We all know about die hard fans of musicians, footballers, artists and celebrities in general. How these fans come together to share their opinions about things that they love and share in common about a particular celebrity. A stan is a die hard or hardcore fan who deeply admires and is devoted to a celebrity.
The word ’stan’ was gotten from Eminem’s song called STAN in 2000. The song was about a stalker fan that was obsessed with Eminem and wrote him several letters. The fan eventually killed himself and his girlfriend because he didn’t get any replies to his letters, believing that Eminem didn’t care about him as he did Eminem.It is also argued that the word is coined from the words ‘stalker’ and ‘fan’. So, it is said to mean stalker fan.
Nowadays, stan is used to denote both a positive and negative term.Even though the most common and popular stans are for musicians, there are many other stans. Be it for movie stars, authors, influencers, youtubers, fashionistas or reality stars. The list is endless. These people play the roles of protector, promoter, investor and even detective for their favorite people. They are mostly drawn to the artist’s works, lifestyle or both.
Stan culture is the pattern or behaviour exhibited or demonstrated by stans towards the people they root for. These actions include obsession with things related to the celebrities, praises, reactions to criticism and support for those they are stanning. With stan culture, fans are able to express their love and support for those they stan. They commonly form a community of fans that come together to share in common things they love about their idols. These fans help promote their celebrities’ works, be it music, movies, books. On social media, these stans can follow their idols and like particular, pictures, videos which help to further move these artists up the chart. These actions from fans even help these artists secure deals and gain more popularity.
However, for everything with advantages, there are disadvantages. Stan culture has had and still has a bad connotation to it. It is often used to describe fans that are obsessive, overprotective and overzealous about the person or people they love or follow. Most of this aggression is expressed on social media. As beneficial and promoting as stan culture could be to both fans and celebrities alike, it has an ugly and negative side to it. It could be angry fans protesting and rioting on social media or out in the open, stalking and violating the privacy of the celebrities they are stanning, leaking personal information, criticizing and bullying or threatening their lives.
In all, the dangers of stan culture can be reduced and its benefits increased. As much as supporting and rooting for our celebrities can go a long way to help them, too much of everything is bad and these things could end up hurting both the stans and their celebrities. Even though stan culture has a bad side, its benefits and importance cannot be overemphasized in the entertainment industry.
Wow. Thank you. I’ve been educated.