This past July, I got the incredible opportunity to meet Niall Horan, a member of the former boy band One Direction. That moment was more than I could ever ask for, so once I went viral because of it, it was icing on top of my already delicious cake.
Before I tell you how I went viral, I will start with brief experience meeting him. I woke up one morning in July to a text from my coworker asking, “Hey, do you want to meet Niall Horan?”. Obviously, my reaction was very similar to this:
Courtesy of Giphy
The next 24 hours were a bit of a blur, but before I knew it, I was waiting in line to see the Irish beauty. Now, I wasn’t that nervous leading up to it, that was until I heard him talk. Meltdown. The only phrase running through my mind was, “Don’t freak out, act cool,” which, in turn, made me act less cool.
As I walked up to hug Niall, I stepped on his foot, proceeded to apologize several times, then said “I’m sorry I’m just so f***ing nervous”. Not only did I step on Niall Horan’s foot, but I ALSO dropped the f-bomb in front of him…total embarrassment. We ended up taking two pictures together because he thought he was talking in one. He was incredibly nice, he smelled great and I definitely got lost in his eyes for a couple seconds. Overall, it could have been worse.
A couple days after the experience, I posted a poll on my Instagram of the photo with the caption: “Should we date?”
Then I decided to take it a little further. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Niall Horan voted “No” on my poll? If Niall Horan took the time to vote no on a girl’s poll that he doesn’t remember…now that would be funny. So, I made it happen. I photoshopped the poll to make it look like Niall Horan voted no to dating me.
I thought this idea was too funny not to share with my friends on Twitter, so I tweeted the screenshots with the simple caption “:/”.
Comedic gold.
Apparently, a lot of other people thought the same. I went to bed and woke up to 2,000 likes, and by the end of the day it was at 100,000 likes. It kept going and going until now, the tweet is at about 334,000 likes and 96,000 retweets.
INSANE.
Almost immediately people were both angry and entertained. The majority of people were laughing at the joke and went along with it, but there were still a small amount that didn’t get it. I was called out for my botched photoshop and the select few that didn’t like the tweet really went after me. I got comments like, “Why would Niall ever want to date you?”, “Next time, work on your photoshop, it’s obviously fake,” or “You’re not pretty enough for him anyway”. I wasn’t offended by the rude comments because there were way more positive comments about the post. There were so many people that reached out to me telling me that I should just ignore everyone giving hate, or giving me compliments. Also, those people spent time to comment on it, which not only shows that they care a little bit, but I got more publicity from it, too.
I was contacted by different publications asking to write articles about me, which blew my mind. Why would someone want to write an article about me? Who is actually interested about Tory Appel, just some random girl in college? E! News was interested. So was MTV UK, Buzzfeed, Capital FM, and J-14, among others. Reading articles about yourself on big publications is a whole other experience. I spent hours reading them and updating my friends and family whenever a new one came out. I can’t explain how excited, yet equally confused I was, about the whole situation.
Niall never responded to the tweet, or commented on it, which is fine, he’s on tour and has other things to worry about.
Although, my friend met him a month later and mentioned the tweet. Niall said that he hasn’t personally seen it, but his friends had mentioned it to him. She explained the whole thing, telling him it was a joke. As she walked away he jokingly yelled, “TELL HER TO NEVER DO IT AGAIN”.
So, Niall Horan, if you are reading this, I’m sorry and I will never do it again…but I’m still up for a date if you are.