This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Kelly Xiong. Find her on Instagram at @k.3lly. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
There is a new trending sound on TikTok. If you haven’t heard it yet, the audio is a girl saying “Am I just crazy, or was it 5 Seconds of Summer?” The videos under this sound are all of people — mostly women — talk about the unhinged things they did or said because of 5sos. This sound really got me thinking because I was in middle school when 5sos and One Direction were at their peak, and I have definitely either seen people do feral things or I, myself, have done those feral things in the name of these boybands.
Middle school in the 2000s and 2010s were wild times. Girls who vocalized their love for One Direction and/or 5sos were often seen as “crazy fangirls”. To be fair though, that was sometimes true. I was pretty deep in the One Direction 5sos fandom and from the fan accounts to edits, there was truly nothing like it at the time. No other fandom was quite going as hard as we were for their idols.
I remember when we would all be on Wattpad either reading or writing fanfiction about our favorite bands and band members. And oftentimes, the content was not engage-appropriate. Some of these now have become a big inside joke between all the girls who went through that Wattpad phase. Many of us are familiar with when the main character “throws her hair into a messy bun” and puts on her “ripped skinny jeans”. The messy bun and skinny jeans combo was the look for almost every main character in a fanfic, and it’s now become a collective funny little memory. The 2012- 2015 era had us in a chokehold with that look.
Speaking of Wattpad, a very common storyline for fanfics was when the main character’s stepmom — or sometimes it’d be like an alcoholic dad — would sell them to the band. Looking back now, that was such an unhinged plot. Why were we — at 10-16 years old — reading and writing about selling people? And why was this like a top 10 plotline? It’s definitely funny looking back now at the amount of creative direction we had as teenagers writing about men who were years older than us. I can say with a lot of certainty that if you were part of either fandom — or even better, both — you went through a Wattpad era. Sure some of the content we were taking in were maybe a little bit crazy and ridiculous, but that was our way of showing our love for those boys. If we couldn’t go to their concerts or buy their merch, we always had our creativity and hearts to express our passion and support.
The amount of dedication we put into concerts and getting their music to the top of the charts were also some of the most unhinged behaviors that era has seen. From fighting for tickets to trying to find the hotel where the boys were staying, we were very committed to the fangirl life. Trying to get tickets to see One Direction during their Where We Are tour is the equivalent of trying to get Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets now. This was when 5sos were the openers too. It felt like the Hunger Games. Except, instead of fighting to the death, we were fighting to see who could spend hundreds of dollars the fastest. And we were ecstatic doing so. There was no better feeling than when the lights dimmed and the intro song for the WWA tour started. Maybe on the outside we seemed crazy, a bunch of teens and pre-teens spending hundreds and thousands of dollars to see “some boyband”. I can understand how that may seem absurd to some, but at that time, it really was the only thing we wanted — to see our favorite bands perform together. It was somewhat of a Wattpad story come true moment. Middle school in the 2000s and 2010s was truly such a unique era. I don’t think anything could ever replicate the amount of craze these boys had us in.
One of the most memorable days of middle school for me was when Zayn left the band — March 25, 2015. It’s been almost 9 years since and I still remember exactly where I was when I found out. I just got home from school and saw the news headlines saying that Zayn left the band. My immediate thought was that it was fake, maybe it’s just rumours. But then the official One Direction Instagram made an official statement confirming the headlines. I cried so hard that my dad thought Zayn died. That day Twitter went absolutely wild. Everyone was freaking out, no one was in their sane mind. The reactions we were having were very crazy. But then again, we were just girls. We were just girls who really liked a boyband. It’s easy to say how it wasn’t that deep if you weren’t part of the fandom but for us, it really was that deep. I couldn’t even describe the feeling but it just felt like a part of us were taken away. Yes, that does sound very dramatic, but we did put everything we had into the band and fandom.
Let us know below what was the craziest, most unhinged thing you’ve done for your favorite artist or band. Were you part of the One Direction 5sos craze?
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