Stan is widely regarded as “an overly enthusiastic fan, especially of a celebrity,” according to Dictionary. You can “stan” a variety of things, a favorite group or singer to your favorite food at Walmart.

In the 2000s, a famous rapper known as Eminem released a song named “Stan”. The song was a story about an overly obsessed person, whose name was Stan, who knew everything about Eminem and was his biggest fan. Things started to take a turn for the worse after Stan wasn’t getting letters back from Eminem; this infuriated him. He then killed both himself and his pregnant girlfriend to capture Eminem’s attention.

Despite the song not being based on a true story, these kinds of phenomena exist. People tend to start obsessing over a person to the point that they start acting like them, dressing up like them, or even going above and beyond and doing crazy acts to get their attention. They can even go a step further by hurting other artists to protect their own. These people could range from BTS’s Armies,Taylor Swift’s Swifties, and even Kendrick Lamar’s Boogies. 

Back in the 2000s, the word ‘stan’ was often used to describe a bad person, due to the word stalker being used. In a late fight between Nas’ and Jay-Z, Nas’ created a song “Ether” as a diss to Jay-Z, calling him a “phony” and “stan”, according to Yahoo!. This definition was Eminem’s intention in using the word; “Stan” was supposed to be needy, willing to do anything for somebody.

Eminem only recognized his new word in 2013 after an interview with Rolling Stone, a magazine. He responded with “Wow, that’s crazy. Oh, that’s funny,” Yahoo! states. Four years later, the Oxford dictionary finally made it an official word.

The 2020s marked the time when the word “stan” became well-known in the K-pop community instead of all around the world. The most popular “stans” consist of BTS and Blackpink, after releasing “Butter” and “Dynamite” by BTS and “DDU-DU-DDU-DU” by Blackpink. Even if you don’t know the groups, you’ll know the fans – whether it’s BTS fans raising $1 million for Black Lives Matter, as stated by Reuters, or spamming hateful comments.

Though the word has changed, the fans have not. They still remain as obsessive and more toxic than the original “stan”. A popular group getting hate is a global girl group named Katseye. This group has gotten bashed for the group’s dances, songs, and facial expressions. Stay’s, also known as Stray Kids fans, have been skeptical of Katseye. They’ve noticed the similarities of each group’s lightstick and title track logos, thinking that Katseye is copying Stray Kids. This has resulted in videos and comments about them copying.

The word “stan” has changed over the years, but its purpose still remains the same: a way to bring people together with something they all enjoy.