Defending their fave artist during any controversies or scandals.Participating in “stanwars.” This involves arguing with the stans of another artist, who’s a perceived rival.Joining advocacies and raising money for charitable causes their favorite artist supports.Creating and popularizing various hashtags, trends, and memes.Regularly posting or tweeting about their favorite artist to raise awareness.Actively streaming or purchasing new songs and albums so they’ll rank higher on music charts.They engage in the following activities to support their favorite artists: Stans are often able to organize and create large-scale movements that have a momentary impact on social media. Instead, they usually create a name and use a profile picture related to the celebrity they stan. Most stans don’t use any personally identifying information in their Twitter handles, either. Most internet stans are part of a collective known as “Stan Twitter.” Its anonymous nature, coupled with the ability to actually interact with celebrities, has made Twitter the most popular place for stans to meet up. Being a stan usually involves joining a particular artist’s fandom and building a community with other like-minded stans.
Many online stans communicate, behave, and self-identify in specific ways. It’s used on all social networking sites, but especially on Twitter.Ī movement called “stan culture” has also appeared. Since then, it’s evolved into a catchall term for self-identified online fans of all types of media personalities and artists. Several years after the song’s release, the term was picked up by early internet forums to refer to ardent fans.