Stan

[shipperx]

Okay, I had to look this up because I've seen this beginning to pop up (repeatedly) and (because I am too old for this shit to be 'in the know') I wanted to understand what this meant beyond squinting and guessing from context:

From Urban Dictionary:

Stan

Based on the central character in the Eminem song of the same name, a "stan" is an overzealous maniacal fan for any celebrity or athlete.

I guess I can see the Stan -> Eminem connection but...erm... is this enough of a deviation from 'fan' (whose origin is "fanatic") to merit its on term based on a celebrity who is already aging out of fashion?

Comments

[quinara]

I thought 'stan' had been around for ages and basically meant a fan with a specific and obsessive viewpoint that forsook all others. I'm not sure people outside fandom use it, but it's useful to talk about Xander stanning to distinguish the obsessive Year-of-Xander-Buffy-is-a-Stupid-Bitch-but-Should-Shag-Him-Anyway-ites from the people for whom Xander is just a favourite character. I mean, I would call myself a Xander fan, relative to a lot of the hate he gets, but never a stan.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

^^^ This.

It's been around since the song came out.

Just creates a distinction between normal fans and super crazies. Used to use fen, I think.

[quinara]

The song connection is very interesting; I'm not sure where I thought it came from, but it seemed like just a piece of vocab that appeared along the way. Similarly fen - I always just understood that as a collective noun for people in a particular fandom (eg. Buffy[verse] fen). You learn something new every day...

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Well, we learn from the nooks and crannies of the fandoms we run in. I always understood fen was a collective noun for the crazies, whereas the normals were still just fans. I've always thought 'stan' was a negative othering word ('cause of the song). Fen, same thing but I could be wrong about that.

[rahirah]

'Fen' originated in the 1940s or 1950s in science fiction fandom, and was simply a collective noun for fans, a humorous play on other irregular English plurals. It might have originally been a typo made in a fanzine that got picked up as slang, but I don't recall for sure. It was used by the convention-going, zine-writing fans for themselves, and was not considered negative.

[elisi]

You got there before me! :)

[quinara]

Your point about the verb is good, though! I think I've seen 'stan' the noun, but it's rarer. Mostly I've come to understand 'stanning' as the standard way it's referred to.

[elisi]

I've mostly seen it used as a verb. As in 'I was stanning hard for Buffy last night on such-and-such a forum'. So as a noun (had no idea that it came from Eminem), it's someone who stands up for their chosen hero[ine], rather than just be fannish about them. It's a very active word.

[liliaeth]

I'd say that the difference is between a fan, which is pretty much harmless for the most part, who's sill willing to care about things beyond their obsesion, and a stan who will worship a show/character/actor/... to the point of absolute obsession that they won't even bother caring about the actual source material anymore.

To make a comparison. those two guys from spn 509 who role play and so on are fans. Whereas Becky who was one step away from believing that Sam and Dean were real, even before Chuck confirmed it, and who actually used magic to get Sam to love her back, is a stan.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Besides Eminem, the other origin for "stan" that I've heard is that it's a portmanteau for "stalker/fan." I've seen it as a noun, but "stanning" is also a verb. And I guess "stannish" might be an adjective? Anyway, I've mostly heard it in terms of one's favorites - favorite character mostly (I'm such a Klaus stan!) rather than something more general (I'm a gadget stan!)