Eminem ft. Dido
The term "Stan" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary because of this music video. In 2000, Eminem released "Stan," a storytelling track about an obsessed fan who takes his love for the artist too far. The video, directed by Philip Atwell and Dr. Dre, featured actor Devon Sawa (known for Casper and Final Destination) delivering a terrifying performance as the unhinged fan. The video was so impactful that "Stan" morphed from a proper noun into a verb used to describe overzealous fans The Detail: Notice how Stan physically transforms throughout the video, bleaching his hair and dressing like Slim Shady, slowly losing his own identity to become his idol. The Sound: The video emphasizes the diegetic sounds—the rain, the scribbling pencil, the glass breaking—layering them over the track to make it feel like a movie scene rather than a song. Dido, whose song "Thank You" was sampled for the chorus, appears in the video as Stan's pregnant girlfriend, effectively acting out her own sample. In the original MTV broadcast version, the final few seconds where Stan drives off the bridge were censored, cutting to black before the car hit the water. Devon Sawa revealed years later that Dr. Dre directed him to loose-sync the lyrics, meaning he wasn't rapping along perfectly, but rather muttering them like a person talking to themselves.