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THE HISTORY OF STANS: A THREAD
The earliest notation of "stan culture" was all the way back when Elvis was at his rise back in the 1950's. His dashing looks and smooth as butter voice rocked the nation as women from all over the world fell for him.
Fast forward about a decade later, way back in the 1960's there was "Beatlemania" and The Beatles. Beatlemania was characterized as an epidemic that had seized Britain's and America's teenage population. Here's a video of Beatlemania from CBS:
Flash forward to the Eminem song, "Stan", released on November 21, 2000. His song is about an overzealous fan, named stan, that wrote letters to Eminem, and would eventually murder him, his wife, and his unborn child by driving a car off of a bridge. Despite being the first ever-
notation of the word, it's overall original meaning would disappear as time went on. Here is his song in question:
On December 4, 2001, Nas released his diss track, "Ether" against Jay-Z in which he states "You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a Stan." This song is also one of the earliest notations of diss tracks.
The 2010's is a big time for the word, "Bieber Fever" is taking off, as well as the popularity of boy bands such as 1 Direction. This was also around the time where Urban Dictionary adopted the word.
Urban Dictionary at the time had 1 definition for the word. "To Stan: i.e. Obsess over Stan Shunpike. I can't believe I'm actually Stanning." BUT the first ever recorded WRITTEN use of the word came from an unliked, unretweeted tweet.
But overall, the word "stan" is slang. More specifically, black slang. Just like the term "on fleek" that came from a black woman vine star. http://www.thefader.com/2015/12/03/on-fleek-peaches-monroee-meechie-viral-vines
Now fast forward to now. Where the word "stan" has adopted a new meaning. On urban dictionary "Stan means you look up to that person, you watch them or you truly love their content. It's another word for saying you idolize someone or something. You would say, "I stan _____" inste
ad of I "I love that person""
Rather than meaning "stalker fan", it now means a fan that produces edits, fanart, or simply belonging in a fandom. And although the critisism from "locals", people who arent involved in stan culture, comes from the eminem definition, it also stems from a problem that the intern-
et has suffered from the beginning, and that is the internet's obsession with putting down teenage women.
Whether it be on sites like TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube or any site in general, there are THOUSANDS of jokes where the butt of the joke is teenage women. And stan culture is no different. Not only is the idea that "all stans are women." misogynistic, but also -
a transphobic idea. Stan culture is not about wanting to murder the family of the person you "stan", rather its being apart of a community of others who share a love for the stanned. Meanings of words can change, and its evident by the actions of those who accosiate themselves -
with those words.
