Stray Kids Have The Happiest Fans In Music, According To New Study

Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N. of Stray Kids sojourn the SiriusXM Studios connected June 16, 2025 successful New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

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Traditionally, fandoms are measured successful units of strength via streaming numbers, first-week medium sales, trending hashtags, circuit sellouts, crowd size and beyond. But a caller study measuring happiness among fandoms — thing acold little quantifiable — has travel backmost to find that Stray Kids person the happiest fans successful music.

The Action Network ran an emotion study connected much than 1.5 cardinal comments pulled from Reddit instrumentality communities of 106 celebrated artists, pinch the outlet that traditionally reports connected sports betting and prediction markets now scoring fandoms based connected the emotions coming successful different conversations. The Stray Kids fandom — affectionately known arsenic STAY aliases STAYs — was reported to beryllium joyful 30.5% of the time, the highest complaint among each feelings and fandoms.

Among the fandoms astir apt to consciousness joy, fans of Florence + the Machine vanished 2nd (with 27.2% of analyzed comments radiating joy), Hozier 3rd (with 23.9%), pinch The Cure and BTS tied for 4th (both pinch 23.4%).

On the different broadside of the study, Mitski fans topped the sadness floor plan astatine 11.4%, conscionable hardly up of My Chemical Romance and Charlie Puth astatine 10.3% each. Fans of Future led the anger committee astatine 11.7%, followed by Tyler, the Creator astatine 11.2% and Kodak Black astatine 10.7%.

Read the afloat study from The Action Network here and publication connected for much analyses.

Joy In Fandoms: The Least Predictable Chart

Among the halfway emotions of joy, sadness, and anger studied, the joyousness rankings were the only class without an evident genre cluster.

The Top 10 runs Stray Kids, Florence + the Machine, Hozier, The Cure, BTS, Bon Iver, Ed Sheeran, SZA, The National and Elton John pinch those artists representing K-pop, rock, folk, soul, goth, indie, pop, R&B and classical rock.

Despite The Cure’s euphony being known for having a much gloomy sound, the band’s fans placing 2nd arsenic “most apt to consciousness joy” arsenic good arsenic their No. 9 spot arsenic “least apt to consciousness anger” speaks to really the fandom doesn’t needfully bespeak the taxable matter of the artist’s euphony but really the organization talks to 1 different and the effect of emotionally dense discographies.

The bottommost of the joyousness committee is acold much uniform: Kodak Black posted the lowest joyousness complaint successful the study astatine 5.6%, followed by Future (with 7.2%), Lil Wayne (7.3%), Drake (7.7%), Juice WRLD (8.0%), Kanye West (8.2%), Eminem (8.3%), Travis Scott (8.6%), Kendrick Lamar (9.3%) and Tyler, the Creator (9.6%). All of these artists run in, aliases astatine slightest overlap with, the hip-hop world.

While those numbers whitethorn look gloomy, they whitethorn besides speak much specifically to really Reddit and subreddits are utilized crossed different euphony spaces. Rap instrumentality communities often usability arsenic statement rooms: ranking discographies, features, bars, rollouts — very small of that whitethorn publication arsenic “joy,” moreover if the fans are having a awesome time.

Sadness In Fandom: Lyrical Women Win

Mitski’s 11.4% tops the sadness floor plan pinch the apical of that database boasting a bunched scope of different artists: My Chemical Romance and Charlie Puth astatine 10.3%, Olivia Rodrigo astatine 10.2%, The National astatine 10.0%, Halsey astatine 9.9%, Melanie Martinez astatine 9.4%, Lana Del Rey and The Weeknd astatine 9.3%, and Gracie Abrams astatine 9.0%.

Notably, six of the 10 saddest fandoms beryllium to female artists, successful opposition to the anger ranking, which is mostly male.

The Action Network added successful its methodology study that during manual review, researchers recovered that an estimated 15-20% of the highest-confidence sadness comments weren’t fans expressing existent sadness but were quotes from sad lyrics. The study says they kept them in, reasoning that choosing to quote the astir emo lines is itself portion of a fandom’s register. Still, the fandoms that are astir apt to station emo lyrics aliases analyse the astir devastating lines could person a somewhat inflated score.

On the different broadside of the sadness ranking, Stray Kids arsenic the No. 1 astir joyful fandom besides ranks sixth among the slightest sad fandoms successful the study, tied astatine 5.1% pinch The Beatles and Daft Punk. The fandom slightest apt to consciousness sadness is led by Migos personnel Offset (with only 3.1% of the fandom apt to consciousness sadness), followed by OutKast (with 3.6%), Doechii (4.4%), Kendrick Lamar (4.5%), Stray Kids, The Beatles and Daft Punk (all 5.1%), Drake (5.2%), and closed retired by Metallica and Eminem (both pinch 5.3%).

Anger In Fandom: Rap Rules, With One Pop Star Outlier

When it comes the angriest fans, Future leads astatine 11.7%, trailed by Tyler, the Creator (11.2%), Kodak Black (10.7%), Doechii (10.2%), Megan Thee Stallion (9.6%), Chris Brown (9.4%), Eminem (9.3%), Lil Wayne (9.0%) and Kanye West (9.0%). Tying pinch Kanye is Chappell Roan — the only enactment successful the anger apical 10 that doesn’t overlap successful the hip-hop world and 1 of the study’s astir conspicuous inclusions. Notably, Roan has made judge not to clasp backmost whenever she has been angry successful her career, by being unfastened astir invasive paparazzi and opinionated up for artists' rights. Even erstwhile Chappell has not spoken up astir various media frenzies, her fans whitethorn beryllium the ones speaking connected her behalf.

The calmest fandoms — aliases those slightest apt to acquisition anger — beryllium almost wholly successful pop, stone arsenic good arsenic immoderate hip-hop: Ed Sheeran (2.3%), Offset (2.5%), Elton John and Avicii (2.9% each), Olivia Dean (3.1%), Bad Bunny (3.2%), Florence + the Machine and Bruno Mars (3.4%), The Cure (3.4%) and David Bowie (3.5%).

The ‘Neutral’ Option

The azygous largest uncovering successful the study is the 1 that won’t nutrient immoderate ranking: The Action Network notes that astir 46% of comments successful a emblematic instrumentality organization were tagged “neutral.”

More Joy For Stray Kids Fans: THIS & THAT Out This Week

Stray Kids fans will proceed their happiness pinch the set releasing their medium THIS & THAT this upcoming Friday, marking the group’s first afloat task of 2026 and first since the Do It mixtape arrived successful November 2025. It sold a monolithic 295,000 units successful its first week successful the U.S. for one of the biggest opening weeks ever for a K-pop release.

The eight-track merchandise comes conscionable arsenic Stray Kids kicked disconnected The Run It World Tour pinch 5 dates astatine Seoul’s KSPO Dome and continues done astatine slightest early 2027.

No doubt, the happiest fandom successful euphony will stay the happiest fandom successful euphony pinch each that Stray Kids are group to unveil successful the coming weeks and months.

Stray Kids “This & That" euphony video teaser, retired August 7.