One Direction Beat Taylor Swift To Dominate Twitter 2015
If you’ve used Twitter in 2015-2016, you’ve probably noticed that every other day a One Direction-related Twitter trend will pop up in the Worldwide Trends box. A colorful bunch of trends – including #LuckyToHaveLouis, in which the fandom expressed their gratitude for the very existence of handsome Louis Tomlinson, and #WeAreAllHarry, in which the millions-strong Directioner cohort all set their profile pictures to the same shot Harry Styles uses for his Twitter photo, making it look like millions and millions of “Harrys” were tweeting to and following one another – have sprung up this year.
At the height of the #WeAreAllHarry trend, a number of fans posted screenshots of their Twitter timelines, showing the flocks of Harrys that were all following each other.
5 minutes away from Twitter
#WeAreAllHarry pic.twitter.com/w2qF90m5rY
— Patrizia? (@amnesiaxnjh) December 20, 2015
rt for good luck, it works ? #WeAreAllHarry pic.twitter.com/xEhuAIwhTq
— ? (@blazedbcari) December 20, 2015
Trends honoring the other boys also exploded, and for an interesting few days, it looked like Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, the One Direction Official account, and Louis Tomlinson — in that order — were taking turns flooding Twitter with activity, when it was really just the fans having a bit of fun.
Thank you #WeAreAllLiam #WeAreAllHarry #WeAreAllZayn #WeAreAllNiall #WeAreAll1D #WeAreAllLouis ? pic.twitter.com/FiZizPiVTU
— julia (@forevermspayne) December 28, 2015
The One Direction band members also got their own trends as an afterthought. Josh Devine, Sandy Beales, Jon Shone, and Dan Richards are known to most fans and widely loved, even getting some coverage when they suited up for the This Is Us premiere, as reported by Sugarscape. The good-natured and funny instrumentalists have joked that their name for themselves is “Wrong Direction,” because for all their impressive musical skills they are not as lauded as the other four/five.
Now, it has emerged that the One Direction boys were the top mentioned artists on Twitter in 2015, beating out Harry Styles’ ex, Taylor Swift. It is believed that the results were collated by the Twitter social network itself and made public in the last few days.
The boys were the top mentioned artist in 2015 on Twitter -V pic.twitter.com/PEB5mJfjUu
— 1D UPDATES (@_1D_UpAllNight_) February 16, 2016
The data about the most-mentioned artist follows the revelation that it was Harry Styles of One Direction who sent the most-retweeted Tweet of 2015. Harry’s viral tweet was sent soon after bandmate Zayn Malik left the group, as reported by Time.
It’s a big change since 2014. Would you believe that, just two years ago, it was not 1D but Taylor Swift that was getting the most Twitter attention, as reported by Forbes?
Not everyone is a fan of the Twitter-power of One Direction. Some users have expressed their exasperation about the number of 1D-related trends that fill up the Worldwide box, perhaps because the trends crowd out threads that are more relevant to their interests.
RT tommorendezvous: lmaooo lets get another hastag trend#WeAreAllLouis#VideoMTV2015 One Direction https://t.co/CHsGvvcMTb
— Niam Horany VOTING! (@NiamHorany) December 25, 2015
@StartaleVOID it's more 1d fans jacking themselves off, like half of all twitter trends are
— Lisa ??? (@comradeunha) February 14, 2016
>looks at twitter trends
god damnit what did 1d fangirls do this time
— jonjon (@jonjonaug) February 13, 2016
Some people have even begged Twitter HQ to develop functionality that will allow them to filter out all the One Direction and/or Justin Bieber-related trends, similar to the famous “K blocker” Kardashian filter that allowed people uninterested in the ubiquitous family to remove all Kardashian-related information from their browsers, as reported by Business Insider.
Dear @Twitter, please, please, please let me mute #1D, #Justin, #adele related worldwide trends
— ???????? (@Catarino) January 26, 2016
Fans, of course, disagree heartily, with some lamenting a perceived slowdown in the number of One Direction-related trends springing up as the band moves into its hiatus.
*gets home from school and goes on Twitter to see what 1d trends there are* disappointed
— orlaith (oral) (@orlaith1d) January 8, 2016
Others vowed that they will keep the 1D action alive throughout the hiatus, even if it means trending some silly and frivolous stuff. One fan urged Twitter users to “get ready for lame trends” in 2016.
(Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)