Stan Twitter

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About

Stan Twitter is a community of X / Twitter users that post opinions related to celebrities, music, TV shows, movies, video games, social media and other forms of pop culture and media. The internet collective, while diverse and not a particular group, is most notably known for being an overarching collection of various fandoms, who are often the ones to create memes, reaction videos, images and other types of content, which revolves around discussing public figures — primarily those in the entertainment industry such as actors and musicians. The Stan Twitter collective can be tracked to posts from 2013 but was largely popularized in 2017 after the Stan slang term started to be used by fans as a way to express their devotion or admiration for a celebrity.

History

The term "Stan Twitter" takes inspiration from rapper Eminem's third track "Stan" on The Marshall Mathers LP, in which he raps from the point of view of the title character, a fan who has an obsessive parasocial relationship with him. The track was released on May 23rd, 2000, and a music video was uploaded on YouTube^[1] on December 25th, 2009, amassing over 709 million views and 5.9 million likes in 16 years.

Stan Twitter has been present on X / Twitter as one of its main communities since roughly 2013. The earliest known mention was posted on March 11th, 2013, by Twitter user @joeyfo,^[2] who said the Kunt Brigade (Azealia Banks fanbase) will "run stan twitter then go on and take over the world." Although the tweet (shown below) amassed only three likes in more than a decade, it indicates that the community was created by a series of celebrities' fandoms.

Journalist Julia Alexander published an article on August 22nd, 2018, cementing the concept that "Stan Twitter" "is an overarching collection of various fandoms."^[3]

Other articles about "Stan Twitter" also claim much of the slang^[6] used by the community originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Aside from the term stan itself, other slangs and phrases used in the community include: Skinny Legend, Oomf, TW / trigger warning, Wig, fancam and many other expressions.

Online Presence

One of the earliest viral mentions of "Stan Twitter" was posted on October 31st, 2016, by X^[4] user @lNSUBURBlA, in which she shared pictures of her teacher dressed like the lead singer of the 21 Pilots band because she "felt like stan twitter would appreciate it." The post (shown below, left) amassed more than 20,000 likes and 14,000 retweets in eight years. On November 29th, 2017, X^[5] user @touchnick posted a list of "Stan Twitter Vocab Words" (shown below, right), which garnered over 45,000 likes and 15,000 retweets in seven years.

Stan Loona

Stan Loona is a catchphrase used to by and to describe fans of the all-girl, 12-member K-Pop musical group Loona, using the slang term stan, meaning fan or obsessive.

Oh That's Not…

Oh That's Not… refers to a memorable line said by a co-host from The View talk show in 2015 after Kelly Osbourne tried to call Donald Trump out for his offensive remarks about Latinos. The clip became a popular "stan twitter" reaction and catchphrase in the following years.

Barb Stan Twitter Beef

Barb Stan Twitter Beef refers to an online feud on Twitter / X between the Nicki Minaj fan Jazmine and Dua Lipa fan Kenzo in March 2024. The feud sparked memes and jokes on the platform, like X user @101FacesOfCardi, who posted a fan edit of the barb stan Twitter beef (shown below), which garnered over 4,600 views and 230 likes in a few hours.