Wig. Snatched. Tea. Queen. These are all words that appear constantly across the sub-Twitter known as stan Twitter. If you’ve never heard any of these words or understand what they mean, you are completely missing out on the borderline crazy, obsessive tweets that can leave someone laughing at its absurdity or deactivating their account.

To clarify, a stan is an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity. These stans may devote themselves to learn everything and anything about their favorite celebrities, whether it be reading news articles, listening to their favorite artist, or binge watching any series their favorites may appear on. Most of the time, stans can be passive and simply make threads about why their favorites are the best, or they can turn into a soldier on a battlefield and start fights with other stans in their own community or even stans of other communities. And to think this all started with a song.

In late 2000, American rapper Eminem released a song of the name “Stan.” It tells the story of an obsessive named Stanley “Stan” Mitchell. He was supposedly the biggest fan of Eminem and had been sending Eminem letters. The song received praising critical reception, was nominated for several awards, and was named 10th Best Song of the decade by the Rolling Stone Magazine. Eventually stan became a part of the internet lingo on social media platforms like Tumblr and Twitter, and in the 2017, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Nowadays, Twitter stans are notorious for starting arguments with each other, and it’s always hysterical to see threads of tweets defending either side – unless you are the one in the argument, of course. Stan Twitter is really just one part passionate tweets about favs and one part arguments about some of the dumbest things (like fake fans or someone expressing their dislikes about the newest album).