Stan Twitter

Stan Twitter is a community of Twitter users that post opinions related to celebrities, music, TV shows, movies, and social media. The community has been noted for its particular shared terminology but also for incidents of harassment and bullying. Usually, Stan Twitter revolves around discussing actors, singers, rappers, athletes, and politicians.

Background and description

The origin of the term ''stan'' is often credited to the 2000 song "Stan", about an obsessed fan, by American rapper Eminem featuring British singer Dido. The word itself was added to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 2017. The term was originally a noun, but over time evolved and began to be used as a verb as well.

Stan Twitter has been noted by ''The Atlantic'' as one of the "tribes" of Twitter. ''Polygon'' has described Stan Twitter as "an overarching collection of various fandoms", and additionally as a community that " ignifiesindividuals congregated around certain, specific interests ranging from queer identity to K-pop groups, and added that "Stan Twitter is essentially synonymous with fandom twitter." ''The Daily Dot'' wrote that "Stan Twitter is essentially a community of Extremely Online like-minded individuals who discuss their various fandoms and what they 'stan'." Stan Twitter has also been noted for its common overlap with LGBTQ+ Twitter communities. ''The Guardian'' noted, for example, that "Gay male culture has always coalesced around female pop stars, from Judy Garland to Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande."

Mat Whitehead of ''HuffPost'' described stans as "volcanic", and added that they are "organised, ... dedicated and—at times—completely unhinged." Whitehead went on to describe stans of recording artists, writing "stans aren't just superfans, they're a community of like-minded souls coming together, unified under the banner of wanting to see their chosen celebrity flourish. Friendships are made, bonding over a shared love of an artist, their work, their achievements."

Culture

Stan Twitter has been noted for its extremely fanatic culture and behavior. '' Vanity Fair'' highlighted American pop singers Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and Korean groups like BTS as artists who have "''extremely'' fanatic fanbases". ''Vanity Fair'' also credited those fanbases and "stan culture and its associated engines" with helping propel the popularity of music videos for those artists. Stan Twitter has also been highlighted for commonly sharing memes within respective communities and utilizing a particular vernacular and terminology. Online stan accounts are frequently run by impassioned teenagers, and they can "take on a corporate monotone on par with many singers' own junket." An artist's fanbase is often attached to a nickname used in the media, and in some cases given by the artists themselves.

Some outlets have also touched on stans being "toxic" in their fanaticism. The subculture has been noted by the BBC for displaying a trend of "toxic fandom" which includes fans joining to bully or harass others in the name of an artist. ''Entertainment Weekly'' cited Jordan Miller as stating " tanswill eat their own"; Miller runs BreatheHeavy.com, "a pop music website that for many years was the premier Britney Spears fansite." El Hunt of ''NME'' wrote "most of the time, stanning is harmless. It's old-fashioned fandom for the internet age. But often, stanning manifests as a kind of blind, unquestioning devotion – the kind of thing that leads the BTS Army to talk about their idols like they're gods on earth who can't be criticised," and added that "at its worst, tanningcan lead to threatening behaviour, mob-handed bullying and it can even turn on the object of affection."

Memes and terminology

A common activity that those in the Stan Twitter community engage in is sharing memes with each other and onto their Twitter accounts. ''Polygon'' wrote about how those in Stan Twitter share memes with the belief that the memes have an insular quality to them. One meme, "Stan Twitter, do you know this song?" was noted by media outlets as particularly popular among Stan Twitter, being able to intersect more specific communities. ''Polygon'' described that the meme "seems very silly at first glance," as it is "expressed through an overly obnoxious all-caps exclamation, ndpairs the sentence with theme songs from early '90s TV shows, random YouTube videos, anime tracks, ''High School Musical'' remixes and random one hit wonders." ''Polygon'' further noted that the meme was "designed around nostalgia-baiting people who love to bring up beloved childhood memories.

The terminology used by the Stan Twitter community has also been the subject of discussion. Much of the community's slang originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), with various sources writing about how many Stan Twitter users have appropriated AAVE terms. The terms ''tea'' and ''wig'' have been attributed to African-American LGBTQ communities; the term ''wig'' particularly has been attributed to the drag community, specifically from the phrase "wig snatched" used by the black LGBTQ ballroom culture of the 1980s. ''The Daily Dot'' and ''Billboard'' cited American singer Katy Perry's usage of the term on ''American Idol'' as helping propel its popularity online. The popular Internet meme of Kermit the Frog sipping tea has also been frequently paired with the ''tea'' term.

The term ''stan'' itself is used as both a noun and verb with many variants, including " or westan", which is a phrase used for one to express a liking of, as well as praise or support of, any person or artistic work. Aside from the term ''stan'' itself, common words and phrases used in the community include: ''cancelled'', '' keysmash'', ''fancam,'' ''moots,'' ''tea,'' ''tw'','''' ''cw'','''' ''oomf'', ''naur'', ''wig'', and ''skinny legend.''

Contrast with local Twitter

A key component of the Stan Twitter culture is its contrast with Local Twitter; individuals deemed part of Local Twitter are colloquially referred to as simply ''locals''. ''The Verge'' likened ''local'' to past terms such as ''square'' and ''normie''. The publication wrote that "much like being basic, but online, 'local Twitter' describes someone who loves decidedly, even painfully mainstream things." ''The Atlantic'' described Local Twitter as a group of "mostly white, well-adjusted suburban teens who share stale platitudes of the kind that some Internet users might call 'basic'." Local Twitter is also sometimes referred to as Bare Minimum Twitter. ''Polygon'' defined Local Twitter as the "general population of Twitter—people not congregated around specific interests or in defined communities." In the context of Stan Twitter terminology, ''local'' is similar to a pejorative term. ''Stans'' are noted to view ''locals'' as a group that cause memes and jokes to lose their humor."

Controversial incidents

Artist–stan relationships

The culture of Stan Twitter has been noted by media outlets and celebrities as "toxic". ''Huffington Post'' noted that singer Alessia Cara lamented over the "toxicity" of Stan Twitter; she was quoted, "This whole world of stan culture, while it's amazing and great and connective a lot of the time, it can be very hurtful."

There have been several instances of celebrities deactivating or taking a break from using their social media accounts due to harassment directed at them from stans. In 2016, Normani of Fifth Harmony briefly quit using Twitter due to racial abuse from Camila Cabello stans. In 2017, American rapper Cupcakke also opted to stop using Twitter because she received death threats from BTS stans, after she made a sexual comment about member Jungkook. Millie Bobby Brown, an actress most notable for her role in ''Stranger Things'', also deactivated her Twitter account due to a meme popular in the Stan Twitter community. The meme falsely attributed violent and homophobic language and behavior to Brown. Critics of the meme expressed that the meme bullied Brown.

Aside from deactivating their accounts, artists have also addressed their fans, requesting them to not go after those perceived to be critical or detrimental to the artist. In a light-hearted post, pop singer Bebe Rexha mentioned her father's critical take on her more "risqué scenes" in her "Last Hurrah" music video. Some of her stans posted "mean" comments about her father in response, which resulted her in stating, "Don't say mean things about my dad, please."

Media–stan incidents

NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV in Chicago was the target of an online campaign by BTS and Shinee stans, using the hashtag #NBCChicagoApologize, in December 2017 after mistakenly running a video of BTS, from their appearance on ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' in November, while reporting on the death of Shinee's founding member JongHyun. The station apologized for the mistake on the morning newscast and on the station's social media accounts the next day.

A similar incident happened with the Australian Nine Network program '' 20 to One'' when on June 19, 2019, the presenters cracked several jokes at the band's expense, including comparing their popularity to the explosion of a North Korean nuclear bomb. BTS stans demanded an apology from the presenters, causing them to trend the hashtag #ChannelNineApologize, for which Nine issued an apology the next day saying "We apologize to any who may have been offended by last night's episode."

''Newsweek'' and ''The Inquisitr'' covered a 2018 incident involving the Barbz (a name for stans of Nicki Minaj) sending hate mail and death threats to blogger Wanna Thompson after Thompson suggested Minaj release more mature music. Thompson described the messages, stating "You have these stans camped out on Twitter and nowiki/>Instagram.html"_;"title="Instagram.html"_;"title="nowiki/>Instagram">nowiki/>Instagram">Instagram.html"_;"title="nowiki/>Instagram">nowiki/>Instagramwith_someone_else's_face_in_their_[avatar_(computing).html" "title="Instagram">nowiki/>Instagram.html" ;"title="Instagram.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Instagram">nowiki/>Instagram">Instagram.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Instagram">nowiki/>Instagramwith someone else's face in their [avatar (computing)">profile picture