Three, Two, One Direction! How the One Direction Fandom is Still Influential Today
“Crazy”, “obsessive”, and “out of control”: these words and phrases are some of the most common things that have been said about the One Direction fandom. One Direction is not everyone’s forte, but if you were on the Internet or kept up on pop culture at all from around 2010 to 2016, you most likely have heard of them. The group consisting of members Niall Horan, Zayn Malik (past member), Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson formed on July 23, 2010, on the British TV show, The X Factor. After the release of their song “What Makes You Beautiful”, One Direction became the world’s next big boyband. With their popularity exponentially increasing, in came swarms of new fans, referred to as Directioners, into their fandom. Because of the technology advancements just from the early 2000s to 2010, One Direction had an entirely new format of how their fandoms would grow, the Internet.
This topic is important in the sense of how fandoms are involved and act online now versus 12 years ago. Directioners have earned, and rightfully so, the recognition as one of the few fandoms that “created” stan Twitter. Stan Twitter is essentially a part of the social media website and app Twitter that discusses and engages in the fandoms they are a part of. This includes celebrities, tv shows, movies, books, and anything else that has a fandom (Naik, 2020).
An article from Independent said it best, “formats created by Directioners have become integral in the birth of online fandoms that have followed” (Greenwood, 2020). Even before the band’s debut hit “What Makes You Beautiful”, they had already gained hundreds of fans from the video diaries they did on The X Factor. The band also interacted online with fans on Twitter and streamed through Twitcam, strengthening their bond to fans. The members used their online presence to their advantage, and by the time the “What Makes You Beautiful” music video premiered, the band Twitter account had multiple tweets with more than 500 likes.
Even years after the band’s “18 month” hiatus in late 2015, Directioners still have a big online presence ranging from Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, to Wattpad and Archive of Our Own (AO3). Directioners have created special social media accounts just for the band, fanart, fanfiction, and videos because of how much they love the band, highlighting the creative output of the fandom.
The questions that I’d like to explore are:
- What were/are Directioners digital activities?
- What are some ways the One Direction fandom changed fan culture? Because of the interactions between the band and fans, do celebrities now need to have an online presence?
- Why did Directioners get labeled as being crazy versus other fandoms?
So far throughout this semester I have found quite a few other sources that I have not mentioned in this post that will be extremely helpful in expanding upon this topic. Of course, I will also be deep diving into our course content from Unit 5: “Introduction to Fandoms”.
Like I mentioned previously, Directioners were among the first fandoms to help create what is known as “Stan Twitter” today (Goswami). Their presence is still easily found online through still active streaming parties of the band and of the members’ solo careers, fan art, and loads of discussion and support for the band and its members today. Fan and update accounts are now pretty common for various fandoms; however, they became super popular with One Direction. All of these digital activities will be further explored in my paper.
Like many other fandoms, being involved in One Direction online fan activities is often very fun and it is a place to share your creative content and simply talk about your interests with others. However, there continues to be escalating tension both within the fandom and from other fandoms. Directioners often fight about shipping between the members and this practice has garnered a lot of the criticism mentioned in the beginning of the post. Many of those who shipped/ship the members will focus on very small details in social media posts to try to put forth their own narrative about the nature of the relationship between two members, Louis and Harry. Additionally, since the members now have solo music, they have gained fans who only listen to their solo music and not any of One Direction’s. As you can imagine, this results in stans of one of them spending a lot of their time hating on and comparing the other members to the one they stan.
For those who made it this far without becoming bored and tired of a 20-year-old reminiscing and discussing some of her favorite celebrities, I would like you to think about a few things.
Firstly, before reading this post, did you know or heard of One Direction and or Directioners? If you did, did you have a more negative or positive connotation (or no opinion) when seeing the topic I chose? If not, what are some big fandoms you have heard of?
Additionally, would you consider yourself to be a stan (as defined by oxford dictionary of “an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity”) of anybody or have you always just been a general fan?
Lastly, are you active in any fandom digital activities? This can be simply being on and keeping up with stan Twitter, TikTok, etc., or posting your own content as well. If yes and you feel comfortable sharing, what fandom and what activities do you partake in?
I cannot expect people to answer this honestly, and hopefully with some yeses and details of who/what, if I do not share myself. With that being said, it is quite obvious I have engaged in the One Direction fandom, as well as either currently or in the past, Taylor Swift, the band 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS), and Youtubers Ethan and Grayson Dolan (The Dolan Twins). A majority of the time I am/was simply looking at other fans’ artwork and edits, trying to get a notice, or keeping up with drama, but a few years ago I did sometimes read fanfiction.
References
Druce, E. (2017, November 5). The power of the ‘super-fan’: how One Direction took over the world (& lessons in talent management). Medium. https://edwarddruce.medium.com/the-power-of-the-super-fan-how-one-direction-took-over-the-world-c71ffa1548eb
Goswami, A. (2020, February 20). Inside Stan Twitter: Online community of various fans. The Daily Targum. https://dailytargum.com/article/2020/02/inside-twitter-subcommunities-stan-twitter
Greenwood, D. (2020, July 23). How One Direction became the world’s first internet boyband. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/one-direction-10-years-anniversary-social-media-x-factor-fandom-a9632291.html
Naik, K. (2020, November 18). A Simple Guide to Stan Twitter. The Teen Magazine. https://www.theteenmagazine.com/a-simple-guide-to-stan-twitter
Organization for Transformative Works. (n.d.). Archive of Our Own beta. Archive of Our Own. https://archiveofourown.org/tags/One%20Direction%20(Band)/works
R/onedirection — 2013 one direction was amazing. reddit. (n.d.). https://www.reddit.com/r/OneDirection/comments/jrpaa2/2013_one_direction_was_amazing/
Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. https://twitter.com/18MonthsUpdates
Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. https://twitter.com/updatehld?s=21
Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. https://twitter.com/With1DNews
