Fandom – The community that surrounds a tv show/movie/book etc. Fanfiction writers, artists, poets, and cosplayers are all members of that fandom. Fandoms often consist of message boards, livejournal communities, and people.

 

If there is one thing I don’t understand, it’s the One Direction fandom(known as Directioners, collectively). If I had to picture them in my head I would imagine the crazy hyena’s featured in Walt Disney’s The Lion King. The are made up of crazy and, at more times than not, cruel teenage girls, that make their voice heard on social media sites Twitter and Tumblr.

 

I myself have been a fan of the band. I discovered the band shortly after their debut single, “What Makes You Beautiful”, was released, which was before they rose to fame and superstardom in my home country, Australia. But from very early on I’ve felt unwilling to call myself a fan, because of the way their fandom works.

 

Their are numours instances I could pinpoint from the past but I’d rather focus on the events of the past twenty four hours. The comotion started when Liam Payne, memeber of the band, tweeted this: 

Which gained attention with many wondering WHY? after Willie Robertson’s past anti-gay comments he made in December. Many tweeted the pop star questioning the tweet. Among them was Youtube vlogger and LGTB youth advocate Tyler Oakley asking:

 

In the last hour Payne went on a little tweeting rampage and tried to explain his words:

He them returned Tyler’s questioning by calling him out as “not being a fan”, which is something that young directioners tweet about Tyler constantly. By this stage I was thinking I was looking at troubled teen Justin Bieber’s twitter not good-boy Liam Payne’s.

Liam finished his rant with these comments:

 

By the end of it, Tyler Oakley was the fandom’s target(once again) and he began receiving tweets saying he was kicked out of the fandom, never being a true fan, and even receiving deaths threats(isn’t the first time this has happened between the fandom and Oakley). What I gather out of this is Liam Payne is not made out for a career as a musician, if he can’t deal with the media. It’s the nature of the beast. Fame and the money go hand in hand with the paparazzi and bloggers. Earlier this week he said he wished he could leave the house without people asking for photo’s. Now he gets mad when sites such as Perez Hilton, and Buzzfeed are posting about his antics. In this day and age when you tweet about something like Duck Dynasty, which is still a somewhat controversial topic, and how you respect their family values, then you will have people talking about your actions. You’re famous. I don’t know what you expect. Next time maybe keep your opinions, which only person with some knowledge about social media would know would spark debate, to yourself.