If you’re searching for answers about what’s happened in ‘Hawkins RN’, we’ve done a deep dive into the confusing viral video.
This month sees an old viral video revived taken from a smart doorbell camera. Featuring a caption reading “the whole town of Hawkins RN [right now],” it has some netizens curious about how it relates to the Stranger Things universe.
Let’s take a look at how the video went viral thanks to TikTok. Be aware that the viral video contains strong language and that some Stranger Things spoilers lie ahead.
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Explosive viral video resurfaces
In the viral video, captured by a smart doorbell camera, we can see a homeowner stepping out of his property to observe a significant local event. The night sky is lit up to the right of the house, as the homeowner looks over to what is causing the bright emissions of light.
“Holy s***! F***,” the homeowner says. “That’s one hell of a boom, get back in the house!”
A car alarm can be heard going off in the residential area, signalling there was some chaos locally.
This video originally went viral last summer, after the release of Stranger Things season 4. The hit Netflix series concluded its penultimate season by introducing a new villain, Vecna, the ultimate antagonist who takes over Hawkins by turning it into the Upside Down.
Nothing is happening in Hawkins in 2023
The video, including it’s caption about ‘Hawkins RN’ has resurfaced on TikTok this April 2023. However, it hasn’t been reposted with a caption connecting it to the events of Stranger Things season 4. So, this has led to confusion among netizens over whether something is actually happening in a town called Hawkins.
Considering that Hawkins is a fictional city in Indiana, it is a given that nothing is really happening this month in any city with the Hawkins name.
There are 10 cities in the US with the name Hawkins. They are in the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Texas, and Wisconsin.
So what happened in viral ‘Hawkins RN’ video?
The video which has been linked to Hawkins actually took place in Port Neches, Texas. A local TPC plant exploded at night, the night before Thanksgiving 2019. It took place on November 27, 2019 at around 1am local time.
For more than 100 days, a dangerous chemical material was expanding inside a pipe at the plant, the Texas Tribune reports. This is known as “popcorn polymer,” a well-known safety hazard. The ‘popcorn’ eventually ruptured the pipe, causing it to explode. This saw 6,000 gallons of liquid butadiene (an extremely flammable petroleum-based chemical used in the production of plastic) flood into the air. Once it vaporized into a butadiene cloud, it went up in flames. A massive explosion went off at the plant which could be felt up to 30 miles away.
This is one of several explosions at power plants in the United States doing the social media rounds. It follows an explosion at a chocolate candy factory in Pennsylvania just last month.
The man in the viral video inspired the creation of a local beer. Helluva Boom is created by the Neches Brewing Co. and was launched in January 2020.