The Great One Direction Conspiracy
A story of fake beards, Tumblr and the greatest villain of all time: One Direction’s management.
I have a shameful confession to make: Twitter is my favourite social media site. I’d even go as far as say it’s the biggest cause behind my smartphone addiction. The Internet’s “hellhole” has simply something other websites don’t offer: the dynamic trending page aka the chaos zone. Only Twitter can provide me with the sense of utter confusion upon seeing news about Marvel’s new show alongside phrases like “orange” or “WHAT HAPPENED”. It also taught me one simple rule: the more niche the trending word is the greater entertainment awaits.
So when one day, while I was doing my morning Twitter-scrolling ritual, I saw a non-Harry Styles member of One Direction on the top of the page I started rubbing my hands: my entertainment has arrived. A quick click away revealed my presumption to be true. The story was juicy and went a little like this: Liam Payne cheated on his fiance (and future baby mama) and she found out about it through Instagram out of all places.
The news was more on the sad side, but thankfully the community came through. As expected from one of the most infamous fandoms of all time the takes were piping hot. Particularly the one coming from one offshoot of the fanbase — those who immediately joined forces to trend a mysterious-sounding #freeliam hashtag. What was the connection between Liam’s freedom and his cheating ways?
It turned out that when most people saw a man cheating on his girlfriend those fans saw something different. They took it as a sinister attempt at destroying Payne's career, orchestrated by those closest to him — by his own management. The outsiders didn’t buy it. They fired back, painting the response as a desperate, pitful try to save Payne’s tarnished reputation. After all isn’t management supposed to make money off its clients?
And yet, this puzzling line of thought isn’t anything new in the One Direction’s fandom. I would go as far as say it’s the Directioners’ defining quality, the element that has been since passed to the younger fandoms. Because while One Direction fans did many questionable things they weren’t exactly new. The belief that songwriters have been putting mysterious messages in their tracks has been all rage since the 90s, at least. The twin theory? Already done by The Beatles aeons ago. Spreading news that Louis Tomlinsons’ newborn baby is fake? Interesting, but ultimately overshadowed by Twilight fans who made up a baby and even created a fake birth certificate.
No, the Directioners' biggest thing was an unwavering belief in the evil nature of the group’s management. But why? Why people, who were responsible for making One Directions bonafide superstars, were made to be a satan-rivalling creatures?
Truth be told there’s no clear answer to this question; no earth-shattering moment to speak about. The animosity was there from the very beginning and the complaints concerned all areas of management: from the workload and mishandled promotions to supposedly creating fake images of the members and blocking their compositions. But let’s start from the beginning and the first signs of the disgruntlement: let’s go back to “What Makes You Beautiful”.
One Hit Wonders?
One Direction's beginnings trace back to Simon Cowell’s American Idol-knock-off, X-Factor. In 2010 five hopefuls made their way to auditions and eventually got assembled into what soon turned out to be a superstar group.
By the time the boys exited the show as the third-place winners their fanbase was already up and running. They were the act to follow, as proven by their debut single, “What Makes You Beautiful” smashing it out of the gate. But despite the song eventually selling 5 million copies the same fanbase was worried. Were they truly going to make it? After all, One Direction wouldn’t be the first audition show contestant to sell like hotcakes the first time around and disappear by the time the second release came around.
The chances over the pond were also brought in question as another British boyband, The Wanted, was making waves in the US with their summer single “Glad You Came”. Many felt it was a little too late for One Direction and The Wanted was sure to take the crown of the most popular group. The American venture was therefore closely observed by the fanbase, who often acted like they knew better than the seemingly ineffective and slow management.
Working Class Heroes
This January saw Ricky Gervais guesting on The Graham Norton Show. The controversial comedian reflected on his long career which included MC-ing the Golden Globes gala five times in a span of a decade. Gervais, asked about the differences between hosting Golden Globes in 2010 and 2020, said:
“The first time I did it, like ten years ago, the sort of press, particulary industry press in America was like ‘How dare, why is he saying all these awful things to the most beautiful people’ and then by the fifth time they were going ‘good, give it to them’.”
The pre-social media world was a much sweeter place for the rich and famous. People still cared about live TV and knew the faces behind radio hits, so nobody had to slum it up with the average folk. The businesses didn’t need to pander to teenage influencers, who could only dream of landing on the cover of Vogue or attending MET galas. And finally, as Gervais has succinctly summed it up, the atmosphere around the rich and famous was completely different from this of today. Before #MeToo hit the ground and Twitter’s “expose threads” started getting traction, the public’s ire was reserved for former teenage stars, who stumbled drunkenly through clubs and happened to expose their bra. Sexual harassment? Violence? As long as the victim wasn’t equally as famous the news was nothing but a blip on the radar. The celebrities were judged purely by how they conducted themselves in public — a glamourous gown and pretty words were enough to sway most people.
One Direction provided a completely different experience. They weren’t typical Hollywood stars: they might have appeared on the traditional media but they acted like influencers, charming young fans with their lack of filter and gab. They didn’t just pop out of nowhere in skinny jeans and perfectly coiled hairstyles. Since they were audition show’s alumni, fans saw them at their most vulnerable— back when they were just kids, cheered backstage by their anxious parents. In a time dominated by Lady Gaga and her copycats, who tried to be as weird and as unrelatable as humanly possible, their normalcy was refreshing.
The group’s down-to-earth image came with one more benefit: it made the fans believe they were seeing their real selves. The real people behind the band.
One Direction was the classic example of the paradox of authenticity, in which we believe the more celebrity condenses their image into two-dimensional caricature, the more real they are. One Direction came up with a character for every member. The youngest, Harry, was the cheeky one; the oldest, Louis, was outspoken and mouthy. Blue-eyed, cherubic-looking Niall was described as the nice one. Zayn, who didn’t want to dance and sang R&B was the mysterious one, while Liam, a dress shirt aficionado who reporterly couldn’t drink (due to a damaged kidney) was saddled with the “dad of the group” role.
The flanderized versions of the boys spread through the fanbase and quickly gained dogma-like status. It’s no wonder then that when one of them did something that didn’t adhere to their manufactured personality (Payne was caught sloshed despite his malfunctioning organ) the troubles appeared. Those “unnormal” actions were perceived as clear signs of something sinister going on behind the scene. A sign someone is trying to twist the boys’ image.
It would be all too easy to brush off the concerns as delusions concocted by teenage girls, but they weren’t completely baseless. The issues like overwork, lack of creative control or censorship in the media have been plaguing artists since the dawn of time.
Modest! Management wasn’t without flaws. The company specialized in signing X-Factor alumni. It was clearly aware of how quickly does the public’s interest in audition show contestants wanes and struck while the iron was still hot. The management has been called out by a number of their ex-acts, including Rebecca Ferguson and twin duo Jedward, for working them to the bone. The latter has even suggested One Direction has been dealt a similar hand and in 2021 stated on their Twitter account:
There’s a reason Syco [One Direction’s record label] is called Psycho! 1D and Little Mix are legally fucked in contracts and can never speak out so we are! There’s nothing MODEST about their previous management dictating their every move from Relationships (sic) to how they live their own lives! Justice for 1D & Little Mix.
The fans were also within their right to worry about One Direction’s initial promotion in America. The protest against the group’s appearance on Nickelodeon might have been silly (there was no chance anybody would One Direction as serious artists), but their predecessors were church-going, purity rings wearing Disney stars. The probability of the group being forced to go all PG was pretty high.
In true Internet fashion, the discussion was severely lacking in nuance. Was it possible stock answers about ideal types and food preferences, plastered all over Tiger Bop-type tween magazines, were handled by Modest! Management’s interns? Yes. Was it possible a member or two were involved in a PR relationship to raise their profile? Yes. But it’s just as likely two attractive, famous people just might have been into each other.
The Larry Stylinson Problem
A big part of the fandom would undoubtedly find faults with my last statement. Especially if one of the members involved was Harry Styles or Louis Tomlinson.
Yes, the part of fandom I’m talking about is Larry Stylinson’s believers. I’m going to keep this section very brief because I firmly believe the Internet has been split into two camps: one that has no clue what (or who) Larry Stylinson is and the other who knows way too much about it for their own good.
Larry Stylinson was “Brangelina”-like monicker created by combining Harry Styles’ and Louis Tomlinson’s names. It was used by people who believed the duo has been romantically involved (although both Styles and Tomlinson denied they ever dated). In its heyday, Larry was like a fever dream. The fandom was huge, fans were intense and the media was confused. To this day the Larry topic stirs strong emotions in people and its inclusion in Gen Z’s favourite show, Euphoria shows that it’s the defining piece of One Direction’s legacy.
It’s not difficult to see why One Direction was so appealing to the queer fans: they seemed remarkably friendly for a group of rejects thrown into group life, and generous with skinship. The choice of Styles and Tomlinson also made sense as they were the most talkative of the bunch and willing to play along with fans’ fantasies (as I’ve learned by watching the “90 OF THE BEST LARRY MOMENTS the ultimate larry stylinson compilation video”).
There’s no doubt Larry fans played an instrumental role in the negative portrayal of the management and came up with the most ridiculous conspiracy theories. Larry had a big obstacle to overcome: the existence of Tomlinson’s girlfriend, who has been with him before X-Factor even aired. Naturally, it didn’t stop the fans from believing the girlfriend in question was a beard, paid by (you guessed!) the management. The theory even lent itself to a bizarre spin-off in which the girl in question wasn’t even a one-person, but triplets — recognizable by different ear shapes and clothing styles.
The years went by, and the boys involved themselves in one heterosexual relationship after another, but the Larry train showed no signs of stopping. Even the most damning event, the birth of Tomlinson’s baby, did little to quell the rumours.
discrepancies surrounding Louis’ son’s birth
It’s no wonder that such claims planted Larry shippers in the centre stage of the discussion, but make no mistake — Larry wouldn’t become this big of a phenomenon if the rest of the fandom didn’t enable it.
To answer the question of why non-Larry fans were keen to ignore those delusions we need to discuss one more piece in One Direction’s puzzle: Tumblr.
Your Fave Is Problematic
Simon Cowell’s X-Factor may take credit for introducing One Direction to the world, but it was David Karp’s Tumblr that allowed the group to flourish. The innovative platform, which combined functions of a personal blog and forums and made sharing content easier than ever before, was instrumental in One Direction’s road to fame.
But Tumblr’s impact goes beyond the entertainment industry. For the better or worse, Tumblr has shaped both Millennials’ and Gen Z's outlook on the world. The social justice topics thrived on the website, amassing thousands of retweets. One of those big talking points was accountability. March 2013 saw the creation of one of the most infamous sites on Tumblr: yourfaveisproblematic. Yourfaveisproblematic was a call-out type of blog, dedicated to exposing celebrities’ past misconducts and “problematic” behaviour.
By the new standards, One Direction just weren’t good guys.
There were five teenagers, coming into adulthood on the road, with infinite cash and millions of adoring fans. Of course, they got into scandals. Over the years the group has become well known for their womanizing ways, often sleeping with their own staff (as the group’s then stylist, Lou Teasdale has revealed) and notoriously cheating on their girlfriends. Two of them got caught smoking weed in Philipines (a no-no in the country), Harry Styles had sported a Native American headpiece, while Payne got caught saying vaguely homophobic things. Even the free way of speaking they were famous for turned out to be a little problematic along the way.
The new order was clear: they needed to be called out. Surely, the fans had to admit they did bad things and had to demand accountability for their past mistakes. Thankfully there was a loophole: One Direction couldn’t be blamed because they aren’t responsible for their actions. They aren’t fully in control of their lives.
Over the years One Direction fans have behaved like your average conspiracy theorist. They took a fact or hearsay and applied them to different areas, stretching them beyond recognition. The most popular of fans acted like they knew the truth about the notoriously secretive music industry and management. Those who didn’t believe were branded bigots or idiots, who lacked insider info.
But one thing that allowed this behaviour to continue was fandom-wide symbiotic relation.
The times might have changed, but the fandom hasn’t. Those who raised their voices in Payne’s defence made things clear — branding Payne as a cheater is synonymous with acknowledging the other members’ faults. If Payne is free to cheat on his girlfriend, then Styles is free to date. If the cute Niall Horan is rude to fans that means he’s no longer the fandom’s angel and all the other personalities have been made up.
That’s why it’s been so important to keep the crab bucket behaviour going on. In a black and white world, one misstep is enough to destroy the carefully crafted mindset.
One Direction split in 2015, parting ways with Modest! Management.
According to Variety, by 2019 Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson were all working under the Sony Music Group umbrella (Columbia Records, RCA & Arista, respectively), while Liam Payne and Niall Horan landed at Universal Music Group (Republic and Capitol).
Management-wise, Louis Tomlinson is currently represented by Mark Gillespie (Three Six Zero) in US and Matt Vines (Seven 7 Management) in the UK.
Harry Styles has a long-running professional relationship with superstar agent Jeff Azoff (Full Stop Management), who’d previously represented the likes of Britney Spears.
Niall Horan is promoted worldwide by CAA. He maintains a professional relationship with Modest! Management, co-running Modest! Golf company.
Zayn Malik has been dropped by both his record label (RCA) and management (First Access Entertainment), following domestic violence accusations from his mother-in-law, Yolanda Hadid in late 2021.
Liam Payne is represented by Wasserman Music Agency in Europe. He has been dropped by his American agency, KIN Partners (Neymar Jr, Usain Bolt) in November 2021.
