Who is this Stan Chris kid?
With a range of funny, relatable, and engaging content, 24-year old Chris Stanley (@stanchris) has made himself one of social media’s fastest rising gay content creators with nearly 2 million followers across his platforms including 408K on YouTube (over 300M views), 320K on Instagram, 884K on TikTok, and 110K on Snapchat.
One of the first LGBTQ+ creators on TikTok to go viral 5 years ago, Chris is known for his travel vlogs, meme videos, candid street interviews (called the “Gen-Z Billy Eichner”), and his hilarious, often heartfelt videos with his entire family (his 5 brothers, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles). He’s also collaborated with people like Colton Underwood and has had his content shared/re-posted by gay icons like Madonna.
With Pride Season coming up, we had a chance to catch up with Chris.
Instinct: I’ll start off with the tough memory recall. We all have our own coming out story. You were a 4.0 GPA high school student, a star soccer player, and was pretty competitive at everything. But when you came out, you lost friends and quit the soccer team. Do you look back at that time and wish you had come out differently?
Chris: Honestly, I used to wish it went differently. But now, I look back knowing it made me even more into the person I am now. Honestly glad I found out those “friends” weren’t real friends at all before I had known them any longer. It was partially out of my control as I was outed by a student, but he didn’t do it on purpose. I’ve made my peace with how everything went and am grateful with where I ended up.
Instinct: And then you’re also of that age where COVID fell at a pretty formative time in your life during your gap year before figure out what you wanted to study in college, but COVID convinced you to not go to school. Was it that fully or were you not ready to return to a school environment being out as a gay man?
Chris: I had planned on going to college, looked forward to it as a gay man, actually. Always heard that students in college were much more accepting so I was excited to be an out gay student, however COVID had other plans for me.
Instinct: Are there plans on going back to get an education? A degree? Or are you all set?
Chris: I have been toying with the idea, maybe just a bachelor’s. It’s not like I need it but it would probably be useful if I wanted to get into more serious film making or creating a company. I have taught myself so much already, in this day and age I don’t believe it’s necessary anymore to go to college. So much can be learned online for free or for cheaper than hefty college tuition.
Instinct: What gives you the confidence to do what you do on all your socials?
Chris: I started to realize people do NOT care as much as we all think they do. They might care about something for a brief moment, but the impact of my videos is definitely worth a little embarrassment (if any) on my end. Just knowing that people smile or that I cheer them up and make their days brighter fuels my confidence stronger than waterfalls fuel rainbows.
Instinct: So that moment you saw Madonna had reposted your clip. What was going through your mind? And was that the biggest moment of your social media career to date?
Chris: That was pretty huge for me, I didn’t even fully grasp it because I was only 23 years old. Madonna is such a legend, especially among the older crowd. I wouldn’t say it was the biggest moment for me though, I’d probably say the video with my cousins checking their nails was my biggest moment. It went viral on three different platforms and received over 100M views across them all. Simply insane to think about that number of people watching my video.
Instinct: And what do you say to your haters? The ones that find you annoying?
Chris: Keep hating, thanks for the engagement! xD However, they say that when people hate you, it all boils down to three reasons: 1: you threaten them, 2: they hate themselves, or 3: they want to be like you.
Rapid Eight:
1. Favorite collaboration done with? Mark Miller
2. Dream collaboration not done yet with? Troye Sivan
3. When playing soccer, what kind of underwear do you wear? boxer briefs or compression briefs
4. Best thing you like about your partner? his sense of humor
5. What about you drives your partner crazy, but not in a good way? my farts (LOL)
6. You like the bears, but are you a twink? twunk? twank? Or?
I guess I’m still a twink, but I think my twink death is rapidly approaching.
7. Favorite Pride attended? Pride Fort Lauderdale
8. Dream Pride to attend? Madrid
Instinct: What pride plans do you have for 2024?
Chris: I’m trying to attend a Pride every weekend this June, like I did last year! I’ll be at WeHo, Boston, Amsterdam, NYC, and a few others which will probably be more spontaneous picks!
Instinct: Have you mentally figured out why you like big ol’ bears?
Chris: I think it’s because they are such a strong symbol of masculinity – which I find very attractive. Plus their bellies are fluffy!
Related Post: ‘Survivor’ Star Bret LaBelle and YouTuber StanChris on Their 27-Year Age Gap
Instinct: You recently joined the Boston Strikers, a gay soccer team. What made you go back to playing soccer?
Chris: I wanted to reclaim my love for the sport. Having quit the way I did before, it wasn’t exactly on my own terms. Getting to play again and be competitive has been so much fun, and I’m so grateful I found the Strikers. They have been so welcoming, and such a fun group of gays to play with. The exercise isn’t bad either!
Instinct: You’ve shared a great deal about yourself, your love life, and more on the socials. If you had to remove all your posts but one, which one would remain?
Chris: That is tough, there are so many funny ones I want to keep, but in the end I think I would decide to keep this video asking my family members what they think about me being gay. I want gay teens to feel more comfortable and families to realize that being gay isn’t as big of a deal as a lot of people make it out to be. So if that video could help more people to be accepting of their queer family members, and more teens to be confident in themselves, that’s the one I’d want to keep.