It might be 2015, but that doesn’t stop a shocking amount of people from looking down on those who enjoy pop music in general and One Direction in particular. Luckily, One Direction fans found the best defense team they never asked for in the boys themselves and those who work with them.
The relationship between the 1D boys and their fans has always been a special one, unrivalled by any other celebrity. With a career that has been heavily focused on social media from the beginning, One Direction fans played an incredible part in making the band what they are now – something the boys are very aware of and thankful for.
I don’t think there has been a day since May where Louis hasn’t mentioned Project No Control to anyone at least once and the amount of times we’ve seen Harry scream “I love you so much!” at the top of his voice to entire arena’s is unbelievable. Liam manages to incorporate the fans in every thank-you speech the boys give at award shows (seriously though, has there ever been a 1D speech that didn’t include a “massive thank you to the fans”?) and last week even Julian Bunetta, one of One Direction’s main song writers, chimed in, calling whoever squashes someone’s smile by trashing on 1D a “dickhead”.
However wonderful all that may be, that’s not what this article is about. This article is about that other band member, the one people jokingly call ‘One Direction’s biggest fan’. And maybe that is exactly why Niall Horan understands the fans so well – the self-admitted boyband fanboy knows exactly what we feel and he’s determined to make us feel good about it.
The first time I fully realized how much Niall loves his fans was during This Is Us. It wasn’t hard to see that a lot of the film was scripted, no matter how hard the producers tried to make it look natural. But then there was the part where a tired but happy looking Niall sits on the tour bus and talks about his fans. He mentions how frustrating it is that there’s no time to go up and talk to each and every one of them. And he means it.
The second time it hit me was when the Where We Are tour started and Niall invariably announced Don’t Forget Where You Belong with the same story: how it’s all about the fans, how he wrote it thinking of them and how the boys pretty much owe their careers to them. It would be so easy to make this song about the boys themselves – lyrically it seems to be, anyway – but Niall turned it into something between One Direction and their fans.
The third time Niall took his love for One Direction’s fans to a new level was only a few months ago, when he was papped leaving a nightclub in London. Being the lovely young man he is, of course Niall stopped to take pictures with fans waiting outside, to great annoyance of the waiting paparazzi. When one of the paps told the fans to get out of the way, Niall snapped and told the pap to back off a bit, saying that “they’re the ones paying my bills, not you”.
And then there was yesterday. At the end of what was already a pretty emotional day for most 1D fans with the boys singing Torn in Radio 1’s Live Lounge and all that, Niall turned to twitter to make absolutely sure his fans knew how loved they are.
There's a particular piece on you guys … I just wanna say thank you so much . The dedication, the love , the support , the everything
— Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial) November 13, 2015
You guys are incredible . And I really really hope you love our album as much as we love it ..xxxxx
— Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial) November 13, 2015
And let’s admit it – we would all love the boys probably just as much if they didn’t take any chance they get to thank us. But they do, and I’m sure they’ll keep on doing it, and isn’t that what makes them beautiful?
So today, without diminishing the love we get from the other boys, let’s raise our pint of Guinness to Niall Horan – 1D fans’ biggest fan.