There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of fandom. Teens have always been huge nerds about the things they love and that is perfectly fine and normal. Unfortunately for the current generation of teens, the medium of expression given to them to explore that nerddom is less ‘drawing the Linkin Park logo in the back of your maths textbook’ and more ‘banding together in powerful, insane masses on Twitter‘.
If you’ve ever given in to curiosity and searched Twitter for any of the One Direction or Justin Bieber related hashtags, you’ll be fully aware that the seemingly endless array of tweets and fan accounts is a truly terrifying sight, and even more terrifying is what happens to the poor souls who run afoul of this weaponised network of individual fans.
Radio presenter Ash London is currently undergoing the horrific gauntlet that is being @-ed by approximately ten billion extremely pissed off teen fans after they took issue with an introduction given to One Directioner Louis Tomlinson.
In the attempt of explaining which one of the band he is to her less in-touch co-hosts, London described him as having “ratty” facial hair. Fellow hosts Ed Kavalee and Ash Williams, having identified him, went on to say that he was “not Harry Styles” (objectively true) and the least popular one of the group (look, it’s either him or Liam, surely). Pretty harsh stuff.
As all of the movements of all of the boys are, the interview was immediately broadcast on a billion different fan websites, and the fans were whipped into a frenzy very nearly instantly. While we in Australia would likely recognise the banter as something that we call “jokes”, it was not received that way in the community, and they were not shy about telling her.
I would reprint some of the things people are saying about her, but they are literally all teens, and singling them out seems extremely weird.
Shortly after, London switched her Twitter temporarily into private, before posting something in the way of a clarification.
https://twitter.com/ash_london/status/940425210993393664
“I love that it brings so much passion out in people” definitely seems like a gun-to-the-head version of ‘I love it that a million teens are screaming at me’, but, hey, it’s always nice to focus on the positives.
This might have blown over if it weren’t for this little morsel:
Probs best to stay on private for a bit longer love ! 🖕
— Louis Tomlinson (@Louis_Tomlinson) December 12, 2017
In the time it took for the middle finger emoji to load, I initially took this as a cheeky message of support that acknowledged the absurdity of the situation, but my second reading was much, much less charitable.
Look, I get it, no one likes having someone say their facial hair isn’t great. We’ve all been there. But you probably need to understand that if you have 30,000,000 extremely vocal Twitter followers, you have a bit of responsibility to not send them swarming in to attack people; there’s no way that can be a pleasant experience.
In a later update London said she’s taking a wee break from Twitter and a longer break from the reprehensible pursuit of talking about facial hair:
https://twitter.com/ash_london/status/940524402457718784
To make sure this exact thing doesn’t happen to me, allow me to state my positions: Louis’ facial hair is extremely kempt, he’s the most popular member of the band, and he is also definitely Harry Styles (?).
