One Direction hasn’t been a thing for years. The boy band went on indefinite hiatus, a move that most people understood to be a break-up in all but name, and went their separate ways. Some 1D stans still hold out hope that they’ll reunite, a move that seems unlikely following the death of Liam Payne. In the meantime, the tinhatters fired up the oven and baked like crazy just to fill the hours.
That has meant tripling down on the Larry conspiracy: the notion that Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are or were a romantic couple at some point during the band’s peak. Louis has repeatedly called this out as nonsense and admitted that the leering over their friendship damaged their actual platonic relationship as friends and colleagues. But no matter how many times Tomlinson calls this out, the conspiracies just get louder and crueller.
Recently, he took to Twitter to say, “The last few months have made it impossible for me to be on here. All the conspiracy chat about my relationship, my son or even stretching sometimes to opinions on my Mum. It’s just too much and too hurtful for me to see!”
(Image via Twitter.)
Tomlinson’s child has been a frequent target of these conspiracists, with some wishing death on him and his mother. Tomlinson’s mother and sister died within weeks of one another, another thing they mock and use for tinhat fuel.
Apparently, some 1D fans are faux-angry over Tomlinson performing some of the band’s songs during his solo tour. This seems like a basic misunderstanding of how music works. Most solo artists who were once in bands do this. I saw Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters last year and he played a ton of the big hits because hey, the audience knows what they want. I saw Neil Young last month (brag) and he did some CSNY stuff. You put the money on the stage. Plus, Tomlinson was a prolific songwriter for 1D, accruing more credits than any other member. Why wouldn’t he perform his own work?
Of course, none of this really offers a justification for continuing to treat Tomlinson like a puppet in a fantastical play about his own life, pushed by fans who have clearly invested too much time and emotion into something that was never going to pay off. Looking at the replies and quote-tweets to Tomlinson’s very emotional post reveals a hell of a lot of his own so-called fans treating him rather horridly. He’s had to deal with this for practically his entire adult life. Imagine being an adolescent boy and seeing people threaten to kill you or themselves because they think you’re in love with your friend. Imagine having to hide your kid from the world because their life is in danger from these people.
The thing about conspiracies is that they seldom come to a neat conclusion. They just keep moving the goalposts to pretend that they haven’t been debunked over and over again. It’s embarrassing to admit you were caught up in something so evidently dumb. And all these Larry stans are so wedded to their fetish that their own subject’s trauma is basically a plot point. They keep saying that every rebuttal is “proof” that they’re right.
I keep coming back to the same question with these creeps, and indeed with all tinhat shippers who harass and threaten people over their delusions: if you were actually 100% right about this, what would you want to happen? If Tomlinson and Styles latched onto one another emotionally while they were being barraged with attention and secluded in hotel rooms, unable to leave for fear of attack and harassment, what impact would this have on your life? If Styles came out as queer, would you expect him to thank you, the people who threatened to murder his friend, for forcing him out of the closet? Are you waiting for the high-five from Tomlinson, who will be super happy that you mocked the deaths of his family members and stalked his son?
And then what? Would you move on with your life, having accomplished the job and never bother anyone again? Of course not. You’d double down and make even grander assertions, forcing yourself into a position of authority over a total stranger. We’ve seen this at play with how many people are still spinning yarns about Britney Spears following her being released from her conservatorship, claiming she’s been replaced by an AI model or is still under some shadowy group’s control.
Honestly, I think a lot of these ‘fans’ are struggling with the reality that the band is over and that Payne’s passing has cemented this. No more new songs from their favourite group. No more cute backstage photos or banter among friends. No reunion tour. Now, you have to get another personality. That does suck, but don’t drag Louis Tomlinson down with you. His trauma is not your content.
