One Direction fans going in the wrong direction?
The history of television is scattered with documentaries and news reports examining the latest pop sensations and the young fans caught up in their crazy antics. The Beatles, Take That, Oasis, Mcfly ... the footage is always pretty much the same - footage of deluded teenage girls waiting outside hotels in the rain, and fainting and screaming at a glimpse of their idols as they drive past them in their blacked out tour bus.
‘We can find out anything through Twitter,’ claimed one girl, referring to which hotel, restaurant or clothes store Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, The Irish One, The One who he thinks he's a proffesional footballer , and the other one (Liam I think) might have been spotted in. Whereas previous generations of fans were limitedd to sending letters to a record company that the acts themselves never even saw, these days they can send all sorts cof messages directly to the idol's twitter accounts.
(A tweet sent to Harry Styles illustrating the lengths some Directioners will go to get their attention)
These tweets range from telling them how they had been inspired to have a tattoo of cup of a tea (with a crappy picture attached) to informing the band that their grandmother had died to other, more disturbingly VERY direct, appeals.
All the fans featured were female teens. They included 17-year-old Natasha, who had got braces because 'Niall' (the Irish blonde one) had them, although "he wasn’t even her favourite."
Other girls tried to justify their obsession.
‘I want to be more than just a fan. I just want to be noticed,’ said one with so much sadness in her eyes. ‘If they said "chop off an arm", then I would." said the other sitting next to her. ‘I wouldn’t kill a puppy, but I would kill a cat,’ offered one girl brightly.
(The first tweet, tweeted to the 1D boys reads "FOLLOW ME OR I'LL BREAK MY DOG'S NECK". A second tweet posted a day after read "FOLLOW ME PLEASE, MY DOGS JUST DIED!")
That's the spirit.
Another considered that, if the chance to meet the band arose: ‘people would kill each other. Definitely.’
(Sandra spends her days following the band's movements on twitter or even in Doncaster, coveting the very concrete that Harry Styles had trodden on)
Sandra, 14 who was another interviewee, had a ‘One Direction wall’ of pictures in her bedroom. It included a photo of her posing with Zayn’s cousin and another with One Direction’s drummer. ‘We spotted him and we followed him to Nandos.’
Sadly this was the closest she had ever come to meeting the boys themselves, despite countless hours outside various venues and searching the corridors of the hotels she thought they were staying in. Her pursuit once took her to Harry's home in Doncaster. ‘I think Harry’s family don’t like it. They say I’m a stalker,’ she acknowledged, without any intention of stopping.
Knowing (from Twitter) that it was the band’s day off, Sandra was in Doncaster again in case Harry had gone, little realising that, like many celebrities, he had probably started singing so that he could escape from there in the first place. Silly girl.
A group of Directioners (aged youngest 15 to eldest 17) were shown scurrying through the corridors of the band's hotel looking for them, discovering later that they had in fact left seven hours earlier and hadn't stayed over night after all.
Sandra who was smart enough to make the most of her time in front of Channel 4’s camera, gazed in to the window of Harry’s local bakery and sighed: ‘I’ve never been jealous of some bread. I can literally smell Harry when I’m here. It just feels like I’m more connected to him. He was on this concrete!’ Not stalkerish at all.
‘And what do you imagine life would be like if you married Harry?’ – a question asked to torment the poor girl for just a little bit longer. ‘Oh my God! It would just be real good. I just like want to spend my life with him. He looks like the kind of guy that treats girls really nice.’
Despite my hatrid towards them, for a second it was rather touching the way she spoke about how Harry’s ‘morning voice’ would be amazing before returning very quickly to reality by admitting: ‘I’m 14 unfortunately. And he’s 19. He’d get put in jail for it. But I’d join him in jail. We could just sit on a bunk bed and do nothing or have lots and lots of sex. Well, it’s good to have a plan in life.
Sandra’s face when she listened to the tales of those who had met One Direction in person was a picture of anger and a lesson in disappointment. One girl had met them over 60 times. Her great advice was you had to have time and patience. That, and ‘always have a phone charger with you'.
With £10million album sales and at least 10 million followers each on twitter, One Direction’s fandom has now mutated not in to just one network but several. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr etc allow ‘the Directioners’ to spend all day and all night in touch with one another if they want to, especially when the band themselves have selfishly gone on tour abroad.
‘It’s like being part of a cult or a sect or something,’ Natasha said happily. ‘It’s just cool.
Most of them don’t have boyfriends and are not even interested in one. ‘They get in the way too much.’ she said. When asked what she thought of ‘real boys’, 19 year-old Becky said: ‘I don’t really speak to them.’ With their real lives consisting mostly of at best horny 1D related sex dreams or more painful struggles such as caring for their disabled parents (like Natasha), you didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad that One Direction provided some escapism.
‘Twitter is like a praying place,” Natasha explained or tried to. ‘When you go to a praying place, you feel like you’re connected to God. So when you go to twitter, you feel like you’re connected to 1D. You just have hope.’ Unable to afford the cheapest tickets to go and see them on their latest stadium tour (£42.50), she posed for photos with cardboard cut outs instead. ‘That was amazing !’ she said flustered. ‘I feel like I proper met them !"
There are other (and more original) sides of modern fandom, including sites like KillHarryStyles or campaigns like #thehateisreal. ‘What the fuck is this?!’ one Directioner cried when she saw it. "I will pour bleach down your throat bitch, don't you even think that I won't!."
Another One Direction phenomena was the concept/conspiracy of the bromance/secret affair conducted mostly through the medium of tumblr, between Harry Styles and band member Louis Tomlinson. Known, amongst Directioners, as 'Larry Stylinson' or 'Shipping Larry' some of the drawings, images, stories or video montages fantasising or illustrating Harry and Louis’ relationship were strangely fascinating.
(The type of picture posted on tumblr illustrating the imagined secret relationship between Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles.)
(Photostopped pornographic images of Louis and Harry - known as Shipping Larry - are the most interesting about One Direction)
The slow-mo footage of the looks that Styles can be seen giving Tomlinson in various One Direction videos or TV appearance, was actually very bewildering and almost convincing. Even some of their most stupid delusional teenage fans wanted the theory to be true.
‘Some fans want them to be gay,’ explained one. ‘So they don’t have a girlfriend.’
After an hour of having to listen to One Direction’s songs, and their fans talking about them, this was easily the most interesting thing about them. Do the One Direction lads even know about this? Probably. Do they care probably not. Because make up all the rumours you want they're still more than likely earning more money than the average worker. Simon Cowell is laughing all the way to the bank. This pathetic excuse for a band was created and promoted specifically to play on the gullibility and vulnerability of young teenage girls who have yet to reach puberty. I hope time will cure all their hysteria and they will look back embarrased on their silly young selves as we all eventually must.
