I've known a number of his fans when he was popular and boy were they losers. These were people who were generally social outcasts not because of some unchangeable characteristic of their personalities, but because of their own personal decision to be a complete weirdo for attention. Many of them were either nerds, angry kids, abused, or self loathing. They probably needed a hug or a therapist or something.

There's a poorly recorded interview with MM on youtube from Much music from the mid 90s, and there is a fan in the audience that gets to ask MM a question, and he tells a story where MM's music inspired him to empower himself. He says this: A few of his classmates were picking on him at school, so he takes a blade and cuts his side open in front of them, and the bullies run away. Buddy was proud of himself for it! His idea was you can't hurt me, only I can hurt me!

Following this was a discussion around self harm where MM, probably at the advice of his manager, said something like "yeah self harm was something I experimented with for a time but I've since moved past it." Not to hold MM responsible for that, but this is the message his fans were getting. Not surprisingly, an epidemic of self harm and cutting exploded among youth at the time.