The typical one direction fan is extraordinarily conspicuous, making no qualms about her love for the \u00a0band by wearing 1D rings and tops while posting concert pictures on her instagram. She (at most one direction concerts, only about 2% of the entire audience is male) is in her early to middle teens, just entering the world of Popstar!, eye shadow and heels. She is, biologically, undergoing a flood of hormones, causing her to believe that every one direction concert missed will lead to social exclusion and every little want denied will lead to the end of the world.<\/p>\n
For convenience\u2019s sake, let\u2019s give our tweeny bopper Directioner a name. Let\u2019s call her Tasha. On the face of it, Tasha is just another airheaded adolescent with no interest in anything other than clothes and boys. However, it\u2019s interesting to note that she\u2019s also a professionally trained ballet dancer who writes for her school newspaper, and has been getting straight A\u2019s since grade school. Her friend Yasmine, also a one direction fan, plays the tuba, volunteers at a pet shelter and plays soccer for her high school, \u00a0Why then, do Directioners tend to seem personality-less, like cattle in a herd of mindlessly conformist females?<\/p>\n
The answer, I think, lies in the obvious need for social acceptance that arises around the time one hits puberty. This middle to high school phase is one of the only times in one\u2019s life when friendships can be forged on the basis of mutual love for a boy band. As a result, teenaged girls cling on to this, using conformity as a tool to gain popularity. While the physical appeal of the band members plays a huge role in getting them fans, particularly while girls attain sexual maturity, their real appeal lies in the sense of belonging that their most devoted followers gain from supporting them. This is reflected in the huge number of Facebook groups, Twitter lists and online friendships that arise from sharing pictures, videos and \u2018I touched Zayn\u2019s hand\u2019 incidents on online communities, all united by the simple #I<31D. One direction is not so much a band as it is a phenomenon, helping the Tashas and Yasmines of the world find a way to belong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The typical one direction fan is extraordinarily conspicuous, making no qualms about her love for the \u00a0band by wearing 1D rings and tops while posting concert pictures on her instagram. She (at most one direction concerts, only about 2% of the entire audience is male)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":879,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}