McKenna Bitikofer
Staff Writer
Obsessive: the key word that separates a typical fan from a “stan.” Originating from an Eminem song of the same name, stan culture is characterized by the extreme dedication and devotion some people have towards their favorite creators.
This phenomenon is nothing new, as this type of fanaticism has been around since the 1960s with The Beatles “Beatlemania.” But when COVID-19 hit in 2020, stan culture took a turn as more and more creators crossed the line of being friendly to being friends with their fans online.
The pandemic brought with it feelings of immense loneliness and stress for everyone. To help fill this void, people turned towards online content creators. Minecraft YouTuber Dream and his group of friends were a common outlet that younger people turned towards, with their content targeting teens as early as 12 to those in their 20s.
When it comes to dealing with a younger audience, the exchanges between creator and fan can get easily misinterpreted as being an actual friendship. Although we will never know the full extent of some private chats, we can still judge based on what has been said publicly.
Posted to his private Twitter account that had hundreds of thousands of followers, Dream had once tweeted: “I genuinely love and care about you guys. You are like a whole bunch of kittens and I LOVE YOU. Not every creator will feel the same as me, and that’s fine, but I’m being genuine every time I say it. I love you and care about you.” This kind of behavior is simply odd knowing that the majority of the audience was 13-to-15 years old.
For me personally, my direct messages consisted of similar behavior leading to one of Dream’s friends following me. For a “friendship” to form between a popular creator that is 20 years old and a random 13 year old, there had to have been some lines crossed no matter the context of the conversations.
I fell into this same trap, as well, with Dream as I was friends with him on Snapchat. Now at the time, snapping back and forth with a popular creator made me feel special. Looking back at it now, I realize how disturbing it was for a 21-year-old to be communicating with someone who’s barely a teenager.
Dream is just one of many creators to have engaged in odd behavior with their fans. Colleen Ballinger, better known by her alias “Miranda Sings,” was called out for similarily weird actions towards her underaged audience.
When Ballinger was on tour, she had segments of the show that would bring audience members up on stage. One of these portions was the “yoga bit,” where Ballinger and a volunteer would try and replicate difficult and weird looking yoga poses. X user @noitsbecks spoke about her experience at a 2019 Miranda Sings show and how humiliated she felt.
“She encouraged her fans to wear revealing clothing so we would get called on stage,” they said. “And then she exploited us and our bodies for her own gain.”
In response to these allegations, Ballinger released an “apology” video discussing “the toxic gossip train,” referring to her odd messages with fans. “Times in DMs when I would overshare details of my life which was really weird of me,” she sang.To say the least, that video has over 18 million views and now her content gets on average 40,000 views.
Even for creators that don’t have as close of a relationship to their audiences as Dream, safety is a major concern. Many stans can go as far as trying to find them in real life. Even as simple as giving away the city of a creator’s home can be dangerous. Especially if they believe they are friends with the creator because of the attention they receive in private messages, both parties end up in a form of danger and uncomfortability.
Typically, these cases end in severe repercussions, such as the end of their careers, because stans of younger generations looking up to someone older makes the creators liable. Our minds do not fully develop until 25, so someone in their mid-twenties should not be interacting with someone as vulnerable as a teenager.
Although I think celebrities should acknowledge their fanbases, there is an inherent responsibility creators hold in establishing a boundary between themselves and their audience. For the majority of celebrities, they are able to interact with their audience with no issues. Whether it be at a meet and greet or a minor interaction on social media, there should be nothing more than that.
