In one of the first memorable “you had to be there” moments for the fandom, they realized in unison the magnitude of success 1D had reached as the group performed “What Makes You Beautiful” at the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony. “The whole fandom felt like something to be a part of during that time in your youth where you felt out of place,” Kaylan Anderson, 20, says.įor nearly every show of the Up All Night tour, fans logged on to live tweet the grainy live streams they watched together.
Online, fans shared inside jokes about the guys’ tweets and ridiculous rumors that often sprouted up. There was endless content in the form of documentaries, books, albums, award show performances, perfume launches, photoshoots and more. Their world tours were getting bigger, rising to stadium levels, giving more fans an opportunity to see them live. “I had never experienced something like that before.”įrom 2012 through 2014 were the golden years of One Direction. There were so many people screaming,” New York-native Hannah Zwick, 20, says of being in the plaza that day. “What Makes You Beautiful” had only reached the U.S. That same month, thousands of fans shrieked as One Direction rode into New York’s Rockefeller Plaza on a bus adorning the group’s name for its first U.S. in March 2012, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with over 170,000 copies in its first week. When Up All Night finally arrived in the U.S. “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Gotta Be You” were the only two singles released at that point, but they were already more than enough to make 1D an international phenomenon. and Ireland in November 2011, quickly becoming the fastest selling album in the U.K. The group’s debut album Up All Night was released in the U.K. (It only took one search for “One Direction Funny Moments” on YouTube for McGinnis to get hooked.) “ was almost like a pyramid scheme in the way that one girl would infiltrate your school and attach you to the fandom, and then you would attach people, too,” says Grace McGinnis, 21. The end of X Factor was just the beginning for the guys, with their efforts at building a sustainable fanbase quickly being validated by their popularity spreading like wildfire among a demographic of immensely dedicated young women. At the time, it cost around 33 pence to vote via phone. “They were such ‘normal’ lads, the type of guys you’d go to school with,” says Rhiannon Johnston, 22, who used to spend all of her pocket money voting for One Direction on X Factor. Video diaries uploaded during and after the show gave fans a glimpse into the off-stage personalities of the English-Irish boys they were spending hours cheering on. One Direction spent each week of its X Factor stint perfecting its harmony as a group, while also building and connecting with a loyal fan base that would be ready and willing to support them when their on-screen journey came to an end. This was all made possible by the group’s fervent international fanbase, characterized by its rabid devotion and accelerated by the rise of social media and music streaming, ultimately rivaling the fandom of any other boy band in history.Īs we approach the ten year anniversary of One Direction’s formation - with a new anniversary-celebrating 1D website launching next Thursday - Billboard is revisiting the groundbreaking career of one of the most successful boy bands in history, helped by the memories of the die-hard fans who were there for it all.
1 albums on the Billboard 200, six Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits, four Video Music Awards, 28 Teen Choice Awards, two Saturday Night Live appearances, billions of streams - and that’s not even considering the solo success each member found, following Malik’s departure in 2015 and the rest of the group’s official hiatus in 2016. Over 300 shows played across four sold out world tours, four No. The 30 Best Boy Band Albums of the Past 30 Years: Staff Picks