Stan culture is toxic: the unhealthy obession of the rich & famous PART 2

 Hello to all my readers and welcome back to Takeaway! This week, we are covering part 2 of the segment: the unhealthy obsession of the rich and famous. Today, we are delving into stan culture. I know that I did talk about stan culture, and the idolization of celebirties last part of the segment, but now, we are going to dive deeper into stan culture and it's toxicity.

According to dictionary.com, "the behavior or beliefs of an extreme fandom whose members fervently and blindly support their chosen celebrity or team, often demonizing or reviling anyone or anything opposed to, or not sufficiently devoted to, the object of their worship." 

Now, let's dive into discussing the toxicity of stan culture. 

Stan culture might've started out as innocent, but over the years with the rise of celebirty culture and social media, stan culture has become increasingly toxic. Stan culture not only encourges people to promote celebirties to an exceedingly high level that we discussed in the last post, but now we are going to talk about when stan culture becomes less harmless and diverts to some unhealthy tendencies. 

Let's delve into stan culture's newest prey: Hailey Bieber. I'm not going to delve into the exact drama that happened between Justin, Hailey and Selena because everyone is very much aware about the decade long ALLEGED love triangle, and the feuding that resulted after. With only a little bit of shade thrown at Gomez by Hailey and her friend, Kylie Jenner, it was enough for the Selena stans to start publicly attacking and smearing Hailey online. The drama was eventually resolved with Hailey reaching out to Selena for help, and Selena granting Hailey that help by telling her fans to stop with the buffoonery via Instagram. 

Now, how does this relate to stan culture? Well, stan culture is toxic for the reason that in the face of public drama, people constantly insert themselves in this drama and forget that they are a stranger to the celebirty(ies) involved. We have to understand that we are only being fed a certain fraction of the story. The media has a way of distorting information, which we can see every single day. 

Jezebel says, "Constant social media users—many of whom are young and/or don’t have the digital literacy to discern real life from the algorithm, or real relationships from parasocial ones—will tell strangers to die because of some perceived beef between that stranger and some other stranger." Why do we have to go so far in order to prove our loyalty to someone who we engage superficially with? The relationships we have with celebirties aren't real and frankly, they are worthless. They are merely, as the quote says, parasocial relationships. Celebirties do not offer the same support an actual friend does, and we certainly can't become emotionally codependent on a person that could vanish from the spotlight and out of our reach in a second. Stans shouldn't feel a feeling of ownership or entitlement towards their favorite celebirty. At this point, it's pathetic. 

Nevertheless, stan culture not only hurts you, but it hurts other people. No human being deserves to be trolled and harrassed online by people who don't understand the situation they are in. This stress and public humiliation can cause someone to resort to addiction, self harm among other things. Let these humans handle their own problems, because a stan (stalker/fan) won't recieve any praise for any of the damage you might've done. 

Now, stan culture and 'fandom wars' also divide people. Not that I thought you knew this, but fandoms fight. Social media users are the masters of pure savagery and bullying. Fandoms will fight to the death trying to prove that their supported artist is better than another artist. These fandom wars not only undermine the art of the artist, but they are truly a waste of time. Of course I discuss what artists I think are better or more authentic than others in private, but why talk about on social media when you are loud enough for everyone to hear you? A big example of stan culture's detrimental effects is when groups break up. Because you know that everyone will be picking someone to stan, which can create radical discord and jealousy between the group. 

In conclusion, stan culture is simply problematic in many regards and it just needs to stop. As I said in my last post, idolizing someone and putting on a pedestal is problematic and no human being should be idealized or idolized. 

I hope you guys enjoyed  this post and were able to maybe take away something from this. If you are interested (or want to), make sure to share this post or follow me (if you have a blog). Sending everyone well wishes!

Ciao, 

Miki ✌🏾