Twitter Users Shocked To Discover 'Dear Evan Hansen' Isn't Heartwarming Coming-out Musical About A Gay Teen

It's rare to see a Mandela Effect situation unfold in real-time, but that's exactly what happened yesterday after the trailer for the cinematic adaptation of Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen dropped and a sizable chunk of social media was stunned to learn that it is very much not a heartwarming musical about a gay teen coming out.

Instead, Dear Evan Hansen's plot, as many discovered yesterday, is kind of a trip. In the musical, the titular Hansen has a therapy assignment to write letters to himself. These result in a misunderstanding where a boy, Connor, discovers a note Evan has written about Connor's sister Zoe, who Evan has a crush on, and her wealthy family, which Evan despises. Days later, Connor dies by suicide with Evan's note on him, making locals believe the note was a suicide note written by Connor to Evan and that Evan was secretly Connor's best friend and confidant.

This spirals out of control as Evan grows closer to Connor's family and forms a romantic relationship with Zoe as they put together a memorial charity for Connor. Evan spends much of Act 2 grappling with the scope of his lies and wondering if he should come clean as cracks start to form in his lie that's granted him love, connection, and viral fame.

Yesterday's trailer not only led a good amount of Twitter users to express disgust at the questionable arc of the title character, but also shock at the fact they were certain but completely wrong in thinking that Dear Evan Hansen was a musical about a gay teen coming out.

So, what the heck happened here? Some have guessed that people conflated Dear Evan Hanson with the 2018 romantic comedy film Love, Simon, which is indeed a heartwarming musical about a gay teen coming out.

Dear Evan Hansen will be in theaters September 24th.