Revenge of the stans
When the believers revolt.
“You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea.” — Herman Hesse
Make no mistake, the termination of Taylor Swift and Matty Healey’s romantic attachment is not going to make the wank go away; it might just go quiet for a while. But that is part of the stress > relief cycle that comes with the territory and so predictably differentiates stans from fans. The devotees vs the enjoyers.
It’s far from the first time a fandom tantrum has gained traction, though this one seemed to hit a wider swath of web communities. From the Twitter threads to the Tumblr essays to the “open letters” being signed by disappointed, disillusioned fans: none of it is remotely surprising or extreme to me.
The industry calls this cohort of fans the evangelists because they know the business profits that come with that type of devotion. That is to say, they are by no means the majority of any fanbase. The marketing theory suggests stans represent as little as 1% of any fanbase—they’re just particularly loud and obnoxious, righteously so.
Of course, it’s good for business to keep on their good side. Fan empowerment, or the illusion thereof, is good for business.
That fixation is welcome, encouraged, and fostered by the industry when it benefits them. In practice, these are devotees that spend hours daily keeping up with the world of their idols, gathering meaning, building community, and manufacturing purpose for themselves. Their emotional ties are not only for the fan object, but also the community itself, and what is being represented. The attachment isn’t mutual.
Our current digital landscape has allowed for more immersion and groups to emerge, but the mechanism is the same, even with the parasocial aspect. My oft-quoted Michael Joseph Gross said it best, the “righteous pleasure in defending [their fan object] is compounded by a sense of exclusivity: the world may see them as fools, but they know they are the faithful remnant.”
That is, until conflicting events cause a crack in the rigid belief structure. In Swift’s case, it’s her character that was being repudiated. That’s when the crisis emerges.
The faithful remnant have spent much energy defending her, defending themselves in the face of naysayers because of their faith.
This type of devotion is an emotionally daunting preposition, one that hardly feels chosen. But you’re needed. This is hard to maintain longterm, at least without any type of roadbumps. For one, the idolatry that comes with elevating your fan object and fandom community into religious proxies is unsustainable in a world where the only goal is economic growth for LLCs.
It’s a recipe for tantrums and entitlement because you can’t have zealotry without consequence. Not when you get there with manipulation, promising spiritual fulfillment, a surrogate for faith.
It’s impossible to deliver, impossible to quantify the expectations, but it’s also hard to take the complaints seriously when you’re an outsider. Isn’t it their own fault for falling for obvious publicity grabs? Isn’t it their own fault for elevating a human brand into a superhuman deity?
It’s not surprising that the majority of fandom dunks rely on putting down the investment and effort put into their fandom when even former cult members can be met with eye-rolling.
It’s hard to empathize with fans who take things Too Seriously, Too Personally, Too Literally.
It’s easy to laugh, less easy to recognize the way milking fans of devotion and dollars have been an explicit business aim for decades. The climate of information silos and micro-targeting makes it harder to even see when fans are being taken advantage of.
Even the concept of fan work/labour is somewhat laughed off, as seen in the “Swifties Unionize” prank.
I came across an anecdote from Thelonious Monster’s Bob Forrest that illustrates a more tangible example of how easily the Stan can be coaxed against self-interest.
This took place several decades ago, in Forrest’s self-described junkie days. Fans that fit the description of stan existed even then; Forrest refers to them as keeners, “someone that follows you around and knows everything about you, and they’re very keen on you.”
“I sold many keener a song. I would actually approach them and say, ‘Hey would you like an opportunity? Would you like to own the song Walk on Water?’”
— Bob Forrest, Don’t Die Podcast #244
Forrest made sure to emphasize that the publishing rights were already sold to a label or another; the “sale” to fans was really non-binding, money exchanged for the belief of ownership.
But at least there was no spiritual aspect involved, right? Isn’t spiritual exploitation even worse than purely economic exploitation? Maybe that’s my own bias showing, a leftover propensity for hyperbole. I don’t know, I can only share what I’ve found after a little surface scraping.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing that stans and fans who put in hours of work, thousands of dollars, and endless neglected tasks should have “bargaining power” — I just think we need to be aware of the multiple players involved. I tried to get into that structure with my fandom missiles post, the role fans have in the structure of the fan object iceberg.
As much as we think stalking is wrong, we won’t have much of an impact when stalker fans are rewarded by the very people who should object. When brands explicitly talk about the spiritual role fandom can occupy in customers’ lives. As soon as they realized that providing crumbs to the willing believers would increase their dedication, they should have realized that the fallout from the failure to deliver would cause cracks in the veneer of their worship.
Those are the kind of cracks that quickly become chasms, that fuel anti-fandom sentiments, seeking to topple the idols they raised. When you sell faith, you have to be ready for apostates. And a lot of heckling.
This was super interesting to read. Fandoms can be crazy, but it’s definitely true that companies use that their economic advantage. Thanks for sharing!