One Direction, connect the World.

In the music industry in America, MTV awards are considered one of the most high status awards singers could achieve. In the year of 2014, Ariana Grande received the award in her song “Problem”, and One Direction got three awards for holding the largest fandom and with the best pop songs. These two figures came out publicly recently, but from the time of their debut, they are now received as the most envious icons among the teenager fans. We could see that One Direction has appeared in a cover of numerous magazines and various TV shows, not only the music channels but also in a variety shows or in the drama.

On October 11th and 12th, 2014 the documentary movie, Where We Are, was on air. The significant difference of this movie compared with the ordinary documentary movies is that this was showed on a screen in more than 60 countries, and it was also the limited edition for only those two days. For those fans who are enthusiastic about One Direction, this event was like going to the sports bar to watch their favorite football team play in the Super Bowl for wild football fans. What I wanted to say is that going to this movie showing of One Direction means more to just going to the movie theater and watch their favorite singer play on the screen. It is rather correct to think that the movie theater showing Where We Are is the private culture space excluding people out of the atmosphere except for those who love One Direction and those who share the same values about him.

The example of the fandom of One Direction is significantly explaining the implicit religion and the “Authentic Fake”. As David Chidester mentioned, “Since being a person also requires being in a place, religion entails discourses and practices for creating sacred space, as a zone for inclusion but also as a boundary for excluding others.”[1] Checking the correspondence between the theory of the implicit religion and fandom of One Direction, fans often create such sacred places such as their concerts or fan events. Although the movie Where We Are was ultimately important for those of One Direction fans because this was an opportunity to be connected to fans of One Direction throughout the world at the same time.

[1] Jennifer Porter, “Implicit Religion in Popular Culture: the Religion Dimensions of Fan Communities,” Implicit Religion 12.3 (2009): 271–290.