We’ve all heard or been in this conversation at one point or another in our lives. The self-proclaimed "biggest fan" of that new artist feels that they are entitled enough to test the authenticity of others' fondness for the artist. Someone’s enjoyment and support of an artist shouldn’t be determined by statistics that can be gathered from a simple web search or how familiar they are with the artist’s personal life.

Many "real fans" show more anger than they do support towards the growth of their favorite artists getting more recognition and a bigger fan pool. At my first Chance the Rapper concert I was infatuated with the festive environment and diversity in the crowd, but in overhearing conversations I first began to notice the ideology of how these fans perceived themselves. “You weren’t even listening to him when he only had one mixtape,” was the comment that started a fan war that lasted half of the performance. A circle of seven people debated who was the biggest, the best, and the realest for at least 30 minutes instead of giving all of that attention to the performance. They recited all sorts of facts about Chance in attempts to strengthen their credibility such as his real name, all of his released songs to date, schools he attended, how much merchandise they purchased from him and so on. It was practically a game of "Jeopardy!" with all of the questions they asked. The only reason their dispute ended was due to their voices being drowned out by the performance.

During the entire argument I saw no difference between any of the fans. They all paid money and came to the same place to support the same thing. Some of them just so happened to be more knowledgeable about the performer, but I don’t think this made them as much of a fan as anybody else. The definition of a fan in this case is a person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular person or thing. With there being no actual way to measure interest or admiration, how could anyone be deemed as a better or worse fan any of the others in the world? Others shouldn’t be shamed for being a fan of something positive. This dispute of fandom can be see across all music genres from hip hop, to metal, to country. Music is a form of expression meant to be enjoyed together, not a contest to divide us.