 In the year 2000 Eminem came out with, in my opinion, probably his best album, The Marshall Mathers LP. And what was on the Marshall Mathers LP? Well, we got Criminal, we got Kill U, we got Tim, we got The Real Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, and...am I missing something? Oh yeah, Stan. Most of you probably know the story of the song Stan, but in case you don't, here's a quick summary. A dude named Stan is absolutely obsessed with Eminem, and the story is told from his perspective. After following him for years, buying his albums, meeting him a few times at concerts, he's his biggest fan. He has an extended family, a girlfriend, an unborn child. Life's not bad. However, he constantly sends letters to Eminem for validation, as if everything he already has isn't enough. But Eminem, dealing with thousands of fan mail every day, doesn't get around to responding to Stan's fan mail. As Stan continues sending letters and Eminem still doesn't respond, Stan becomes more and more insane and threatens to kill himself, his girlfriend, and his unborn child in a car crash if Eminem doesn't respond. In the final verse, Eminem finally reaches out to Stan, but discovers that it's too late. A car was found driven off of a bridge, occupants dead, with a tape to Eminem in the car. It's pretty dark. If you haven't heard it before or seen the video, I definitely recommend giving it a listen. The theme of the song, obviously, is that it's okay to be a fan, enthusiast, or supporter of someone or something. But when this infatuation makes you disregard other important aspects of life, and especially when you start harming yourself and others, that's taking it too far. It warns against extreme fan adoration. This song is where the term Stan came from. The term, popularized on Twitter, has come to refer to individuals congregated around certain specific interests. I wonder if Eminem is disappointed to see people use that word in the way it's being used today. Ironically, referring to the very thing that he wanted to discourage. Today, you'll find a fandom for pretty much anything on the internet. You got Swifties, Arianators, Potterheads, aka Read Another Book, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Supernatural, and that's all one fandom, by the way. Trekkies, Weabooz, Werebooz, Gleeks, Star Wars fans, Star Wars fans who exclusively like the prequels, and yeah, K-pop fans. Just like any fan base that is obsessed with something, you're bound to have all sorts of fans. But not all fans are created equal. Some fans are just chill. They might listen to K-pop casually, they probably don't have a bias, and they might follow just one or two popular groups. Then there are closeted K-pop fans who mostly keep to themselves and don't let anyone IRL know that they listen to K-pop. They'll listen to K-pop, but only with headphones on, just in case anyone hears them. Then there are normal everyday fans who genuinely love their idols and follow several different groups and listen to K-pop pretty much daily. They tend to own a good bit of merch too. And then there are others. Insane fans. You know the type. They live for K-pop, and nothing else, and they're especially lively on Twitter. You can tell because their profile picture looks like this, or this, or this. Which isn't terrible by itself, it's fine to have a K-pop profile picture. Honestly, it's comparable to seeing someone with an anime profile picture, but these guys say the darnest things. Here we got the creepy obsessive stalker type tweets, like this, this, this, or this. We got people standing, members of literally despotic regimes, and I gotta censor this one. It's a bit much. Don't ask me why it's all BTS, I don't know why. I honestly want to believe that these are jokes, but knowing some people, I feel like they're not. But here's where it becomes a problem. These types of fans are rude to pretty much everyone who is not a fan. Others get strangely hostile to other people for no reason, really. This is crazy. It's like, if you talk about a group or an idol, and you aren't actively praising them, they act like you've insulted their honor, their family, and their dog. Like this one where this girl decided not to hire someone because they haven't heard of BTS, or doxing people because they said they didn't like your favorite group, or just generally insulting people because they're fans of other groups. And this guy, his tweet is interesting because it's like he wasn't even trying to start hate. I think he was mostly commending the tenacity of K-pop's stans by saying, if BTS gets coronavirus, the stans are gonna find a cure within 24 hours, to which several people responded. Why are these idols so offended by the very idea that they can get coronavirus? Anyone can get it. We have to realize that idols are people, just like us. Very, very good looking people, of course, but people all the same. And sometimes we forget that. And there's just the creepy worship of Koreans by, not strictly limited to white people, but mostly white people. This one makes me speechless. This one cracks me up because they think that every time someone mentions the word army, that it's a BTS reference. And of course, pretending like you're Korean, or getting surgery to look like a Korean. Guys, don't do this. I'm not even gonna get started on Oli London. Jimin! Oh my god! I'm in Korea. Gangnam Style. To transform into a K-pop star. And then there's this clip where, according to the original tweet, this Asian guy was shopping at a mall and people were randomly hugging him. Because he was Asian. And then there's this one that's just flat out racism? What? I don't get it. One of the most disgusting things in my opinion is the whole posting fancams when a tragedy occurs. For example, in July 2020, Megan Thee Stallion, who recently performed this song with Cardi B, suffered gunshot wounds and had to be rushed to the hospital, to which some K-pop fan replied, I'm. He ended up getting ratioed with this and scolded by another K-pop fan who said, love you but this isn't the time. Talk about embarrassing. And here we are at the classic, if only he stand X, so and so wouldn't have died. Here we have Exhibit A with Juice World, Exhibit B with Cameron Boyce, Exhibit C with George Floyd. And Exhibit D responding to someone's tweet about Kobe's death just to say, Kobe was ass in a ways period. Why do people do this? How did this get 213 likes? Now I'm sure you've heard this saying when someone says a dark joke about a tragic event and then another person responds too soon. Well some Twitter K-pop fans don't understand this concept because if you think they wouldn't pull this kind of stuff on Chadwick Boseman's Twitter, you're lying to yourself. Only one hour after Boseman's family confirmed Chadwick's death, we get this mysterious reply from a dude named Mango in fancy letters, posting what I can only assume is a fan cam of BTS Dancing or some other group I guess we'll never know because the dude deleted his whole account afterwards. And then there's this one where some people use the hashtag dedicated for emergency earthquake alerts and posted any guesses? Yep, fan cams. What's the deal with fan cams? By the way, I am aware and acknowledge that some of these Twitter accounts are purposefully making these posts for the sole purpose of making K-pop fans look bad, such as this one, but a lot of these posts are unfortunately made by real accounts. And what's worse than simply insulting people on Twitter? That's right, actively getting involved in other people's personal lives because you're desperate for attention. One example is CLC's Sunghyun, whose footage was captured in a backstage video at the 2019 Soryabada Best K Music Awards. And she walks away from the camera, bumps into this dude, almost off camera, and then walks back. The theories immediately started, many surmising that she was probably attacked or pushed or mistreated, worrying about her safety, asking for the identity of the man, and even having him punished. Turns out, nope, none of that was true. And as always, the internet started a crusade, a witch hunt for nothing, because she came out on Instagram to say that it was just her friend and his reaction was just them messing around and she tickled him or something like that. Or another example, when fans demanded that Chen from EXO leave the group because he got engaged. Or when Korean rapper Zico had one of his tweets photoshopped to make it look like he said something racist, all because he held the number one spot on Mellon instead of BTS. And when the person who originally started the rumor was called out, she replied. Thank you all for your cooperation. This was a social experiment. And then there's a story of Minami Minagishi of AKB48, who was harassed on Twitter, which she describes as abusive language that really hurt her. Why? Because she was wearing purple nail polish. The same color as BTS. Guys, you can't make this up. If you're a big BTS fan, I'm sure you know that Halsey was repeatedly bashed and accused of using BTS for a clout after Boy With Love. Why? Jealousy, maybe? Because she's friends with them? There's one last type of fan that I've been meaning to talk about, and they're known as Sasang. They are the worst of the worst. Sometime around New Year's 2020, during TWICE's flight from Japan to Korea, Nayeon was approached by a German man in order to deliver love letters to her. This man, only known as Josh, had discovered TWICE's flight plans and boarded their plane. Thankfully, two managers present were able to stop him and kept him away from Nayeon. He was reported to have visited the place as Nayeon was known to frequent, and even asked shopkeepers to hand over his letters to her if they see her. In response to the event, Nayeon clearly traumatized, posted on Instagram, Please go back home. Please stop. I beg you. JYP Entertainment also filed their straining order and made criminal complaints against Josh. From then on, TWICE got extra police protection, and Josh was then banned from visiting Korea. Turns out, Josh was planning this for a while, and he'd earlier made a trip to Korea to visit her. Of course, not without letting her know beforehand. He claimed that he was visiting his girlfriend and asked around for the location of their dorm. He even said that she knew he was coming and expected him and was, I quote, 100% happy to see him. He made plans to visit the JYP building and even visit JY Park's house himself. But apparently that never happened. He posted several videos on YouTube when he was in Korea, and you can still see this dude's videos here. They're still up there and he's still posting. This dude is clearly not right in the head, going so far as to say that if she dates anyone besides him, he will kill her, saying that any sane person would kill her. It's insane that fans like this exist, but it's even crazier that Nion is not the only one to have these kinds of crazy encounters with fans. Members of Super Junior, Big Bang, and GOT7, to name a few, sustained several injuries in car accidents because of fans who were following their car too closely. There have been a ton of incidents of idols who have had their houses broken into, including Seo Taiji, who after calling the cops on the person who broke in, they just sat there on the singer's car until the police arrived. Members of TVXQ have had their phones tapped, apartments broken into, tracked with GPS devices, and even poisoned, yeah, poisoned, by their fans. It's really apparent that these idols don't enjoy any of these incidents with obsessive fans. It's a traumatizing experience. Several idols have even commented on it. In fact, Taehyung of BTS recently spoke about how difficult it is with fans who know every detail about your plans. It's so bad that BTS doesn't ride commercial flights anymore because fans would just find out their flight plans and book all the seats around them. It has gotten absolutely out of control. So if you're ever wondering if the members of BTS could possibly be on one of your flights, the chances are probably close to zero, and it's all because of these guys. It's ironic in a way because so many BTS songs send such a positive message. But some of their fans are some of the worst offenders of this behavior. That being said, despite everything, a majority of fans are regular fans who know perfectly well that we should be respectful to others, fans or not, and definitely respect the idols and their privacy. In fact, K-pop fans have come together to do some amazing things. Yes, each fan base does great things for their respective groups, such as ARMY and BLINKS going the extra mile to watch BTS and BLACKPINK music videos over and over to the point where their songs have become the most watched YouTube videos in their first 24 hours, pretty much back to back to back. Or when Loona's hash album came out in February of 2020 when they smashed the iTunes record for K-pop girl groups when they hit number one in 56 different countries. But soon after, another girl group broke that record with 57 countries. Orbit shot back by encouraging fellow fans who lived in countries where the album had not gone number one to purchase the album. And it worked, eventually charting at number one in a grand total of 60 countries. Now, this is all great, but what's even more amazing is what the fans have done for the general public. For example, when BTS had to cancel their shows in Seoul due to COVID, they refunded the money for the tickets back to the fans, who decided to turn around and donate to COVID relief efforts inspired by Suga's prior donation of $83,000 to the cause. ARMY ended up donating a total of $330,000 to the Korean Disaster Relief Association. When the wildfires in Australia broke out, multiple fandoms, particularly those for groups that had Australian members, did massive fundraisers for relief organizations that helped people and wildlife affected by the wildfires. G-Dragon of Big Bang and his fans from all over the world donated over 5,000 pounds of rice to the needy. UNICEF, Black Lives Matter, NGOs, and countless other organizations and charities have benefited from the selfless donations of K-pop fans. There's power in numbers. And we, as the fans, have to decide if we use that power to do great things for others or be edgy on Twitter. Eminem came out with Stan in 2000, only four years after his first album. He was just starting out. He had no idea how big he would be, yet that song proved to be prophetic. And even so early in his career, he knew the negative effects that overly obsessive celebrity worship would bring for both the fan and the celebrity. Yeah, I get crazy letters like that. That's what I was saying. You know, I don't understand. Like, all this is crazy to me, you know what I'm saying? I never knew that I was gonna have any of this. This is all, this is all, you know, a little bit much for me. Now, to end this video, I came up with a quiz to find out if you're a normal K-pop fan or a toxic K-pop fan. Question one, when someone says something slightly negative, but still respectful about your group, do you A, do nothing? Because everyone is entitled to their own opinion? Or B, send them death threats and try to get them canceled? Question two, when someone makes a post that is clearly highlighting the behind the scenes of an activity or a photo shoot that uses the hashtag BTS, do you A, do nothing because BTS is a terminology that has been used for 100 years? Or B, send them death threats and accuse them of using BTS for clout? Question three, when your favorite idol dates someone, do you A, do nothing and let the idol enjoy their private life because their private life is none of your business? Or B, send them death threats and petition them to get kicked out of their group? Now, if you've answered B to any of these questions, you may be a toxic K-pop fan. Thanks for watching.