If you ask almost any 20-something year old girl where they were on the evening of October 16th, 2024, they will be able to give you an exact answer. I was with a friend at Mount Everest Sushi that evening when I found out Liam Payne had died. We were shocked, to say the absolute least. I thought I would be retired with gray hair and a bunch of grandchildren before I would hear the news of the first member of One Direction passing away. As the night went on, I still could not grapple with the idea of THE Liam Payne being dead. That’s a harsh word, I know, but the bluntness accurately describes how it feels to find out someone you loved as a kid is no longer here. It finally hit me when I was going to bed just how upset I actually was about his death. I just could not wrap my head around it. For the next few days, he was all I could think about. Every TikTok, Instagram reel, and post on X I saw were about him. To this day, a month later, the day of his funeral, I primarily listen to One Direction. I know I’m not the only one, as all five 1D albums skyrocketed in the charts immediately following the news of Liam’s untimely death.
One Direction broke up back in 2016 when I was only 12 years old, yet they are such a memorable part of my childhood. I remember being devastated when Zayn left, how I thought the “Story of My Life” music video was a life-changing, cinematic masterpiece, and listening to “What Makes You Beautiful” in the car with my mom after she bought herself their CD. I literally slept with a 1D alarm clock that had their faces on it right next to my head for years. That clock ticked so loudly and was extremely annoying, but I loved it so much that I refused to move it. Multiple pieces of my One Direction puzzle were missing. I did not care, I would put it together anyway. The cabin wall next to my bed at sleepaway camp was too bare. No problem, I had this ginormous poster of 1D that I ripped out of a Tiger Beat magazine. My point is, the parts of my childhood involving this silly little boy band were some of the most memorable. Of course this is because One Direction’s legacy will forever live on through their music, but it goes so much deeper than that.
One Direction was a cultural phenomenon, and it is hard to understand the impact they had on the music industry, the Internet, and pop culture unless you lived through it. Fan culture has been around for decades, but it became especially widespread in the music world with the fanaticism encircling the Beatles in the 1960s, coined Beatlemania. 50 years later, it was like déjà vu as One Direction hit the scene when the members individually auditioned for the X-Factor in 2010. Later in the season, each boy was hand picked to be put into a brand new boy band, with a judge on the show saying “the little girls are gonna love them.” The little girls did, in fact, love them. They shot to stardom in 2011 following the release of their debut single, “What Makes You Beautiful” and debut album Up All Night. The rest is history (aka one of their best songs). Between their video diaries, the One Direction: This Is Us movie, and the constant world tours, fans got to see the personalities of each of the boys. They were loved for so much more than their music, which became apparent when the Directioners made their way to the Internet. Fanpages, Twitter, Tumblr, fanfiction, memes… everything that makes the Internet what it is today was pioneered by 1D-obsessed teenage girls in the early 2010s. Not only did this allow the fans to feel more connected to their idols, but also to each other. One Direction genuinely made a huge impact in and shaped lots of people’s lives.
They are now considered one of the most successful boy bands of all time. While lots of Directioners left the scene during their indefinite hiatus, no one forgot their impact. Each of the members have their own solo careers now and do not shy away from the public eye. To address the elephant in the room, Liam himself has been in the media for the past couple years, and not for good reasons. I won’t go too much into that, but I think it is important to understand that fans can grieve for the Liam they grew up with while acknowledging that he hurt people. It is already complicated enough for people to grieve the death of someone they had a parasocial relationship with. For people who couldn’t care less about One Direction, this may seem odd and overly dramatic. I definitely understand how it can seem that way. To those people, try to think of it this way: without you even knowing, One Direction directly impacted your life as well because of how they shaped the Internet and social media. Imagine how much they impacted the lives of people who were actually fans and deeply associate them with their childhood and adolescence.
Although we will not be getting that One Direction reunion the fans have been longing for for years, 1D’s legacy will only continue to grow stronger. The impact they made on society will stand the test of time, which is clear from the outpouring of love Liam and his family have received online. When I go home for winter break, I am going to find that annoying but perfect alarm clock to bring back to school with me. I am going to try to play their music on the piano like I did many years ago. I am going to reconnect myself with this part of my childhood instead of feeling like it died on October 16th, 2024. The little girls may not be so little anymore, but we still love them and always will.
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