stan culture needs to die.

people are not products, commodities or mascots you can flail around and then throw away once you don’t like them.

a thread.

stan culture is harmful to everyone: to those who are being “stanned” and to those who partake in it as well.

it defeats the exact purpose it claims to have. it’s about as far from admiring and supporting a person or a group as it can get.

participants of stan culture don’t really support anyone: it’s about vehemently, blindly defending their person or group of choice to a fault. more than idolisation: while having an idol implied a sort of emotional investment, current stan culture is void of any genuine emotions.

in the 20th and even in the early 21st century, there was enough distance between fan and idol for it to stay in the realm of fantasies and admiration, also reminding fans that their beloved artist/creator is far for them to actually reach. now, the lines are blurred.

due to how social media works, fans (and subsequently stans) can have the illusion that their favourites are within reach, and always available for communication. bizarrely enough, this has led to them being treated less and less as actual people, and more like billboard posters.

while idols of times past were removed enough to be treated as such, current-day favourites develop more intense parasocial relationships. which leads to their stans having a sense of personal obligation to defend them, or to even declare their love for them at any opportunity.

however, the epicentre of stanning – as with cancel culture – is performativity: it’s the outward appearance that matters, to /show/ how much a stan is invested in someone, or something. to convince others that their investment makes them the most worthy.

this performative aspect is what actually rids it of its humanity: the qualities, merits, the goodness of the “stanned” don’t matter, only so much so that the stan can prove their devotion and loyalty. the focus is on the act itself, not the people or personalities.

in the western world, it’s a relatively new phenomenon – in the far east, this has been an actual business model in the music and entertainment industry for decades. performers are manufactured into archetypes so that it’s easier to choose your favourite and identify with them.

fan culture, fanclubs and fanbases have of course existed all over the world for basically centuries now; i'm specifically referring to what western stan culture - to me - looks like an adapted, more localised version of.

however, in the eastern context, artist and audience are mostly both aware that this is an illusion, and willingly maintain the idea of a (marketed) relationship. western participants often lack this self-awareness: people act like they believe in a genuine connection.

they also lack the awareness to realise its performativity, and they idealise their favourites to a degree that elevates them to an almost godlike level that grants them moral immunity, all the while cultivating the idea of connection and availability.

this gives way to a very skewed dynamic, in which stans, while feeling entitled to that immediacy and that they favourites owe them products and content, also defend them uncritically and take any criticism towards them as a personal offense.

they fail to view those who they stan as actual people, and what’s worse, the appreciation for their craft and work fades into the background, or becomes entirely irrelevant. bands, artists and creators become ideas or buzzwords that stans use almost religiously.

no matter how much you admire someone’s work or artistry, you should always treat them as you would anyone else – not only because they’re not exempt from criticism, but also because a lot of them who are in the public eye would want nothing more than to be treated normally.

stan culture converts online spaces into a competition, and strips creators of their personhood and humanity. it doesn’t only distort and commercialise, but actively disrespects them by reducing them to cardboard cutout versions of themselves.

when a person of notoriety does something questionable or gets caught up in cancelling, people drop them faster than you could refresh a page in your browser. this also shows how staninng isn’t centred around merits and honest emotions. only extremes exist: obsession or oblivion.

no matter whom you choose to support or admire, respect them enough to treat them as regular human beings.

stan culture does the opposite of that.

let's end it and value creativity and artistry once again, first and foremost.

(END OF THREAD.)

addendum: of course, this thread only scratches the surface, because the extremities of stan culture could literally break lives as much as they can make them.

recommended viewing: perfect blue, directed by satoshi kon, 1997.