds and had all these …
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