Stan Accounts Are Ruining Social Media

Social Media has been in the center of our lives for an extremely long time. Today, the average amount of accounts for one single person to have is 8.4. We are engaged in watching our friends and families everyday activities, but we love to watch celebrities even more. The idea that there is someone who is more known than you and you can watch their every move on your phone is fascinating, and that is exactly what happens everyday. Today, the Kardashians, Beyonce, Ariana Grande, and thousands of more people are being monitored and stalked for content. These celebrities have regular viewers, but they also have people who are obsessed and revolve their lives around that person and constantly check their accounts.These are called stan accounts, and they are ruining the world as we know it. 

These accounts are described as a “social media account devoted to a specific celebrity.” Mostly on Twitter, stan accounts post pictures and updates on the person every single day, as they follow their every movement. Every meal, social setting being attended, and every other detail is posted for millions of people to see. 

Kylie Jenner/Kardashian – Jenner Family – 

On September 7th, 2021, Kylie Jenner announced that she was pregnant with her second child with boyfriend and rapper, Travis Scott. However, people had already known that Kylie Jenner was pregnant for weeks, because of stan accounts on TikTok. When watching some of the account’s content, you can see that people started noticing something different about Kylie: her nail color. On Jenner’s birthday, the star posted a photo of her with long green acrylics. However, her sister Kim Kardashian had posted Kylie with pink nails the same day. This little fact was so hidden, but makeshift detectives on social media had caught Kylie in the lie. 

Jenner has been followed for many years, and especially after she hid her first pregnancy back in 2018. There have even been fans that have followed the pop star around for the day, tracking her every move on Twitter ever since the birth of her daughter.  This is just a small example of what some of these fans do, and Kylie Jenner is not the only victim. 

BTS – 

Korean Pop (KPOP) music has been making its way around the world for many years now. The art of KPOP was magnetized greatly in the past 3 years due to the rising popularity of the boy band BTS. The group’s music consists of mainstream pop beats, with a twist of the Korean Language. However, the band is known for much more than their music, but for the Twitter accounts following the band members that is moving towards the point of harassment. Senior Kaoutar Elouadi talks more about the accounts and how their influence has gone to a new stage, “One time, Jimin posted a photo of him sitting on a bed. 20 minutes later, the bed frame had sold out in every store it was being carried at. These people are insane, and they will not stop until they find out every detail of the boy’s outfits, meals, and even security guards and their car models.” 

The BTS fandom, who call themselves “the army,” have been known to be a bit extreme with their actions. If you are in the corner of a photo of one of the band members, your account will be found and you will be harassed, because you had gotten close to one of the boys. The army devoted their entire livelihoods around the band, and they will not stop even if someone’s health is involved. Every time there is a public appearance from BTS, fans will gather around them and jump over each other, ripping off clothes and breaking bones just to touch the singers.

One Direction – 

The overall idea of One Direction (1D) has been looked at through a very close lens ever since the five band members stepped onto the X-Factor stage. Harry Styles, Nial Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson are now household names, and every teenage girl had a “one direction phase.” A student who wishes to remain anonymous spoke on some of their memories involving One Direction, “When I was in sixth grade, I had my dad buy one direction shoes for Christmas. I was obsessed with them, and I talked about them all the time to my friends and family. I mean, I even had a twitter account for them.” 

These 1D twitter accounts used to be a place where fans can go and talk about the band, but also argue and engage negatively with other fans, “There were girls that would send death threats to other people if they said they liked another band instead of One Direction.” People would go so far as to send bomb threats and swat teams to other fans’ houses. This is extremely similar to the BTS accounts that are active today, but One Direction had even more seriousness surrounding them. “When the band broke up, I made my grandma excuse me from school. I sat in my room all day listening to their music and I balled my eyes out. I didn’t eat or sleep, I was just so hurt.” Anonymous says. 

One problem with stan accounts regarding One Direction is that there is a sexual twist that is constantly mentioned. People on twitter have actually named people who ship Louis and Harry “larries.” In episode 3 of the popular HBO Max show “Euphoria,” there is a sex scene between Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson. In the show, one of the characters gets famous on the popular social story app, Wattpad, all because of her fan fictions regarding the two band members. The problem with this is that fans are allowing this to be okay. There are millions of posts “shipping” the two boys, but there are also millions of posts harassing the boys for not being gay and being in relationships with other women. Girls have written stories about how they are going to kill themselves if Louis and Harry don’t get together at some point in the year, and the most horrible part is that most of these girls are 12-15 years old. 

Even though there have been positive outcomes with stan accounts and stan culture in general, such as the conservatorship involving Britney Spears and her father, there is still a large amount of negative publicity that has come out of stan culture. Why is it that kids today are so obsessed with the idea of a celebrity? They want to be famous so badly and are willing to do anything, but it has its consequences. People have passed away and have sustained life long problems all because of whose music they like to listen to. Stan accounts have become a serious problem in all aspects of social media, and there have been consequences that will live on for years to come.