The burning of the Library of Alexandria for fandoms
Brazil blocking X could deal a fatal blow to stan twitter
Last night, dozens of major celebrity and pop culture stan accounts, meme pages, and theme accounts related to television shows, movies, and animals said goodbye to their millions of collective followers after a Brazilian judge blocked X following Musk's refusal to comply with a court order.
"Apparently twitter will be banned from brasil :( i’m not sure what to do but well, remember to follow me on instagram and bluesky," the account Poorly Drawn Cats, which has nearly half a million followers on the platform, tweeted on Friday. Other fan accounts scrambled to set up Instagram and Bluesky pages, or say their final goodbyes. The suspension could have wide-reaching effects on pop culture globally.
If you haven't been following, Musk and the Brazilian government have been locked in a battle for months over misinformation and controversial right-wing users on X, after Musk refused to remove certain accounts that broke Brazilian laws. Brazil also mandates that any company operating in the country have local legal representation. After a court ordered X to appoint a new attorney within 24 hours or face being banned, Musk refused to comply and now X, a leading social network in a nation of 200 million people, is set to go dark.
Blocking X in Brazil is like dropping a nuclear bomb on stan Twitter and the shutdown is already sending shockwaves through the entertainment and pop culture universe. With over 21 million monthly users, Brazil is one of X's dominant markets, not only measured by sheer usage, but also cultural impact.
Some staffers at music labels and entertainment PR agencies said they were scrambling on Friday night to assess the impact the ban might have on their talents’ fandoms.
"This is literally stan twitter 9/11," one user posted, "does [Musk] have any idea how many delicate ecosystems will be destroyed when the Brazil servers go down?... C list celebrities and below will be overrun with hate with no immensely passionate fans defending them to the hilt! The reaction meme market will crash!"
Brazilian internet users have always been a vocal force online. The country birthed the "Come to Brazil" meme in the first half of the 2010s, where pop music fans would spam the replies of posts from international celebrities with the phrase, begging them to come to the country. Brazil's hyper-engaged fandoms have given users from the country enormous power in shaping pop culture narratives.
Brazilian stan accounts have single handedly resurrected American television shows, movies, music, and celebrities and pushed them into mainstream culture. "Time to drop the character to say that unfortunately I’m Brazilian," the administrator of Virginia Woolf Bot, an account that tweets out quotes from the famed author's work. "It’s been a great few years with you!" Brazilian fans often help shoot songs or music artists to the top of the charts.
In 2013, during the release of Lady Gaga’s album ARTPOP, Brazilian stans were instrumental in promoting the album. They trended hashtags like #BuyARTPOPoniTunes and mobilized massive online campaigns to boost the album’s visibility. In 2018, Brazilian stan twitter mobilized to back BTS's comeback song "Fake Love," making multiple hashtags associated with the single trend globally. There are hundreds more examples like this.
Aside from making music trend, stan accounts also play a crucial role in the celebrity and entertainment media ecosystem. One person noted that so many Brazilian accounts are basically unpaid pop culture archivists. These accounts document every single photo, news update, and project related to the object of their standom. They surface news stories and information about celebrities and the entertainment world that would otherwise likely go unnoticed.
"This is like the burning down of the Library of Alexandria for fandoms," one user tweeted on Friday.
Amanda Brennan, an internet librarian and fandom expert, who created fandom metrics on Tumblr, said that booting all of Brazil off X "is going to disrupt the structure of the entire entertainment industry."
"These stan accounts are the ones finding photos, posting memes, and breaking news about the object of their fandom," she said, "and there isn't really another good place to do that on the internet."
Alonso Gurmendi, a fellow in human rights and politics at the London School of Economics posted that, "the Global North has not yet fully realized what a massive force Brazil is for media… Many US shows really need their Brazilian fandoms for word of mouth promotion. Heck some of the most famous memes are Brazilian"
A small number of celebrity accounts and pop media outlets like Pop Crave, which has a symbiotic relationship with stan Twitter, have been building life rafts on other platforms. Pop Crave launched a newsletter on Substack back in April and has been pushing audiences to follow them there.
But Twitter's design, with its focus on real-time information, searchable text, hashtag trends, and global reach, is truly the main, if not only, space where stans can mobilize quickly, create viral moments, and influence popular culture on a massive scale.
The absence of Brazilian stan twitter will undoubtedly create a noticeable gap in the pop culture landscape. Brazilian stans are hyper-engaged, creative, and frequently amplify voices from the Global South. Removing such an influential group of users will lead to a less diverse and vibrant culture on Twitter.
I think the ban could also have a downstream impact on the political world. Stan culture is not just a pastime but a powerful social force. Stan accounts often organize around social issues, support political movements, and work to hold public figures accountable.
For instance, Brazilian stans have been fierce and vocal supporters of LGBTQ+ rights, environmental activism, and racial justice. In 2019, when fires in the Amazon rainforest were raging, Brazilian stans trended the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia to draw global attention to the crisis. In 2020, Brazilian stans played a crucial role in trending #VidasNegrasImportam, the Portuguese version of Black Lives Matter, and organized virtual protests. The loss of Twitter as a tool for political engagement could ultimately disenfranchise countless young, digitally savvy Brazilians, whose stan identities are intertwined with their political activism.
There is also the potential economic impact of the ban. Brazilian stans contribute to the global entertainment industry by buying music, merch, and concert tickets. They drive traffic and engagement to artists' projects, and the ban could stifle certain artists' album sales or cultural visibility. The hyper-online nature of Brazilian internet users has made them indispensable to the way pop culture functions today.
We'll see how the ban plays out and how long it ultimately lasts. Disappearing tens of millions of users in a key market is undeniably bad for Musk's bottom line. He might eventually lose enough money that he ends up begrudgingly complying with local laws. In the meantime, the whole fiasco is another reminder of how cavalierly Musk treats these fragile communities.
Even if the ban is reversed this weekend, the instability of the platform is a major blow to stan Twitter, and I think most accounts will permanently migrate off platform or give up altogether.
"So many people have left Twitter and social media, in general, has become so decentralized," Brennan told me. "The loss of Brazilian stan accounts is a major blow to the internet's heart."
WATCH: Ryan Broderick joined me to discuss all of this and more on the latest episode of Power User 👇.
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Loved it but caveat emptor: it wasn't banned; it was suspended. It's yet to be seen if people won't scratch that old itch and flock back to X once Musk finds another legal representative.
I doubt Mastodon could handle that influx and it’s not as well suited for them, but lord, a federated, people are the algorithm platform is the sure fire way to escape oligarchic enclosure. It is necessary for free exchange in that unbotshitted human messy way. Artists, professionals, creatives, labels etc have to ensure their own future this way. Otherwise all the time invested in an audience can disappear in a blink of any eye, thru bans, shadow bans or shutdown