[since everything under a Read More cut gets deleted in case a blog deletes/gets deleted and the WayBackMachine isn’t good with pictures, for Archive Purposes Only, I will add the most important bits of the/rest of the full post and have also checked/updated/added the source links to the best of my abilities]
[post is from 2 September 2014]
“From what it looks like to me, they’ve been intentionally hinting at Harry and Louis being a couple since at least January of this year [2014].
And continuing into February:
It starts out small like those headlines. They drop hints that get people to start questioning things, subtle enough that they can still deny it if they need to. Then they move on to make things a bit more obvious, like this headline from [25] March [2014]:
and its accompanying photo:
Yes, the article eventually moves into the standard “shippers ruined their friendship” line, but things move slowly in the early days of a massive shift like the one they’d need to do in order to bring Harry and Louis out of the closet.
Then you start seeing things like this published to the band’s official Instagram account in April:
And this, taken in full view of a massive crowd of fans [in Brasil]:
Then they start hinting at Harry being sexually interested in men in a more explicit way:
And then, a bit later, further interaction outside of a strictly work-orientated obligation, again, in a place loaded with fans that will take and tweet photos of them together [at Niall’s Charity footie game on 26 May 2014 - video 1 / video 2 / video 3]:
Throw in some choreographed staging that singles out Harry and Louis together:
And Harry pictured interacting with (or, it could be argued, as part of) the Tomlinson family [at Jay’s wedding in July 2014]:
All of that spread over a time frame of roughly seven months [and] amounts to pretty much nothing at all when taken as separate, possibly unintentional slips, which is why patterns like this are often hard to notice for people who aren’t accustomed to how publicity works.
But publicity and crafted narratives are “big picture” ideas. As a publicist, I can’t just focus on what’s happening right now or what’s going to happen in the immediate future. I’m trained to think in terms of months. If they’re trying to seed an idea that’s going to need to be handled delicately.
How are they going to do that?
How can they possibly go from “Shippers ruined their friendship” to “They’ve been dating for years”?
They drop hints. They keep it subtle. They get the idea into people’s heads without ruffling too many feathers. They plant a seed of doubt that nags in the back of your mind, making you wonder What if all those people were right about Harry and Louis all along? What if they really have been dating this whole time? (There will always be people who resist the change, of course, which is why we’re seeing quite a bit of rather violent and desperate opposition to the fact that more and more people are starting to notice these things.)
And then, as the window of time leading up to a coming out begins to close, they start to revert back to what many refer to as a glass closet.
They start tweeting things like this [on 20 August 2014]:
And doing things like this [wearing NFL player Michael Sam’s jersey after he came out as gay], which, along with being a great show of support to the queer community in general, served to get Harry’s name into the headlines of major LGBT[QIA+] publications [in August 2014]: [added sources]
And, of course, [Harry & Louis] being photographed in clear view of fans walking like this:
As I’ve said before, I think they’ll likely remain formally closeted for a while. But I think they’re well into the preparative stages that come with loosening the restrictions on the closet.
It’s just speculation, obviously, based off both what I’ve found on my own and the things that have been pointed out to me by several people on tumblr. But, from what I’ve seen so far, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if things continue to become more and more obvious over the next several months.
EDIT — And, as an anon pointed out, right before I made this post, this article was published:”
[source now unavailable, no replacement found]
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