Let’s be real here. I miss One Direction. For everyone out there that ever went through a One Direction phase, you know what I’m talking about. Lately I’ve just been feeling some type of way about them, and maybe that’s due to the fact that I’ve been listening to Up All Night a lot recently. Either way, I think we can all agree to the fact that One Direction has been on “hiatus” for over 800 days now, and that’s way too long. Now, I am going to reflect on some of my favorite One Direction pastimes to get me through this emotional time in my life:
If there’s one thing you miss, but don’t want to admit, it’s the ‘carrot phase’. Even the name makes me cringe. If you’re a real OG, you’ll know what the carrot phase is. If you’re not an OG, it’s essentially the very beginning of the One Direction years—when Louis loved carrots, Liam was afraid of spoons, Zayn said “vas happenin’?”, Harry loved cats, and Niall loved Nando’s. (I would hate to be somebody outside of the 1D circle reading this right now.) The carrot phase served a lot of purpose to me as someone who has been here since around the beginning, although I wish I could shake off some of the cringiness that I had to endure throughout the years.
THE VIDEO DIARIES. Honestly, they were the best part of the first few years. When I first discovered 1D, I would steal my mom’s laptop and binge-watch all of the video diaries and behind-the-scenes videos from the X-Factor until she forcibly removed the laptop from my hands. They were such good insight into their personalities (as we know them, anyway) and provided such good entertainment for antisocial 14-year-olds like me. In all honesty, I forgot about them for so long until it was speculated that they were being taken off of YouTube (Which I will never forgive).
March 25th will forever go down in infamy. I have little to say about this except for the fact that I was in school when they announced the split and I actually cried in my anthropology class in front of everyone.
The conspiracies were on another level with this band. Not only did Mr. X almost single-handedly ruin everyone’s lives, but also… Larry. Looking back, I genuinely cannot believe Larry was a thing, although I was very into it at the time. I was fully convinced that I was helping uncover the greatest love story of all time, when now I realize that I was helping essentially ruin their lives. Sorry, Louis and Harry.
If you’re a real One Direction stan, you can appreciate the struggle we all went through to find good livestream links to watch them during concerts halfway across the globe. My fondest memory of this was when they were performing at MSG for the first time, and every single link I found wouldn’t work. I finally was able to find a working link to watch the show, and at the exact moment I tuned in, Ed Sheeran came out to sing Little Things with them. At least something went right for me that day.
One last thing I want to talk about during my nostalgic moment is the fanfiction. I think we can all agree that One Direction fanfiction was the best fanfiction, no doubt. Although, some of the things should not have been read by a 14-year-old. But, I guess I can thank them for making me the person I am today—a hopeless romantic with very high standards in men and absolutely outrageous expectations for my own life. Oh well.
On a more serious note, One Direction did a lot for me and my life. I found my best friend through One Direction, I found my personality through social media and others who had the same interest in Louis’ ass, and overall a great fandom to be a part of. People who like 1D to this day still get a lot of criticism from others because of their music, but they will never be able to experience the same things we all experienced as One Direction fans. As silly as it sounds, One Direction means the world to me, even if they have songs with cowbells in them.