My Roller Coaster of being a Directioner

This is going to be different from the articles I have written so far, which have mostly dealt with world issues but let’s face it: as teenagers, most of us had celebrity crushes. Some were fleeting, and some just stick with you forever. Particularly in my case, as my One Direction phase has returned stronger than ever during the pandemic. And coincidentally on their 10 years since becoming a band. I had just gotten into the Beatles a few years ago and can openly admit that not even 1D can achieve what the Fab Four have achieved. Although I can easily acknowledge the Beatles’ impact on music, One Direction are the band that I actually grew up with. They served as my main form of escapism back in high school and college and continue to do so today.

Flash back to 2012: I was a hyperactive 14 year old who was about to enter high school, obsessed with The Hunger Games, just got her braces off, and freaking out big time over provincial exams and what to wear to graduation. This boy band from across the pond was all the rage and a few of the girls in my class were quite crazy for them. They were everywhere in the news and on the radio, their hit single What Makes You Beautiful being played at least every half hour. It was a pretty catchy song but I did not want to jump on the bandwagon of liking something simply because it was trendy, which was ironically something I did quite frequently as a teen. Then one rainy day out of boredom, I decided what to see what all the hype was about them. They have actually been around since 2010, and it’s only just recently that I realized they first came to America in 2012, which is why I haven’t heard of them before that. Apparently they were on iCarly, and I went to check out that episode. Then the rest was history (pun intended).

I simply could not get enough of these 5 guys. Every time they dropped a new single or album, it had to be on my iPod immediately. A new music video (especially while I was at school), I had to see it. Whenever they were on TV and my parents would call me over, I would practically run a marathon into the room. I had to buy any magazine and poster I could of theirs just because I can. I even wrote cringeworthy fanfiction on them (which I unashamedly deleted). I remember the jealousy I felt towards Taylor Swift for dating Harry Styles. I regretted denying myself the cinematic experience of their movie This Is Us. All the boys at my school disappointed me because they were nothing like Niall, Harry, Louis, Zayn, and Liam. I have had several celeb crushes apart from 1D but these guys were something else.

However, 2014 was when things started to change. A leaked video has surfaced of Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson smoking weed, tarnishing the band’s “ideal boyfriend” image. I knew wholeheartedly I was going to support the guys no matter what but could this be the beginning of the end for them as a band? That was questioned even more when later in the year, Zayn was absent from several promotional appearances the guys had to do for their album FOUR. Then this became even harsher in hindsight not too long into 2015, when he quit the band for good. I had gotten the news while I was in Biology class and went home in a daze. I remember crying to my family about it. Looking back, I did have a bit of an overreaction to a guy leaving a band but in my defence, I was only 17 at the time and it happened before I would be seeing them in concert.

Come July, I basically lived the night of my concert like it was my last. And in hindsight it was even more justifiable since a month later the bombshell dropped that they would be going on their (now almost 6-year) hiatus. Then they just had to split up right before my 18th birthday, which emphasized my forthcoming adulthood even more. In the 4 years that followed, I went through something I like to call my “1D Renunciation” phase. Throughout that period, I would watch less videos of 1D, and listen to their songs less as I went through the growing pains of early adulthood (though I would listen to a few of their solo songs, specifically Niall’s and Harry’s, and I did have a brief Harry phase when his movie Dunkirk came out), which is where I started to admire the Beatles even more. I even went as far to acknowledge that 1D were just a phase and enumerate the many ways that they simply didn’t measure up to the Fab Four, although this phase managed to die down by the time Harry’s second album Fine Line was released. Then not long after their 10th anniversary, I started feeling like that giddy high schooler once again.

I know that whether you like them or not, it’s a fact that the Beatles have revolutionized music and that without them, there would be no One Direction. But 1D’s music is what got me through the growing pains of my youth, and I owe it to them for that. Even well into adulthood, especially with the pandemic still ongoing. I may like other bands too but for me, 1D will never be irreplaceable, even if I know that they will never reunite or if they do, it will be a long time from now. I do often find myself wishing it were 2012 again, when they were just a carefree boy band not on the verge of breaking up but they have all come very far since those days and to say that I am not proud of them would be ridiculous, especially after Harry Styles just won a Grammy (although it was unfair that the other 4 didn’t even get nominations). But no matter how old they are and what kind of music they continue to put out, I will always see them as those 5 carefree boys who guest-starred on iCarly and made Video Diaries.