Confessions of a Stan Account Owner
graphic by Mikayla Alpert
Before I begin with these stomach churning confessions, allow me to set the scene. It was a spring day in 2018, I was a ripe thirteen years of age, and my heart was invested in nothing else but the pop sensation, Shawn Peter Raul Mendes. I came home from school and, with shaky hands, called my mom. She answered and I said, “Mom? Can I start a Shawn Mendes fan account? I think Shawn might notice me and I can meet people who also like him.” To my surprise she responded and said, “Yes of course, but don’t show your face, or tell people how old you are, or where you live, and, above all else, DO NOT talk to strangers.” She went on and on about how old men are probably acting as teenage girls with fan accounts to seduce children and how they were going to come to my house. That scared me a lot, but I went on to make my account because my love for Shawn was so grueling that I needed a place to let it out.
I went to Instagram to create a new account and spent several minutes trying to come up with a clever username. I landed on @fallingallinmendess as a play on words to one of Shawn’s songs “Fallin’ All In You.” I thought I was a genius; I distinctly remember hitting sign in after creating the username and feeling immense pride for the account that did not even have a single post yet. After about an hour of scrolling through my Shawn Mendes Pinterest board, I settled on my debut post for my account. The post was a photo of Shawn at the 2018 Met Gala wearing a stunning dark maroon suit with his hair slicked back. The caption read “Can we just take a second...I mean...look at that jawline😵kill me now.” I know many people have different childhood traumas, but I posted that to the Internet and I truly thought I was starting something revolutionary—so I win.
Nonetheless, I continued to post on this account regularly until February 2019; I did not even last a year. To your surprise, Shawn never saw my account (to my knowledge, I still have hope), I did not get kidnapped by an old man pretending to be a fan account, and I never even reached 200 followers on the account. However short lived my fan account was, I still learned and embarrassed myself a lot, and I am not going to share all that for your entertainment.
Confession 1: I Really Just Wanted to be Famous
As hard as it is to admit, the driving force behind the creation of my account was the desire for fan account fame. As a young, pubescent, Shawn Mendes obsessed teen, I idolized the girls running the fan accounts with thousands of followers. To me, no one could be cooler than them; they were like superheroes or Hannah Montana. Their regular friends did not know about their accounts, so during the day, they were regular teens, but when they got home from school they had a massive army of Shawn Mendes fans to chat and complain about their lives with. Shawn also followed some of the accounts himself. They were the crème de la crème, the top of the charts, they were winning at life, and I wanted to be exactly like them. I have a memory of one of my posts getting one thousand views and thinking that I had made it; I was famous. When my rise to fame began to seem more like a dream than a possible reality, I closed out my Pinterest board and retired from the hard life as a stan account owner.
Confession 2: I Wanted Stan Account Friends
Although the “fame” and possibility of Shawn following me were driving forces of the creation of my account, the thing that made me the most envious was the fellow stan account mutuals/friends. I would see two accounts shout out each other and all I thought was, “UGH! I want to be a part of that so bad!” So within minutes of creating my first post, I dm’d one of my favorite accounts at the time, @particulartastemendes, and said “Hey, I love your account! Shoutout for shoutout?” To my shock, this account with fifty-thousand+ followers never responded. My dream of stan account besties who travel across the world to meet each other failed. However, with much trial and failure, I met a few incredibly nice people who did, actually, live on the other side of the world. Sadly, we never became very close but I still follow many of them on Instagram and I love staying up-to-date with their lives.
Confession 3: I Believed, With My Whole Heart, That Shawn Would Be My Friend
As a pre-teen navigating my way through middle school, my account brought pure joy to my life because I truly believed that with enough hard work in posting, Shawn would notice me. Now this is a fantastic message that everyone should follow, but take it with a grain of salt because I forgot to. I was convinced that Shawn Mendes, the 24th most popular artist in the world (according to Spotify), was going to see my thirsty, loving, and obsessive posts and think, “You know what? I am going to befriend this girl!” It was a fact that governed my life; it gave me something to talk about, kept me motivated in school, and simply made me feel at ease. Sadly, no words were ever exchanged between the two of us, but I still have hope!
Confession 4: I Flew to a Different Country to See Him Perform
Yes, you read that correctly. I flew from Los Angeles to Toronto, Canada—a whopping 2,518.8 miles—to attend a concert. Did he play in L.A. too? Yes. So, I do not sound like a complete psychopath, I was out of town when he played in L.A. and his show in Toronto was his first ever stadium show. I wanted the most intense buzz, the excitement, and the energy of the crowd and Shawn, which, obviously, could only be achieved by missing two days of school and spending 12+ hours on a plane for a 3 hour concert. In retrospect, I do recognize how crazy it was to do this, but I do not regret it and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. I experienced a concert of a lifetime, explored a new city, and made some irreplaceable memories.
Owning a stan account is uncharted territory; there is no rule book telling you the dos and don’ts. I have given you a peek of some of my deepest, most embarrassing confessions of my ventures through fame and friendship all in the name of Shawn Mendes. Would I advise against creating a stan account? Not at all! I learned so much and had so many good and bad experiences that are incredibly fun to look back and laugh on. So, create a stan account, fly across the country, express yourself, and make some new friends! It is a weird, unconventional world out there and if publicly expressing your love for an artist helps you cope and escape with the world, DO YOU! Maybe, take a page out of my book and try to learn from my mistakes and misunderstandings, but as long as you are having fun, no one can stop you.