How good were birthday parties back in the day when we were little? The organised party games like Pass the Parcel and Musical Chairs, the huge plates of party food your health-conscious parents would usually forbid you from eating, and the goddam party bags you got to take home. Come on, can't we reintroduce those to parties we have now as well?
But even when you're little, and especially when you get older, you can't help but feel nervous about your own birthday party. All the attention is on you and no matter how cool your theme is, there's always the possibility that no-one will come to your party.
Unfortunately, this was the case for Ayen Alambat's little brother, Aaron, who wanted to celebrate his birthday with friends at home with a themed party centred around his favourite TV show: Stranger Things. She took to Twitter to vent about the "punks" who didn't bother to turn up to. Posting pictures of the food and decorations, Ayen wrote: "my brother invited 8 of his classmates for his stranger things themed bday party & none of their punk selves showed up".
First of all, RUDE. That party looked so great! The cake? The Happy Birthday garland made in the style of Joyce's genius light ornament communication system, and did you see the Demogorgon Blood drink!? Those damn punks deserve to have salt stirred into their coffee and their emails added to every e-newsletter mailing list out there (note: I do not know if said punks drink coffee or have emails).
In any case, Ayen's tweet went viral, racking up over 45k retweets and 223k likes. More than 3,000 people commented, mostly wishing Aaron a happy birthday and even sharing their own "no-one turned up to my birthday party" stories.
Ayen updated her status later saying "he says thank you to all the people that wished him a happy birthday!". While the people of the internet might have cheered him up with their wave of online birthday wishes, to coolest thing for Aaron was undoubtedly that none other than Eleven herself came across the tweet.
14-year-old Millie Bobby Brown, who plays the key character in the Netflix series, replied to Ayen's tweet with a heartfelt message to comfort Aaron. "What!!!!" she tweeted. "Oh Well You can let them all know that everyone on behalf on Stranger things would’ve come! I think your awesome and next year I would like an invite... Please?". She signed off the tweet with three kissy-face emojis.
Ayen was overwhelmed with excitement at Millie's gesture, writing three consecutive all-caps tweets exclaiming: "YES MILLIE", "AARON LOVES YOU" and "AND THE WHOLE CAST". At this point, another of the Stranger Things cast caught wind of Aaron's party, with Gaten Matarazzo (who plays Dustin) also joining in to support Millie's suggestion. "Count me in too! I’ll bring the chocolate pudding," he wrote (chocolate pudding – adorable).
I bet those eight little kids regret ditching their friend's party now, don't they?