I remember the day I fell in love with 5 boys at the same time.. I remember walking around my school hallways and not really paying attention and all of a sudden, BOOM. I heard their voices!! I jumped into the first classroom I saw to hear what was playing.. I had only heard about 30 seconds of the song and I had NO clue who those boys were who sang that song but that song was exactly what I needed to hear! I went home and spent well over two hours trying desperately to find that song that I loved so much.. (I had no clue what that would mean for my life 4 years down the road) It was really hard to find the song since it was so early in the morning when I had heard the song and now it was well into the evening. When I finally found the song on YouTube I listened to it probably about 30 times with the speakers all the way up… I then went to try to find the song on iTunes and it wasn’t on American iTunes yet! I had to buy some tribute song that was junky and wasn’t them. I don’t even know what to say about it… At that point in time all I knew was a song, a simple song with simple lyrics sung by simple people. I wasn’t that huge into these boys but I loved whoever could write a song that said those things and meant what it meant. I still didn’t know very much except “Baby you light up my world like nobody else..”
Then that school year ended and summer time began. None of my friends understood my love for this song but that didn’t stop me from blasting the song super loud in my car ANYWHERE we went and EVERYTIME we were in the car! I had no clue at that point what the names Harry, Louis, Zayn, Liam, and especially Niall (I’m a Niall girl, holla) would mean to me.. I didn’t know what a fandom was or how crazy they got. I knew nothing but that I LOVED these boys whose names I didn’t even know yet! I did know that I had a best friend though.. She was grounded almost the whole summer but as soon as she got ungrounded I went over to her house. I remember walking through the front door and she stopped me and was like you have to hear this song.. “Baby you light up my world like nobody else..” I was ecstatic!!! She knew my song.. and a whole lot more! She introduced me to this thing called a fandom which I was apart of without even knowing it! She showed me so much about the boys!!! I remember sitting in her living room and she showed me all the rest of their songs and we would sit there and watch the videos and I would try to guess who was singing..
These were the good ole days of summer! I would stay up till about 2 in the morning watching video after video after video of the boys. It didn’t matter what the video was, if the boys were in it I would watch it. The video diaries, The Adventurous Adventures of One Direction, interview after interview. I could tell you ANYTHING about the boys! I knew there full names, birthdates, place of origin, families names, I could tell just by listening to a song who was the one singing at the time.. I was kinda like the 1D encyclopedia. I knew all the “rules” to being a Directioner. I had a secret One Direction instagram account (and by secret, I meant that none of my friends knew I had it except like 3) that got over 1000 followers in only about 1 and a half months. All the different friends I would make just randomly through that was awesome. I had my One Direction kik which was a must to being a Directioner so you could talk to other Directioners and enter contests.
The fandom was a family. Yeah, we had fights and disputes over silly things like haters or who was shipping who but times were great! (And for all the people out there that are wondering why people are shipping other people, shipping means to pair together people.. I really don’t know how to explain it, but it just happens.) It’s really hard to explain this in simple words because the feeling was so deep! If a Directioner was being harassed, everyone and I do mean practically everyone would go and jump on that persons instagram (if it was an instagram thing or their twitter if that was the case) and report that person until the person was removed! We stuck up for each other like only a family can!! There would be contests (that would almost always be bogus) but you still entered in hopes of it not being fake.. I was in a fan-made lyric video for the song torn (which I’m still upset they didn’t do a studio version of), and I was once in a Directioner Hunger Games… It was all hypothetical of course and all the test were done through kik. They would be something like draw what the flag would look like if you had a land of One Direction and stuff like that. (I still actually have my flag, it’s hanging on my wall!) I remember when Harry got his 3 millionth follower on twitter and we were all like “Yay, Congrats Harry. You finally made it.” I remember the twit-cams.. They would just sit down in front of a camera and be themselves. You NEVER knew what was going to happen or even when twit-cams would happen! Since obviously I’m an American Directioner we missed a lot of them unless they happened to be in America recording something. They just tweeted when they were doing them, and then they did them. There was never any warning! You would wake up at like 8 with a tweet from them and it would have been at 5 o’clock in the morning and the twit-cam was over.. Speaking of which, you would get all their tweets sent to your phone as a text message if you didn’t have a smart phone and it was the coolest thing ever until you would wake up to 21 new messages because they were tweeting so much during what was the day for them in England but night for us over in America. This is when the boys really interacted with the fans like crazy.. Follow sprees, happy birthday messages if you were lucky, a tweet from them responding to whatever you had tweeted them… Tweeting them was something you did A LOT and you had a chance of them seeing it and replying, a VERY small chance but a chance!
I remember the greatest memory I have is Me and my best friend I told you about earlier floating around her pool on floats because we couldn’t even swim we had too much to talk about… We had already researched it and the Take Me Home tour was the next summer. Meet and Greets were $3,000 then and we began plotting how we could save up that much money for those tickets, because in our young little brains, $3,000 wasn’t THAT much money.. We were determined to get to see them at some point!
Then summer ended and the school year began.. Those were tough times because I wanted to just sit at home with my computer and research and spend time with the boys because they were who I loved, not Algebra 2!! With all the crazy hustle and bustle of school and work and the real world, I fell out of touch with the fandom because I didn’t have time for instagram and things like that.. But that is when a lot more changed too! The boys changed. The boys who literally could make me smile even if they had never said a word to me were changing.. I mean it happens. Life happens; days become weeks which become months then years. I’ve been in love with these boys for 4 years now!! Not many Directioners can truly say that, especially in America!! Here are some things I’ve noticed:
1. They all have a lot of tattoos and some crazy hair now..
2. They are really busy now and they can’t tweet us or do twit-cams.
3. They aren’t as structured in their concerts anymore…
4. 3 million followers on twitter has turned into 17-21 million!
5. They’ve definitely grown up and aren’t so innocently boy bandish anymore!
But I very recently went to the concert in Nashville, TN and I have done a lot of reflecting since then… This concert I went to was the first One Direction concert I have ever been to and I’ve been in love with them for 4 years!! Me and my best friend that sat in the pool all those years ago plotting for that very night that we would get to see them, we eventually made that dream happen! Yeah along the way there was a lot of change. We realized $3000 is way more than we could ever afford (and it was $3,000 then, I don’t even want to know how much they cost now) so we were completely ok with the nose bleed seats because they were there… On the stage, in the same building with us! It was crazy and a dream come true!! Yes, I wish tickets didn’t cost so much money so I would eventually get the chance to meet them but even if that never happens, I still have more memories than I can even write because of those boys!! I have more inside jokes and more crazy drawings then I can count. I’ve had so many laughs because of 5 boys that have never even seen my face! I’ve made so many friends and that bond never breaks!! Sitting in the backed up traffic in Nashville on the way to the concert, we had the windows down and 1D blasting and as we would pull up beside other Directioners and they would roll their windows down and jam with us and we would talk to them about which boy was their favorite! It was like instant friendship and we didn’t even know any of their names.. The loyalty and love that run between everyone is so much deeper than anyone on the outside looking in will ever understand!! Yes, I miss the tweets and twit-cams more than anything, but that doesn’t change them! They are still the same “I like girls who eat carrots..” and “Potatooooooooooooooooooooo” crazy guys they were 4 years ago! Nothing can take away our love for them or their love for us.. and nobody on the outside of the fandom will ever understand that love! They will always be referred to as “my boys” by me! They have impacted my life more than they will ever know! I can’t even begin to describe the ways my life is now changed because of them… They were my first love!!!
Thank you One Direction!! I will always love you!
Confessions of a Misfit 