Author: Zeyao

 
What is “Stan”? If I ask this question on the street, 9 out of 10 people will not give me the correct answer. In fact, the term “Stan” recently has been added to Merriam-Webster dictionary as both a noun and a verb. Stan became a cultural phenomenon after the breakthrough of social media, such as Twitter. The project starts with two questions: what is “stan culture”, and why do people need to care about it? In short, stan culture is about the heavily obsessive fandom community that is active on Twitter. Their shady and aggressive attitude towards other fandom community does not only hurt celebrities themselves but also their fans. Learning stan culture can let people be prepared when they get involved in having conversations with stan. It will let people avoid unnecessary trolling comments and fights online.
Stanbot tackles the one specific media issue in the digital age with voice technology. The project turns the AI assistant to a “stan” and talks to users in a toxic way that stans talk on Twitter or other social media. The user comes to the phone and starts the conversation with “Talk to Stanbot”. The bot will pick up the user’s words and reply to the user with programmed input based on what the user says. Through the interaction, the user will briefly understand the concept of stan culture and to actively participate in stan culture within a controlled environment.
Stanbot is an unconventional use of voice technology. Usually, people will assume the chatbot will help the user play music or tell them the weather. However, Stanbot goes beyond the common use of this technology and explores the other side of it. Voice technology can replicate an intimate experience with talking to a real voice. Stan culture mostly exists on the digital platform whereas no one really uses the stan terminology in reality. Since people might never have a chance to talk to stan in person, therefore the use of voice technology can mimic the situation where people are put in a stan twitter conversation. With Google Assistant, the conversation will be set in a continuous and natural way. So, the rudeness and shade that the Stanbot has will be shown even more during the conversation.
The project is intended to let the digital citizen (i-Gen) be aware of this relatively new culture — stan culture, and start questioning the toxicity of the stan community. Is the tension between different idol’s stans necessary? Do stans have to troll another stan for supporting their favorite? Through this project, I bring the online space to reality and allow audiences to experience the cyber-bullying and cyber-arguing inside the stan culture. Voice Assistants like Alexa or Google Home are created to be intimate and warm to users, yet Stanbots will rebel the traditional settings. The machine-like voice will reinforce the uncanny valley feeling for the user when the bot starts speaking explicit words. With all has been said, the project itself fill the hole of using voice technology to analyze cultural issues related to social media.