Something that makes me feel a little crazy is that even when the band was active, people would talk about who was going to be the next One Direction but for all intents and purposes they shouldn't have worked. You had to be 16 before or on February 1st of that year to be on X-factor that year, meaning Harry only just made the cut off. Liam, after not getting through once, could have easily not have come back. Zayn almost missed his audition! They didn't even get through bootcamp! One or all of them could have been sent home for good then instead of being put in the band or somebody else placed instead. There were discussions of kicking Zayn out during the early days. Louis got sent home for a time during the show, and that could've been the end of it. They weren't boys that individually were expected to get far; hence, they got put in a band, but still they made it to the final. And after all of that, they didn't even win! They came third!! Matt and Rebecca who did win who had an older demographic in comparison to One Direction’s preteen/teen fan base that for the most part didn't have their own money support them, should have for all and intents and purposes done better than the boys after the show. And yet I don't know what happened to them. The closest comparison is Little Mix, but they actually won! And even then, they didn't have the same market saturation that the boys did, they had everything everywhere during their peak, and it can still be found now nearly a decade since they were active. Even though boys solo merch can be seen dotted around. And even after the show, when the media training hadn't kicked in yet, and they used to take the piss in interviews and shows, getting into twitter beef with other bands, that should've affected them. Even the fact that they didn't follow the boyband mold that had made so many before them successful, worked in their favour rather than to their detriment. They performed at the Olympic ceremony two years into being a band! They had the Spice Girls who'd been around since the 90s and One Direction a band of two years perform the Olympic ceremonies!! And its not even just that it worked, rbey wrre the biggest boyband on the planet and still have fame from that despite having been apart longer than they were ever together. The closest comparison to that level of fame I can think of is Taylor Swift, but she's been working that entire time, and before they were formed, thetes really no competition. There's so many reason it shouldn't have worked for them they were a bunch of working class teen age boys that were veritable strangers and yet that's exactly why it worked, you can never replicate that.
