When you hear the word Stan, what comes to your mind? A lot of us hear the thunderstorm and begin to hum the fan Eminem song "Stan" that was released back in 2000 off the award-winning album The Marshall Mathers LP. It is considered one of his best songs and a classic. Complex Magazine even ranked Eminem's top 100 songs and Stan ranked as number two.
It sits just behind Academy Award winning song "Lose Yourself for Best Original Song," which is a classic from his movie "8 Mile" that released in 2002. The song talks about a crazy fan who claims to be his biggest fan and that he relates to Eminem, but a little bit too much. He constantly sends him fan mail talking about how he dyed his hair blonde, that his girl is pregnant too, and that he wants to slit his wrists just like Slim Shady said in one of his songs. The song ends with Stan driving his car off a bridge into the water with his pregnant wife in the trunk.
Urban Dictionary defines "Stan" as "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." Using what a Kobe Bryant stan would say such as "Kobe Bryant scored 81 points last night. Kobe could beat God himself in a game of one on one hoops." Stan is a portmanteau of two words: "stalker" and "fan", clever right?
However, the term stan is drawing away from being based around Slim Shady. Other celebrities are beginning to have crazy fans. One of the most popular fan base that can be referred to as stans is Beyonce's "Beyhive". With the recent release of her new album Lemonade, her fans were not afraid to show how they feel about her and the album on Twitter. Not only does Beyonce have 14.4 million twitter followers, an account known as The BeyHive (@TheBeyHiveTeam) has 62.3k followers because the account claims to be the number one source for exclusive Beyonce news.
Anytime Beyonce does anything she has the power to break the internet because her fan base has a plethora of stans. Her fans sometimes refer to her as a God and some even argue about who is a bigger fan, which is quite obsessive. Beyonce fans will even hate on other celebrities just because they can never compare to their Queen Bey.
If you feel that you are a stan for a celebrity or athlete I got four words for you: take a chill pill.
It's okay to idolize them and be a fan, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere between being a fan and borderline crazy. You can still be a fan of someone without being a stan, remember that.
