hi!! what exactly do you mean by „stan culture“ from the post with new fans?
up until 2017 (beginning of) most fandom were just full of fans who (most of them) would do their research and “know” the person they were stanning. Then from late 2016 and start of 2017 there was a shift in fandom culture where fans became obsessed with numbers/streams and their fave being the best!!!!! while also denying truth/facts and not using context to create argument.
I blame:
- trump’s presidency which led to plenty of people not caring about the truth and stating things as fact just because evidence of it not being fact didn’t exist; ie the same way I could say hogwarts exists bc there’s no evidence it doesn’t exist!!!! - kpop: I believe it’s the first fandoms that were really everywhere and were truly aggressive and screaming about their fave being better than everyone else. This being said the fans aren’t faulty for that. the problem is coming from labels who decided to get into fandom space and manipulate it enough to get as much profit as they could. ie: producing fan wars so fans would stream more to prove their faves are the best thus bringing more revenue to labels/music industry businessmen. I believe Western companies saw the whole thing working well for kpop people so they decided to bring that energy in western fandom spaces.
Which lead us to now with all these stans running around being toxic, thinking that they are good people bc they send death threats to other fans and defend their fave’s heterosexuality. Just bc they are stans of x celeb so they have the right to act superior bc only x celeb deserves respect bc x celeb has /that/ number of streams.
Stans believe they have to say “yes amen” to everything the person they stan say and do and bully everyone that gives constructive criticism about their fave.
What annoys me the most about stan culture is them bullying people over topics they know nothing about. I don’t know if you went on twitter this past year but people are vile towards larries and they aren’t even fans of louis and/or harry. they know nothing. it’s just trendy to harass us, so they do it.
Stan culture makes “real” fans quit fandom spaces. I believe a reason so many tumbl larries left and why so many of us have a hard time in fandom is bc we’re used to the 1d fandom and how it worked. we liked it, we do not want to change, we do not want to become toxic or mean or make our whole fandom experience about being hateful so it’s getting hard to be surrounded by people who 1) don’t care about facts 2) who’ve bullying us for years without having any real counter argument 3) who we cannot have a conversation with, bc as soon as we start giving our arguments and giving them facts they ignore it and start insulting us 4) who just don’t know how to have fun and be in a fandom.
when I came into this fandom it was a great community to talk about the boys but also so many topics I had never heard about or knew nothing about. I arrived here as a baby gay and had so many people ready to answer my questions and just be welcoming. I think about all these minors who come on here to shit on us and think how much better their experience would be if they had learn to do research, listen to other people and to themselves to. A lot of adults turned really toxic too. I don’t understand why people can’t act decently online? it’s not hard not to be an asshole....
tldr: stan culture is killing fandom spaces and celebrities will only have themselves and their bosses to blame when they’ll have lost all their fans and the hype around them will die down bc stans will have find more interesting people to stan.
