Zayn quits One Direction: the heartthrob changes, the heartbreak's the same
Zayn quits One Direction: the heartthrob changes, the heartbreak's the same
And then there were four. Every boyband has its shelf life, but go easy on the Directioners – this might be their first experience of loss
“February 30”. We’d hoped the day would never come, and being a made-up date, it seemed like a safe bet. It’s the date Zayn Malik once allegedly told bandmate Harry Styles that he’d leave One Direction: “He cried for hours until he realised there was no February 30.”
Who knows if he ever said it – Directioners aren’t that fussed with attribution, especially when there’s an anecdote about charming horseplay between their idols to be shared – but on Wednesday the day came.
On Thursday morning at dawn, I woke up to a Facebook chat, written in all caps – Malik had confirmed his departure from One Direction.
Then I fell back asleep. When I woke up two hours later, I found out all over again. No one should have to go through so much twice in one morning.
I’ve got to say, I called it. Though Styles has the highest profile and is considered the best placed to forge a solo career, of all of them, Malik had the most “projects” on the go outside the band – projects like some bad graffiti and and a fiancee. I’ve never been in a boyband but I imagine it’s a full-time job. If you can make time for Naughty Boy, the British producer Malik confirmed he was working with a few weeks before he quit 1D, maybe your heart’s not in it.
He then announced that he was leaving the On the Road Again tour owing to “stress”, and though the Directioners took him at his word, collating their messages of support with the hashtag #HaveAGoodRestZayn, I knew we were counting down to 30 February.
I’d seen the first two shows of the tour in Sydney and, though it sounds like revisionism now, Malik’s almost total disengagement was obvious. He shied from the adoring crowd as though it were possible to avoid eye contact with 10,000 people all actively seeking it, and seemed intent on putting as much space between him and his bandmates by each song’s end to pre-empt any attempts at banter. There’s being “the mysterious one”, and then there’s an eyeroll sustained for two hours.
To quote JM Barrie, all children, except one, grow up – and that’s Justin Bieber. By their very definition, boybands have a shelf life and, after five years, One Direction are approaching the point where it will become harder to find a middle ground with their young fans.
But while Styles and Niall Horan still seemed to be revelling in their roles of boyfriends-cum-babysitters, Liam Payne was officious and bustling like a father of four at Disneyland, and Louis Tomlinson was ... present/at least not wearing braces, Malik – in perfect voice but palpably unhappy – didn’t want to be there.
So I predicted that Malik would leave the band. I just didn’t think I’d feel so sad about it when it happened. I’m 24 – nearly 100 in Directioner years – and I’m not at school anymore. And while I’m a card-carrying One Direction fan, for sure, I don’t have it on me all the time.
But for the hordes of young Directioners who did live and breathe this band, this is their first experience of loss. The outpouring of grief on social media is proof that just because they are mourning someone who is still alive, whom they haven’t met and they didn’t know in any meaningful way does not mean they feel it any less keenly.
We’ve all been there, as I’ve learned from sympathetic colleagues. One says she cried in the bathrooms of her primary school when Geri Halliwell announced she was leaving the Spice Girls. Gary Barlow’s departure from Take That prompted a special assembly at another’s all-girls school, at which How Deep Is Your Love was played as everyone filed out.
The heartthrobs change, but the heartbreak’s the same across generations. What’s different is that the internet – really the only place 1D fandom exists – means that grief is self-sustaining, public and could quite possibly go on forever.
I understand the voyeuristic pleasure to be had in venturing through the looking glass to “Directioner Twitter”, where a favourite or – !!! – a follow from a member of the band is a badge of honour forever and the fact that Malik apparently “painted a dog for charity” is held up as evidence of his philanthropic spirit. We were all young once. I am still young now and every day I am grateful that social media did not really exist when I was growing up.
I’m not calling for a national day of remembrance, partly because I know Malik is going to have a kickass solo career as soon as he realises that being a “normal 22-year-old” is quite boring, and in the meantime I can look at pictures of him on the internet. But a little empathy wouldn’t go amiss.
The devastating wits joking about Malik hosting Top Gear, or speculating about who might #ReplaceZayn (like Jeremy Clarkson!), or those, heaven help us all, politicking, seem to be as old and male as most Directioners are young and female. And you know they are the kind of people who shout at the TV when the game’s on.
At One Direction’s Sydney show in February, I sat between two male music journalists who I’d pick to be in their 30s or 40s, and next to a seven-year-old girl. Being at the intersection of that Venn diagram – not a girl, not yet a world-weary hack – I didn’t know from whom to take my cue.
Did I cross my arms over my chest, spread my legs shoulder width, and maintain a fixed expression that did not allow a trace of enjoyment from the fireworks and high jinks going on metres from my face? Or did I befriend the little girl next to me and dance and scream and jump up and down in my seat and agree that Niall definitely smiled at her just a moment ago?
I went for the latter, and it made all the difference.
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