What does the term ‘company Stan’ actually mean?

Signs for company stan

1. You support pre debut groups from the company

2. You like all or most of groups from one company while rarely liking groups from other companies

These two category of people often claim they are not “company” Stan’s loudly. But actually they most certainly are

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

2 definitions: people who tend to support many/most/all acts that come out of a company. Following trainees, staff accounts etc

People that legitimately stan the company, project parasocial ideals on them and defend them at all costs.

Most prominent of the 2nd that I've seen are SM and Hybe stans. YG stans made themselves scare long ago

Imo these are not two separate groups and the first category of ppl automatically fall into category two and are in denial about it 99% of the time.

Kpop offers so many groups there’s no non company stan reason to only ever like one company group lol

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

2 definitions: people who tend to support many/most/all acts that come out of a company. Following trainees, staff accounts etc

wait so im a hybe stan?

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

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I was low-key one before the mess

That means you stan every and any group that comes out of a certain company and when someone talks about said company, you take that into offense because any slander thrown at the company = slander thrown at your faves.

SM Stans for example, are company stans. You guys ordered albums for H2H even though we didn’t hear them sing or dance. You guys eat up anything SM.

it's because people use it in different contexts and different situations that there is no fixed definition

hell even the word " stan " itself doesn't have a definitive definition since it can mean something different to everyone

A company stan is someone who thinks Powa is a good song.

There are company stans right here on this forum. It's obvious when they literally stan every group coming out of a specific label. The good thing is that most of them are honest enough to admit it. We have a Starship stan, multiple SM stans, Hybe stans, YG stans, JYP stans, etc.

Isaid made a good point earlier in this thread. If you stan a group BEFORE THEY EVEN DEBUTED, you are clearly a company stan (eg 60k presales for NMIXX). We all saw how folks on here were all hyped up over Heart, Kiii, Baemon before they even debuted.

i think the most common type are those that support successor groups to boost their current group

the least common are those that actually like all groups that just happen to be in the same company

i used to be a company stan many years ago, in my early days of kpop fan. Im glad im not into it anymore. So so tired to always defend all the groups and solos in your 'company' stan. And dislike feeling toward your rival company group was inevitable.

One thing for sure, majority of company stan didnt realized that they are company stan. They always give many excuses for it.

Armyfearnotglitt or blinkmontiez

i used to be a yg stan, liked everyone from that agency

Is this still a thing?

In Gen 2 and early Gen 3, even a Big3 company often only had one GG and one BG active. Perhaps there was an older group also still semi-active, but that was about it.

Now they often have several GGs and BGs at the same time. I doubt anyone can fully stan all of those groups.