#8 years of 1d

[castielcantsleep]

Has anyone done this yet?

[dreamings-free]

The O2 on twitter 17/11/23 + the full quoted tweet:

[statementlou]

.

[finexbright]

one of the biggest reasons why one direction were as big as they were was because of just how pure and genuine the friendship between all the boys was and ever since the beginning they always looked out for each other and despite the pranks and shenanigans they only had good things to say. and even now eight years later the reason they are still one of the biggest artists of our generation is because of how true that genuine friendship still holds. so many bands have broken up over the years and it's always ended badly however between these five boys there's not a moment of lost love. despite being baited by media and whoever, you will never see them bad mouthing anyone and i think that not only shows how close they were but also about how much of a mature and respectful individual each one of them is and that's why they're still so relevant and successful

[foxes-that-run]

https://twitter.com/aiwahwoyse/status/1781943412327096445?t=DpjhiTwdz2Xy2SDoSdQy6w&s=19

Can stand ratty fans.

As their Monday gift to me I would like all Maylors to invest in a calendar and the ability to count to 10.

[manuelmueller]

Apparently it's this blog's 10 year anniversary?? oh boy

[hobisexually]

loveloveolivia/sopechwita ➡️ hobisexually

[piningeddiediaz]

anyways. after five incredible years zayn malik has decided to leave one direction niall harry liam and louis will continue as a four piece and look forward to the forthcoming concerts of their world tour and recording their fifth album zayn says my kife with one direction had been more than i could have ever imagined but after five years i think it is the right time for me to leave the band i’d line to apologise to. The fans if i have let anyone down but i have to do what feels right in my heart i am leaving because i want to be a normal 22 year old i know i have four friends for life in —

[mchiti]

I agree with your stances on kpopfication on players and how toxic the culture around it can be.

At the same time I think of the all the criticism I absolutely fight and don’t accept in regards of one certain player and I’m like 🥲🥲🥲 is this also about me

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

What did you think of that Matty Healy New Yorker profile? 👀

I've a lot of thoughts about this profile - and another ask where I'll talk about him more generally.

The article came out late evening New Zealand time - so I had an experience I've had a few times of seeing stuff as I'm going to bed, before anyone has reacted to it - and knowing I'll wake up to the reaction.

And in this case I was fascinated by the profile - but also could very clearly see how bits of it would be understood and the negative response that's coming. I want to focus on what was to me the most interesting part of the interview and which I could see that people were going to hate:

“But it doesn’t actually matter. Nobody is sitting there at night slumped at their computer, and their boyfriend comes over and goes, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ and they go, ‘It’s just this thing with Matty Healy.’ That doesn’t happen.” “Maybe it does,” I said. “If it does,” he said, “you’re either deluded or you are, sorry, a liar. You’re either lying that you are hurt, or you’re a bit mental for being hurt. It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am.’ And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”

I am much more sympathetic to this than most commentary I've seen, but before I explain why I'll say the ways that I think is not true - and also not a reasonable thing for Matty Healy to say.

Because my very first thought when reading this was - 'Matty Healy, who are you to call someone mental?' And more than a statement about how he navigates the world (although it's not not that) - by that I mean - he is obviously someone who is fascinated by the fan performer relationship. He is fascinated with and his whole career is based on the way fans give meanings to performers. He's talked a lot about that feeling himself. Of course Matty Healy has meaning to people - of course there have been people (with and without boyfriends) slumped over their computers, because they have an emotional reaction to what he said. It's both childish and absurd to pursue stardom and a fandom for decades and then respond to people having a problem with your actions by claiming that nobody should think you're that important.

But the other way to take 'who are you to call other people a bit mental Matty Healy?' is to take the sting out of the idea. If I'm a little bit mental, and so is Matty Healy, and his fans - if the assumption is that everyone is a little bit mental in one way or another (which is certainly a basic assumption to how I navigate the world) - then I read what he said in another way. I think that Matty Healy was saying something that is interesting, resonant, and not always articulated.

What he is saying about false outrage - of people wanting to get close to and claim a personal stake in certain sorts of controversy - that resonated with me - as I've watched the different ways on-line dynamics play out.

I first thought about this in terms of amplification. I remember when the first Hunger Games movie came out and Jezebel ran a piece about people (none of whom had very many followers) who tweeted about caring less about the Rue character, because she was black. Writing that article greatly increased the number of people who saw these tweets. I think that decision can be defended (although I suspect it was made on clickbait terms - rather than principled ones). But what I found indefensible was that afterwards the journalist tweeted something like 'Oh no I really hope Amandla Stenberg doesn't hear who don't care about Rue'. I thought then you can't have it both ways - you can't bring terrible things to a wider audience and then act as if the fact that more people know about them now has nothing to do with you. (I thought of this when I saw people blaming Taylor for the fact that teenage girls knew about the porn site mentioned in the podcast)

But it's not just about amplification - the dynamic Matty Healy names is a very real and human one. I've always been very suspicious of the politics of designating an individual man 'a sexist' or an individual white person 'a racist'. It suggests that they want to treat racism and sexism as things that are rare, unusual, and reside in the individual. And often this is part of erasing and denying their own racism. I think there's some of that going on here - particularly at some of the hyperbolic reactions from white people. Such as claiming Taylor was making them unsafe by inviting Matty Healy to Eras shows (the idea that what we know of Matty Healy's behaviour would make him stand out as dangerous in a crowd of 70,000 Americans - is totally disconnected from reality).

One of the reasons I find what Matty Healy said so interesting - is because I think it and don't say it. I often get anons who express very strong emotions that I just don't believe. They'll say they're outraged or offended or something, and it just doesn't ring true. I wouldn't frame it the way Matty Healy does - as getting close to the bad thing. I have always thought it in stan terms - anons are performing outrage as part of black and white thinking of standom. But I really like Matty Healy's framing.

If I was being generous with myself I'd say the reason I don't say anything is that I could be wrong - and for me 'what is the impact if I'm wrong' is quite a big factor in how I behave. Taking a risk that I'm telling people that their offense isn't real is something that I'm cautious about. But what this does mean is that I am part of creating and promoting something really false - and I do think that promoting that false idea of the politics of being offended is damaging - it's not something that I want to do. (For those who are new here and haven't seen me link to it dozens of times before, I think Racism is a system of oppression not a series of bloops by Gary Younge is a really important articulation of what is at stake here).

But as well as finding it interesting that anyone says things that I find myself not saying - I think it's particularly interesting coming from a celebrity. So much of what celebrities say about fans is just baby food - totally pureed and anything that might be interesting removed. 'Blah, blah, blah I have a really special relationship with my fans.' There's nothing true or real about any of it - because in general for a celebrity to say most things that are true is too high risk.

I do think what Matty Healy was saying was mostly true - particularly if you take away all the connotations of 'a bit mental' (if you take that to mean overinvested in - or even just fan). And there is something to be explained here - there is a gap between what he has done - and the response over the last few months. Some of that gap is about stan culture - but not all of it something else is going on.

I also think he's hiding behind the fact that some people are being outrageous. The people who are declaring him the worst people in the world, or suggesting that he's a danger to fans, or writing ridiculously long threads about their own accountability - they are lying and I like that he says so. But if some people are criticising you in an unjustified and absurd way that's not a good reason to ignore everything that is being said to you.

I find myself returning to the idea of standing - and asking if I have standing in a particular issue. I can have an opinion on things - whether or not I have standing. But if I don't have standing then there's no reason my opinion should matter to anyone else. (There is something in here that I haven't fully unpacked about the individualisation of all this).

There are plenty of people with standing here - Ice Spice, Rina Sawayama, fans of the 1975 who listened to the podcast and heard people like them talked about in degrading ways. The fact that someone who has never listened to the podcast and is misrepresenting it - doesn't change what was said on that podcast.

That's a lot to say about 116 words - so I'll stop. But I would love to know what Jia Tolentino said yes. And I'd want to push on the implications of a popstar believing that people who were invested in what they say were 'a little bit mental'.

[celticwoman]

i've been thinking for a bit and i think that (like a lot of people i think) i find it really hard to get into 4th gen groups mostly because a lot of the members are younger than me now

[ooblech]

this is crazy

[theydopissmeoffavocados]

🥺

8 years of HOME 🏠🤧

[softnasty]

i was already kind of back on my 1d bullshit (in terms of listening to them regularly again) but after seeing harold tonight... we're so back ! what a magical night, i didn't think i'd tear up a couple times but i did, because apparently i still care about this weirdo lil aquarius man <3

[poppy930]

Hoy hace 8 años que llegué a Tumblr. 🥳

[buckistheman]

Can't believe my work expects me to be the most functional and most productive in the week of the 25th. Have some respect for my broken 1d heart.