Lizstomania and Stan Culture

I’ve gotten increasingly into classical music, especially for piano. It started out with a mini-obsession with Franz Liszt, as I started jamming out to some of his Rhapsodies. For the unfamiliar, Hungarian composer had a moment in the 1840s, where his fans went CRAZY. Imagine a BTS concert, but instead of having a complicated production, you had a dude with a piano and the fans were cheering with the same amount of fervor. This fervor was so notable that it was given the amazing name of Lisztomania. ¹ Unfortunately, the 1840s were a long time ago and we have no way of capturing what the experience was like, but here’s Lang Lang (one of the most accomplished modern classical musicians) taking a stab at Liszt’s memory:

I can’t stop thinking about what Liszt Stans would have done. Do you think there were some spicy pieces of fan art or fan fiction lost to the sands of time? Maybe there were special handkerchiefs embroidered with the visage of the man. Update: I looked it up, and fans did indeed wear his portrait on brooches and cameos. That’s dope as hell. What’s even more fun was the fact that many people thought the sufferers of Lizstomania needed medical attention. The extreme obsession with Lizst that seems so familiar now was considered a whole ailment!

Despite being a fan of many things for my whole life (Linkin Park, Naruto, Pokemon, Taco Bell), I’ve never fully been able to resonate with fandoms. For whatever reason, my obsessions with art and artists tend to be short-lived, and if not, they tend to be a lot less involved than most folks in a fandom. Even though I’ve watched Naruto three times and have watched countless video essays about it, I still don’t feel like a Naruto stan. For me, the consumption and the conversation around it are enough. I’ve never thought to create my own content around it and share it with others, like with fan art, etc. In other cases, I lose my interest in an artist rather quickly. I like Liszt now, but it probably won’t be long before I start caring more about Rachmaninoff or whoever else.

For a while, I considered myself a Frank Ocean stan. I adored Blonde with all my heart, listening to it constantly, until I could almost remember most of the words (a huge accomplishment for someone who can’t understand lyrics in songs). I had a poster of him on my wall and wore the same t-shirt that he did.² And I really did love everything he said and did for a while, even if he didn’t seem to care that he missed every self-imposed deadline. Yet, when he started to sell uninspired merch for $150³ and take 7 months to fulfill orders for everything he sold, it became increasingly clear to me that I could be a fan of Frank Ocean the artist, without needing to “stan” Frank Ocean the person. That ultimately, he was someone who had a platform and made good music and was also just someone trying to make money to survive in the capitalist machine.

I don’t think that I had a good way to phrase how I felt about Frank and artists like him until I saw this tweet:

At face value, it just seems like a fun joke, which it is, but I’ve been obsessed with the idea. With most people that are famous, we often see them through a very specific and partial lens. The actor is seen through her interviews and her roles, each molded to be a particular way — we never get to see the whole person. The musician is seen through their art, which creates a picture of an artist, but not of a whole person. And as a person, each of our subjects of worship are ultimately just “some guy,” armed with the simplicity that most human beings have. It’s like having a crush on someone: the unknown aspects of a person make them more intriguing, as you fill in the details about who and what they are based on incomplete information; eventually, you discover that your fantasy was wrong and really, this person isn’t that cool at all — they’re just some guy.

And as a serial crush-haver, maybe I just don’t want to go through all of that.