Over the last few years, we’ve seen the rise of what is called “Stan Culture,” where we see X (formerly Twitter) accounts dedicated to a single celebrity. Stans obsessively compile photos and videos of said celebrities, post daily updates, and push everyone to be aware of celebrity’s existence. To an outsider, this can appear as creepy behavior, but this is merely an evolution of one of the oldest traditions on the internet: fandom culture.

However, there’s one side of Stan Culture that deserves thorough discussion. While most fandoms manage to become safe spaces and communities for fans, there are certain standoms that seem to have some parallels with how cults work.

Simply put, Stan Culture is merely good old fandom culture taken to the extreme, where people create separate stan identities to curate and separate their fandom posts from their personal identities. Now, with almost 24/7 direct access to celebrities thanks to social media, fandoms have evolved to be more agile, more defined, and most importantly, more all-encompassing.

While the term “Stan” itself comes from a dark source—Eminem’s 2000 song about an obsessive fan who ended up doing horrible things—this modern iteration is nowhere near as sinister as its etymology suggests. Fans can mobilize to push a singer’s new single to help it up the charts, mobilize on-ground support for concerts and fan meetups, and even utilize their fandom to push for progressive causes. For example, during the height of the #BlackLivesMatter protests in 2020, the BTS ARMY raised $1 million, matching the Korean group’s own donation to the cause.

On the surface, this level of obsession may seem alarming, but there’s nothing wrong with a healthy dose of enthusiasm over certain topics, shows, or celebrities. We’re only human after all, and nobody should be shamed for being a fan. This is just one of the many ways humans can find a sense of belonging. According to an article in Psychology Today by Lynn Zubernis, Ph. D.,”fandom can be a group within which  to feel a sense of belongingness, rework identity and find comfort.”

But when we look deeper at some standoms, we can see some cult mechanisms at work to either maintain members’ loyalty, or at the very least keep members in line. Three cult mechanisms outlined by Xavier Marquez—Direct Production, Loyalty Signaling, and Ritual Amplification—align surprisingly well with some behaviors in Stan Culture.

Direct Production

According to Marquez, Direct Production is the centralized production of “artifacts” to “increase the legitimacy of the leader”—in other words, propaganda. Sure, propaganda produced by the center of a fandom may not be as nefarious as one made by a cult, but they are all designed to raise one’s profile and legitimacy.

Long before WB called back director Zack Snyder to finish his cut of Justice League, he had a habit of fueling speculation to campaign for the release of the “Snyder Cut.” At the time, however, the Snyder Cut existed only as an assembly cut, requiring millions of dollars worth of additional shoots and post-production so Snyder can produce his four-hour version of the movie.

It did not stop him from posting photos like this on his Vero to keep his fans campaigning for his version of the film to be finished.

Granted, this may not be insidious, but this was clearly an attempt by Snyder to mobilize his famously vigilant fanbase so they can achieve his goals. Other examples of this would be Elon Musk co-opting a meme so he can signal to his fanbase that he is one of them, or even Musk retweeting a post that praises him.

Loyalty Signaling

Loyalty Signaling is when cult members are “incentivized to signal their loyalty to their leader”. Their status among their peers is directly affected by the credibility of the signals they produce. The main difference between Loyalty Signaling and Direct Production is that Loyalty Signaling comes from within the cult’s ranks, so if we relay that into fandom terms, the most obvious parallel would be fanart. Now that by itself isn’t bad; we see fanart from otherwise wholesome communities all the time. But fanart can be used in tandem with increasing a fandom’s loyalty to their erstwhile leader.

Granted, this example of Elon Musk fanart was made five years ago, before everyone found out how problematic he was, but early examples of this kind of fan adoration propelled his profile as an all-around genius—the sort of reputation that he still banks on today.

Another prominent example of Loyalty Signaling from a fandom can be seen from a more local source: the never-ending hashtags and tweets that the #AlDub nation produces daily.

But with Maine Mendoza recently tying the knot with Representative Arjo Atayde, how do AlDub stans keep the long-defunct Maine Mendoza and Alden Richards love team alive? By denying reality, of course.

Throughout Maine’s wedding period, the more rabid side of their fandom insisted that Maine Mendoza and Alden Richards held a secret wedding years ago, and that Atayde married a clone of Mendoza, with photos of her tattoos to prove it.

Choosing to not only maintain this “conspiracy”, but to also broadcast it is another way AlDub stans can signal their loyalty to others. It presents the sharer as both someone who possesses special knowledge and as someone who is willing to fight for the “truth” of their idols.

Ritual Amplification

Observing the #AlDub stans on Twitter is fascinating—you are seeing a well-oiled social media machine, run entirely by fans. For years, the fandom worked hard to keep their hashtags on Twitter’s trending lists, all via organic methods. These are all the result of coordinated, routine activities that stans are encouraged to participate in.

This behavior can be classified as Ritual Amplification, in which the emotions that feel rewarding to members of a cult following are amplified through ritualistic activities. Such amplification strengthens the attachments followers have to their idols, while at the same time fostering a sense of belonging with the rest of the community.

Standoms often coordinate mass tweeting campaigns to get their idols trending, but in the case of AlDub, the bonding—and resulting Ritual Amplification—also comes in the form of the many boycotts they’ve held against Maine Mendoza’s and Alden Richards’ “solo” projects over the years. Because these tend to happen regularly and on such a large scale, they actually become community-building activities for participating stans.

It’s easy to understand why some AlDub stans enjoy all this. Simply being around people who feel the same way is psychologically rewarding. Now increase the number of people you feel that sense of community with by thousands—even hundreds of thousands—and it becomes very hard to let go of that. The highs are just that much higher. This is why it’s actually very difficult to get people to leave their cults—these groups offer a sense of belongingness that’s hard to match, and the emotions you share with them are often stronger than one can experience elsewhere.

It just so happens that when it comes to stan culture, these “rituals” like the AlDub boycotts aren’t bound by physical limitations; they’re more often than not conducted online, so there’s virtually no barrier to participation.

This can also be applied to harassment campaigns done by Elon Musk fans towards anyone who slightly criticizes Musk on Twitter, or even the constant tweetstorms made by Snyder fans long after the Snyder Cut was released.

Why is this Happening?

As much as I hate to say it, but this is the result yet again of the algorithms driving much of our curated social media content. As these algorithms are geared to present content that garners more engagement than most, social media, particularly Facebook, “amplifies the false information and polarizing content of cults.”

It also doesn’t help that fandoms are built on a parasocial relationship with the celebrities at their center, and this melding of misinformation, the push of sensationalist content on social media, the anchoring of one’s personality around a central figure, and the need to belong in a community can turn a community toxic real fast, and have it manifest in cult-like behavior.

We need to keep these examples in mind when we build or join communities. Fandoms and Stan Culture are meant to create communities and safe spaces for people to belong in, and not as venues for tribalism. We see hundreds, if not thousands, of fan communities that have been nothing but a positive force in their members’ lives. Keeping these communities safe for everyone involved means looking out for behavior that can turn these groups around on a dime.