We're just going to agree to disagree. I see where you're coming from, but one of the most important things about sports is competition. You can't love sports without competition because without an opponent you don't have a sport. Of course the atmosphere is going to be mor aggressive considering that aspect and the demographic that all sports cater to. People talk ****. It's part of the game. There's things at stake.

Music stans make it about more than the music, while sports stans don't. Music doesn't have to be about sales or any competition of any sort for that matter.

I enjoyed every single word of this article.

I guess I'm a stan.

Yes sis, you're just a more "free-thinking" stan.

haha I agree with everything they said.

Holy ****, GIFs of my queen exist?!.

I'm not a stan of anyone really.

One mediocre-ish article in the NYT exposes the general buffoonery that is stanning, and suddenly everyone is rushing to deny their stan affiliations. Cowards!

And of course they went to Jordan for the inside scoop on Britney fans. He didn't need the attention or the ego boost. I resent the fact that he is OUR designated representative when so many of us disagree with his point of view and oppose his I know Britney better than Britney knows Britney attitude. (Well, those of us who can think for ourselves disagree with Jordan, that is.)

Well, as long as I'm not a delusional stan, I guess I'm fine with it.

"BRIEF CAMEO"

Lord Jesus! Stanning has been around since the days of Elvis and The Beatles. Here you had millions of females around the world who worship those artists. They collected magazines and newspapers with their faces on them and tuned in on the radio for radio shows the artists may be on.

These women have fainted, nearly tilted moving vehicles, fought one another over which "boy" is theirs, and so on. They were just referred to as "teeny boppers" or "Super fans" back then, it was only till recent that a new name was created for that category of fans...STANS.

Beyonce stans aren't the most over the tops stans you'll meet because these type of fans have existed for almost a century now.

Yeah, but with the digital take over, it looks even more obvious.

I have seen usernames such as KILL4/DIE4 [insert artist's name] and those photoshopped pics with artists' faces on Jesus's body on every forum. I think everyone of us have "stanism" in us, but some people are just.

Stuff like that just shows growth of the "stan" with time and new inventions. If photoshop exist back in the day, you best believe them broads would have photoshopped their face with Paul McCartney and such. They stalked artists outside of hotels and camped out ALL NIGHT waiting just for a glimpse of the artist. The internet made stanning evolve with time and actually made it easier at that.

Stans orchestrating campaigns, sightings of their artists, sharing music/pics/videos of the artist and so on. Women threw and still to this day, panties and bras on stage to musicians. They would try to sneak past security to find their way in the artists hotel room and have sex with them. The levels of stanning never changed, it just evolved with the technology and such of the new generation.

****ING DEAD !!

And even then, sports fans can still make music stans look completely sane by comparison. I mean, we've yet to see a fanbase start a riot over their fave flopping/succeeding.

Maybe that was the inspiration behind the name of the character in "Stan" as well?

BTW, has the concept of stanning for artists always been around before the term/existence of ATRLers existed, or is it genuinely a recent phenomenon? And does it occur to the same extent with fans of artists from other genres who aren't popular/mainstream?

Well when you get 100,000 + people fueled by alcohol and aderlene, thats when things like rioting happens related to sports. Concerts / music events are an entirely different atmopshere, although I've seen nasty fights break out at concerts before.

Why are we even comparing sports fans to music "stans" anyways? They aren't even comparable at all.

How did I miss this

As a Bey fan you should be ashamed Know your history gerl. The word was first used to describe overly obsessive Beyonce fans on urban/black blogs (Crunk and Disorderly, ConcreteLoop, etc). This was around the B'Day era. Then later people started to use it for all obsessive fans of other artists. Recently, on more mainstream blogs, people misuse the word to describe every day things (I love pasta, I'm a pasta stan! ).