 Okay, I want you to imagine some kid. He likes some band, I don't know, let's say, 21 Pilots for example. He probably found them before they got super massive. Maybe he was lucky enough to see them in a 2,000 cap room or something. He knows every word to their songs, owns all their records, and supports them every way he can. However, I hate to say it, but this kid might also be making elitist posts on Facebook about his dedication to the band. He might be harassing newer fans and making them feel dumb for not knowing the band's birthdays or astrological signs or favorite colors. He might get mad at the prospect of an outsider new fan being in front of him in line for a show. He might go to Twitter and defend millionaires honors against faceless microaggressions. Does this kid sound like someone that you know in real life? Does he sound like someone that you've seen on social media at some point? I'd be willing to bet, yes, this kid is a stan, the worst kind of stan. A toxic stan who not only makes himself, but the band that he loves so much look kind of dumb in the process. Nobody likes this kid. This kid has zero social skills. This kid is annoying, this kid needs to grow up and mature already. Luckily though, this kid did grow up. This kid was me five to seven years ago as a young teenager. Hi, I'm sorry I ever behaved like that. Let's talk about stan culture because I think I know a little bit about it. I've been on both sides of the coin. I was at one point an annoying despicable toxic stan fanboy and now I'm a toxic stan fanboy sheep herder as the owner of a YouTube channel that targets young teenagers and talks about emo music. I have seen it all. Normally when I see videos on this topic, it's just folks highlighting what's wrong with these communities. I don't see folks talking about why stans do what they do or how we can help minimize this kind of lame behavior that I just demonstrated. I think that's what I'm interested in doing here. So I can speak from personal experience that there's something really fun and special about joining a fan base that's relatively small. When something feels niche, you're able to find more specific kinds of people who share your interests in it. You can manage to click with them much more easily because you can safely assume that you guys already have a lot in common. I don't mean to exaggerate when I say that all of my friends that I have outside of high school alum are people I've met at concerts. You know, if I see someone at a crusty music venue for some band that nobody's ever heard of, I can probably already have a solid idea of who they are as a person. They're probably the intuitive type, probably have some cool political opinions that I can get behind. And they probably have less than $12 to their name. I could paint a pretty good picture of who they are. If I were to go see a huge musician like Paul McCartney live, however, the appeal of his music is so broad and generalized that I know next to nothing about someone based off their attendance alone. Maybe that guy has a mortgage. Maybe that guy has a cannabis plant hiding in his bedroom closet. Maybe that guy is a libertarian who wants to privatize libraries. I mean, that's essentially what libertarianism is, right? When an artist that you love seriously blows up, you lose that honed in sense of certainty that comes with smaller artists. When you start seeing strangers and normies at concerts, you start to feel nostalgic for simpler times. Or you could be like me when I was 14 and be a butt head to them. Don't do that. I think it's that sense of individualism that gets lost when a small fan base becomes big. It's no longer something that you can imprint yourself upon, because it's no longer specified. And when you're some scared kid trying to find yourself, it feels really good to have something well-defined to borrow from for a while. Uh-oh. Are you some 14-year-old baby who doesn't know what you value, where your interests lie, or what you should spend your time talking about? Well, guess what? We have a solution for you. Introducing personality in a box. Why be some individual person when you can devote all of your time and interest into things that wealthy strangers created thousands of miles away from you? Set it as your profile like. Set it as your username. Don't know what to talk to your parents about? Type out your new personality. Don't know what to wear to school today? Well, your personality in a box has you covered. Just stop by any hot topic for easy access. What are you going to do all night after school? Homework? No. Read fan fictions and watch music videos of clips and stuff. OK. I know it sounds like I'm making fun of these kids. And I definitely am. It comes from a place of love. As I said, I used to be one of these nerds. I feel like I kind of understand them. And do you know what? I think the accessibility of fandoms like Sherlock and Rick and Morty and Warrior Cats and K-Pop and all that other stuff, it only becomes toxic when younger people start having difficulty separating themselves from these properties. Listen, I'm no scholar. I'm no scientist. I'm no therapist. But if you've ever seen one of these kids who lives and breathes these entertainment properties, what do they like? To be honest, were they the kind of person who was super ambitious, super social, well adjusted and confident? In my experience, not really. A lot of these stand type kids that I knew were a bit naturally more reserved and quiet. They were creative with no outlet sometimes. Maybe they were bullied and picked on for not falling to a specific architect that was expected of them. When you're being brought up in a world that's better suited for folks who are different than you, I can totally understand why it's easy to cling on to these fandoms that make sense and provide some semblance of personal fulfillment or authority. That's kind of why I think I sunk myself into these fandoms when I was in middle school and in early high school. When I was a kid, it felt like everything was catered to people who weren't like me. I didn't like any music that played at school dances or functions. I didn't care for the art projects that I was assigned and all the kids in my class were concerned with stuff that I didn't understand, like clothes or easily digestible TV shows. Man, my stuff is so much cooler. I don't listen to plastic music. I listen to my chemical romance. I don't care about dumb stuff like clothing designers. I care about deep stuff like emotions and mental illness. I don't care about whatever's playing on MTV. I care about real shows like Bojack Horseman. It felt good to take refuge behind these bands and stuff because they made me feel elite and sophisticated. Stuff like the surf to freak books or full mental alchemist series. They all had rules, lore and characters that I could become a master of. Stuff like football and marching band. They had nothing for an unmotivated weirdo like me. And on one hand, I think it was good that there was something that I cared about and spent my time with. I also kind of wish I was a bit more empathetic and less of a snooty brat. When you live in a world that makes you feel dumb and useless, it's kind of a basic defense mechanism to assume that you are some upper class of a person as opposed to these normies or some weird small minority, you know? That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. This is just an explanation. So when you spend a ton of time with some entertainment property that makes you feel empowered and welcome and give you some sense of belonging, it kind of makes sense that it becomes intertwined with you, as I said earlier. And when you see some normie trying to impede on your territory and make fun of it on Twitter, do you understand why some of these kids with this mindset end up making an ass of themselves online? To reiterate, again, I am definitely not condoning the behaviors of these angry little Stan babies or obnoxious baby Nate. But rather, I want to humanize these bloodthirsty cringe machines. It's easy to see them on Twitter and send some condescending meme. Man, I've done that from time to time. But I think we all need to take a step back and remember this is probably just some nervous kid having a bad time right now. All right, I'm changing lanes a little bit right here but stay with me. Towards the end of my annoying Stan phase, my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I was excited to learn how to play stuff like House at Gold and various My Chemical Romance songs that were definitely not written to be played on in Acoustic Uke. I went to the other room and I started learning the basics. Ooh, that sounds bad. How do I tune this? Ooh. Oh, that was cool. How do I play a song? All right, let me see here. So this is D and this is G. You see, without Toro and Pilots, I probably would have never picked up an instrument for the first time. Without being a bit of a fanboy at first, I probably wouldn't have joined bands and learned the basics of music. If I wasn't an avid, swoosy and odd ones out fan growing up, I probably would have never bothered with YouTube. If I didn't endure manga and anime and cartoons growing up, I'd probably never take an interest in comics or animation eventually. I found that the best way to pull yourself out of a stand hole is to make something that you are proud of. With my band Raccoon Tour, I hope to maybe one day write someone's favorite song or make them feel like how I did as a kid with the 21 Pilots show. It's wonderful seeing messages and emails and even fan mail on reoccurrences of people talking to me the same way that I probably would have talked to Tyler Joseph in high school. And it's not just me, by the way. Phoebe Bridgers is so clearly a fan girl of Elliot Smith. My chemical romance obviously loves Queen and it's super easy to see that Cave Town takes quite a bit of inspiration from Toy One Pilots. And I hope it's apparent that my music pulls inspiration from all the artists that I just named too. There's a really good chance that whatever entertainment property that you love is simply the result of someone else's passion for something else. Like listen, I'm sure it's different for everybody but what I think cured my annoying fanboyitis was spending the time to make something that I could be a fan of myself. What I looked for in fandoms was a sense of self-realization and self-expression. The only issue was I didn't feel like there was a strong enough conceptual me to express in the first place. You can build your own, nobody tells you that, you are 100% allowed. So consider this my call to all kids whose profile pictures are of something rather than them. The kids whose daily conversations comprise of discussions over what strangers they've never met are currently up to right now. Everyone whose hopes and dreams live in the shadow of something that someone else has done. I know it's comfortable to be here, I know it's safe and you're allowed to spend some time here. Just please understand that in the grand scheme of things, this thing that you love so much only becomes significant in your life if you use it for good. Instead of being competitive, I don't know, waste your time on the internet, fighting with people you'd never met over stuff that doesn't belong to you. Why not make fan art? Why not write stories and explore this universe that you love so much? Brush up on basics whether that be illustration theory or improving written dialogue. I learned how to play ukulele covering pop punk emo songs that I was obsessed with as a kid and now I'm in a band that I probably would have been a stan of at 14 years old. I'm so incredibly lucky to feel like I was able to pull my own head out of my butt and turn my interest into a livelihood. It is so much more insanely fulfilling to be recognized by old childhood heroes and develop actual friendships with some of them than it is to spend money on meet and greets for some superficial interaction for a few seconds. To any and all stans and fanboys watching, don't let anybody bully you for the stuff that you love and please don't bully others for the same thing. Establish a safe distance between who you are as a person and the artwork that other people create. Use your drive and passion for this stuff to learn new things. Use it as a crutch to bury the struggles folks normally fight through when picking up new skills. That's kind of philosophy behind my whole channel, you know? Dude, cool stuff. That's all I want from you, doofus. Thank you for watching. I hope you had a happy holidays. Thank you to Rage Shadow Legends for helping me afford a down payment on a car. Stay safe, stay smart and stay spicy. I will see you in the next one.