no but for real, i need to get this off my chest right now because it’s bothering me all over again.
i started off my 1d fandom life in the larrie fandom because larry is my fave and i have all the Feelings ™ and unraveling the conspiracy when i first stumbled upon it was equal parts infuriating and fascinating. that fandom used to be my happy place. the camaraderie was what made my dash an exciting place at that time.
then. march 25, 2015 happened. and suddenly, my happy place caught on fire.
because that’s what it was. racism. straight up. it was the first time i saw the way race intersects with sexuality up close. the white lgbt supporters out here turning the most complicated of mental cartwheels, trying to avoid seeing zayn as someone they should be protecting alongside their white faves. and for someone like me– someone for whom zayn is kin, young and pakistani and living in a white supremacist country– it was deeply upsetting. because it wasn’t just about protecting zayn (which, we should, because internet trolls are not something to dismiss, but toxic and dangerous with real impact in the real world) - it was also about protecting the fandom and people like me. the brown girls who were watching all the ugly discourse in disbelief. especially now, more than a year down the line– when your white faves have also broken off to do solo careers, and y’all are happier than pigs in shit– the hypocrisy is just. unreal. not only were/are these people not seeing the obvious logical failings that made zayn’s “leaving” look fishy (i personally knew the game was still on when he was papped with perald the next day) but they were/are also reacting very differently than if, say, harry had gone solo. or niall. the anger wouldn’t have– and hasn’t been– as visceral. but it was with zayn. and i see it. i remember it. and i’m definitely bitter about how it’s poisoned my happy place.
it also gets to me because i know that it could be worse. because if zayn were any less beautiful, any less talented– arguably the most talented in the band– if zayn were any less than the adorable dork he is, it would have been incalculably worse for him. some of you guys, i swear you just put up with him in order to consume the pictures of his pretty face. he is “the beautiful one” when everyone else gets to be an actual personality. like the leaked marketing handout that proclaimed him “the dark horse” when everyone else got to be sunshine sweet. it literally pains me, how such a wonderful and complex individual has been reduced in discourse (in fandom and beyond) to “the beautiful one.” and if he weren’t so beautiful? you’d only have turned on him faster. that old poc proverb so succinctly summed up in scandal– “twice as good, to get half of what they have”– has never felt more relevant.
and with all that context– i don’t get to hang out in the larrie fandom anymore. i don’t get to enjoy the jokes as fully, and i have to run like a full background check on any new blog i follow because i love myself and my boy too much to put up with a single morsel of zayn bashing. i know there are some people in this fandom who are able to compartmentalize, keep the fun and scoff at the ugly– and seriously, i applaud you guys and wish i knew how to do that, because the zayn stuff just gets so personal to me. when i am defending him– defending his right to be a victim fighting for his agency– it feels like i am also defending myself. my right to be angry and hurt by the way people speak so callously and thoughtlessly. my right to be brown in this white world, and still be a valid human being.
i only follow a few larries now. and i might have to unfollow them too, at this point, because fuck, i don’t know what’s worse– watching you assholes pretend he was never in the band, or watching you assholes pretend like he isn’t still out there suffering with the same dead eyes as the rest of the band.
larry is still my fave, but the rest of you– i could certainly do without. (and tbh, considering how much both of them love still zayn, now and forever, they could probably do without you too.) and that’s coming not from an anti, or a mindless troll– but from one of you.