It was October of 2014. My friend got a reply on Twitter from Luke Hemmings, the lead vocalist in the band 5 Seconds of Summer, our favorite band. She facetimed me and we both instantly started freaking out. My friend replied back to him, “follow my friend, she loves you so much.” Minutes later, another 5 Seconds of Summer stan replied to the both of us, “be grateful he replied to you.” We just ignored it, but then things got ugly. She began to tweet at us more, telling me to kill myself and that neither of us deserved a reply nor follow from Hemmings.
If you have ever been on social media, you’re likely to have come across one of these stan accounts. While they may look like they’re run by harmless fans, stan culture can be toxic and harmful to fans, as well as the celebrities.
The word “stan” originated from a song by American rapper Eminem called “Stan,” in 2000. The song was written about a man who would write and send fan mail to his idol. He never got a reply from said idol and with that, he was sent over the edge. While some stans are like that, the definition as given by the Oxford English Dictionary is, “an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity,” and was only recently added as an official word in 2017. Twenty years ago, stans relied on sending fan mail, but today, the internet and social media have given us much easier access to the celebrity of our choice.
With that access, it can sometimes bring toxicity and harassment from fan bases as a whole. This behavior is known as mob mentality or herd mentality, defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as, “the tendency of the people in a group to think and behave in ways that conform with others in the group rather than as individuals.”
Stan culture is something that I myself have been part of since the age of 13. At that age, it was hard. It wasn’t easy for me to find happiness at the time until I found O2L and One Direction and whoever else I was starting to stan. Their music and videos were something that made me happy. It gave me that chance to escape my realities even if only for 3 minutes while listening to a song or watching a Youtube video.
Though there are positive outcomes from stan culture, there also comes the negative outcomes which can at times outweigh the good.
Back in March 2020, singer Billie Eilish had liked a meme on Instagram of Louis Tomlinson, a member from One Direction. It was captioned, “When you move and the snapchat filter comes off,” with a picture of Zayn Malik, a former member of One Direction, presenting someone with a snapchat filter on, alongside a picture of Tomlinson, who was meant to be “filter comes off.” Tomlinson’s fans did not like the meme, or that Eilish liked it so they decided to go after Eilish. One Direction stans came to Twitter and began tweeting the hashtag #BillieEilishIsOverParty, in an attempt to cancel her. They even took it as far as bullying her on her appearance.
Allie Bain is an avid Harry Styles and 5 Seconds of Summer stan. She has been a part of stan culture for the past 11 years of her life and has experienced bullying. She didn’t know much about K-Pop group BTS and would often tweet about not understanding things a BTS stan may know everything about. As a result, she would often get bullied and picked on for her looks. “I was always stressed out about what people were going to say about me. People would make comments about my dark circles, like yeah I know,” Bain says.
Comments like this can take a toll on people’s mental health. Bain recently decided to resign from her stan Twitter days after getting a new phone and was unable to sign back into her account. She took this as a sign to leave Twitter. Still, she considers herself a stan from afar.
Celebrities also have to worry about their relationships with other celebrities when it comes to stans and the things they’ll do. In 2018, after Ariana Grande released her song “Thank u, next” fans took to her ex-fiance Pete Davidson’s Instagram comments. They urged him to kill himself after having spoken publicly about his borderline personality disorder.
People think because they have this “unlimited access” to celebrities and their lives, they are allowed to do what they want with this information. Stans don’t realize that this can affect not only celebrities but the public and other stans who mean no harm. Due to the actions of over-the-top stans, Ashton Irwin, drummer of the band 5 Seconds of Summer, stopped taking pictures with fans for a while, and when he did take pictures, he would just look unhappy.
While stans coming together to attack other stans or celebrities can be harmful, there comes times where stans will come together and hold celebrities accountable. Recently, singer Lizzo made a comment about singer Chris Brown being her favorite person. When taking a look back to 2009 when Brown assaulted singer and ex-girlfriend Rihanna, Lizzo’s stans weren’t too happy about the comment. One fan wrote under one of her recent TikTok’s, “Girl… Chris Brown? This is so disappointing.” Lizzo making this comment seemed to many that she is condoning his past behavior and may feel let down as one of her stans commented, “Listened to your music non-stop after I left a man who almost killed me. Feels like a real slap in the face to be honest.” Some people went the other route and commented things like “Why are y’all dragging her? SHE was not the one abusing women,” and “I don’t see y’all hating on Nicki,” referring to Nicki Minaj who has a song with Brown. The fact of the matter is that Lizzo needs to be held accountable. As an artist with such a big platform, she should be more careful with things she says and who she supports.
In December of 2020, actor Shia LaBeouf was sued by singer FKA Twigs, accusing him of sexual assault and physical abuse. In situations like this, it’s always important to believe the victim until proven otherwise. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, an estimated 63% of sexual assult victims never even report their assaults to the police. Not many people talked about it outside of the news, and people have noticed. As someone tweeted over a year after the assault happened, “Why haven’t I heard anyone talking about Shia LaBeouf abusing FKA Twigs.” This is where holding celebrities accountable comes in. With the situation not being talked about, it’s like everyone was ignoring the situation. If we hold Lizzo accountable for saying something as problematic as Chris Brown being her favorite person after assaulting Rihanna, we should definitely be talking more about LaBeouf and hold him accountable for his actions.
Doing what some Lizzo stans did and calling her out for her actions, can result in people telling you you’re not a true stan, which is far from the case. Calling out a celebrity and telling them what they did wrong allows them to grow and learn, as humans do while we grow up. All that stans want sometimes is for their favorite artist to be given that second chance and to own up to what they did and make changes necessary in order to not make the same mistakes later on.
Stan culture has the potential to change and be a safer space for everyone who is a part of it. “I want it to be a more welcoming place for everyone,” says Mikayla Galaviz, who has been a part of stan culture since she was 7 years old. Throughout her years of stanning One Direction and Love, Victor, she says she has felt nothing but welcomed. “It should continue to be a place to meet other people around the world; to hear how being a fan of someone or something is important to someone,” says Galaviz.
It is important to remember that having an opinion and disliking what someone you look up to says doesn’t mean you don’t support them. Speak up when you have strong opinions. Enjoy your time being part of stan culture as much as possible.