Alex Hirsch pushes back after Gravity Falls fans read a Stan and Ford spinoff into website update
Gravity Falls fans turned a website update into spinoff speculation. Alex Hirsch says the new material is jokes, not a confirmed series.
Gravity Falls fandom spent the weekend doing what it does best: decoding clues and leaping to big theories. After Alex Hirsch’s puzzle site unlocked fresh material, some fans treated it like the start of a Stanley and Stanford Pines spinoff, and Hirsch quickly tried to cool that down.
The flare-up started after thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com opened a new area late Friday at the end of a week-long countdown. By Saturday, X posts were calling it a new website and connecting a few of the new code responses to a possible spinoff focused on Stan and Ford. Early Sunday, Hirsch replied on X that the more accurate takeaway was that the website had added jokes, and he urged people not to make firm claims from vague, playful bits.
What actually changed is smaller, but still catnip for Gravity Falls fans. The site itself is not new. It launched on July 23, 2024 alongside The Book of Bill, Hirsch’s Bill Cipher book, and its address appeared on page 16. Since then, it has worked like a terminal where users enter passwords to uncover jokes, artwork, audio, and occasional lore.
This round of updates appears to have been set in motion by The Art of Gravity Falls, released Sept. 15, which included ciphers pointing readers back to the site. One clue said to listen to the static. On Sept. 22, Hirsch also posted a static-filled video to his Instagram story and removed it within hours. That same day, the site’s dial began speaking numbers, starting with “FIVE,” then continuing the countdown one number per day. At 5 p.m. PT on Sept. 26, the audio shifted to “BACKSTAGE” in reverse. Entering that word unlocks a page with new codes and behind-the-scenes material, including a scrapped opening sequence.
The spinoff chatter comes from code entries including “SPINOFF,” “GRUNKLES AT SEA,” and “STANOWAR,” which return a set of coordinates. Other terms such as “SEASON 3” and “MOVIE” trigger joke responses. For now, that is the state of play. The new content is live now for fans digging through the terminal, but there is no announced Stan and Ford series. Gravity Falls ended in 2016 after two seasons, and Disney, which owns the property, has not announced any new project.
