The third verse of “Stan” is no longer a letter. It is a tape the narrator records at the wheel, drunk, speeding down the highway, while he explains that his pregnant girlfriend is tied up in the trunk and that he is heading for a bridge. Partway through he realizes he will have no way of sending the tape to Slim Shady, and the car goes over into the water. The song, released in 2000 on Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP, with a chorus sampled from Dido’s “Thank You”, had started far more calmly. In the first letter, Stan introduces himself as the biggest fan of Slim, the rapper’s persona, describes the posters covering his room and announces that his girlfriend is pregnant. In the second, hurt, he reproaches him for not signing an autograph after he waited four hours in the cold with his little brother, Matthew, and tells him that he never knew his father either, a man who beat his mother. In the fourth, Slim finally replies, apologizes for the delay and advises him to get help; as he writes, he remembers a news item about a driver who went off a bridge with his girlfriend in the trunk, and realizes it was Stan. What the song tells is the story of an attachment: a man who turned a stranger into the father he never had and lived his silence as an abandonment.
// The theoryWhat is learned at the start
John Bowlby developed between 1969 and 1980, in his trilogy Attachment and Loss, attachment theory: children need a stable and available caregiver, and from that relationship they build an internal working model of themselves and others. Mary Ainsworth later distinguished several attachment styles. Secure attachment allows one to trust others and tolerate separation; anxious attachment, born of unpredictable or absent care, produces a constant need for reassurance and an intense fear of abandonment. Bowlby also studied young thieves and found that many had suffered early separations.
The parasocial relationship
Stan maintains with Slim Shady what psychologists call a parasocial relationship, a concept coined by Horton and Wohl in 1956: a one-sided emotional bond with a public figure who does not know we exist. In most people, such relationships are harmless. In Stan, they are loaded with everything he lacks. He tells Slim that he never knew his father either and turns him into the figure he never had. That is why his idol’s silence is not a disappointment, but a new abandonment. Attachment theory explains that reaction: whoever has learned that others disappear experiences every silence as confirmation.
// The subjectA man who feels invisible
The song builds Stan through a precise progression: from enthusiastic admiration to reproach, from reproach to fury and from fury to destruction. What drives him is the need to be seen. He fills his room with his idol’s posters and tells him that, as he believes his idol does, he cuts himself. When he understands that he will not get an answer, he decides that his death will be the message. But he drags his pregnant girlfriend with him, treating her as one more piece of his drama. Stan is a victim of his history and he is also a murderer.
The second letter shows how that bond has been loaded up. Stan says he cuts himself for the rush of adrenaline and that his girlfriend is jealous of how much he talks about Slim: the person who lives with him is already competing with someone who does not know he exists. And in the fourth verse, Slim answers the way an attentive friend would. He signs a cap for Matthew, asks about the pregnancy, says he is flattered that Stan wants to call his daughter Bonnie, as in one of his songs, and suggests he see a counselor. It is the reply Stan had been asking for for months, and it arrives when he can no longer read it. The song turns the delay into tragedy because, for someone with anxious attachment, a delay cannot be told apart from abandonment.
Stan
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// The crackA theory that does not explain the murder
Attachment theory explains Stan’s desperate need well, but not why that despair ends in the murder of his girlfriend. Millions of people with insecure attachment and intense parasocial relationships never harm anyone. What turns Stan into an aggressor also has to do with alcohol, with how he sees his partner and with the violence he has fed on.
Moreover, the song has a second reading: it is also Eminem’s response to criticism of the violence in his lyrics. Slim Shady washes his hands of it and reminds Stan that his songs are a joke. The question it leaves open, whether the artist bears any responsibility for what fans do with his work, attachment theory does not answer.
From obsessive fan to stalking
The word “stan” entered the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2019 to describe an overzealous fan. But obsession with a public figure can turn into stalking. In 1989, the actress Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered by a fan who had stalked her for years, and her case led California to pass in 1990 the first anti-stalking law in the United States. Studies of stalkers of public figures show that many suffer extreme loneliness and mental disorders, and that early intervention, more than prosecution, is what reduces the risk.
Three key ideas
- Bowlby’s attachment theory holds that early relationships create a model of bonding, and that anxious attachment produces a desperate need for others and an intense fear of abandonment.
- Stan writes to his idol, Slim Shady, as to a father he never had; faced with his silence, he drives off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk.
- The crack: attachment explains Stan’s despair, not the murder of his girlfriend, and the song raises a question the theory does not answer: the artist’s responsibility.
Sources · further reading
- Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. Hogarth Press.
- Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E. and Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment. Erlbaum.
- Horton, D. and Wohl, R. R. (1956). “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction”. Psychiatry, 19(3), 215-229.
- Mullen, P. E., Pathé, M. and Purcell, R. (2009). Stalkers and Their Victims (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
Who is Stan?
Stan is a villain from Stan, analysed on KRIMINIS through the lens of criminology. The fourth letter was no longer a letter: it was a tape recorded in a car heading for a bridge.
Why does Stan become a villain?
“Stan” and attachment theory: a fan who grew up without a father turns his idol into the figure he lacked, and every unanswered letter lands as one more abandonment.
Which criminological theory explains Stan?
Stan's case is analysed through Attachment. John Bowlby’s attachment theory holds that the bond with the first caregivers creates a model of relationships that stays with a person for life, and that insecure attachment can turn into an anxious need for others and an inordinate fear of abandonment. “Stan” (Eminem, 2000, with a sample of Dido’s “Thank You”) tells in four letters the story of a fan obsessed with Slim Shady, the rapper’s alter ego. Stan identifies with him, tells him he never knew his father either and grows desperate because he does not answer. In the third letter, drunk, he drives off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend tied up in the trunk.
