okay but the real comedy of 1D’s rise in america is how the label tried so hard to package them for the conservative teen girl market. like “these british boys are SAFE. they date girls. they wear blazers. they smile a lot. moms will love them. daughters will love them. no gay stuff here, folks.”
they tried to closet the queer and sell the clean-cut. all to make them palatable for midwestern walmart aisles.
and then—and then—they wrote the gayest songs known to man. like “i can’t love you in the light so i’ll suffer in the dark” levels of gay. they slapped the word “girl” in there like it was a get-out-of-closet-free card and called it a day. whole albums that are just “everyone else thinks it’s wrong but i don’t care” and “this love is forbidden but i’d burn the world for it.” sir. what.
like imagine trying to sell your product to traditional families and instead creating a generation of gay girls who heard "they don't know about the things we do" and went “wait. oh.”
congratulations. your conservative brand campaign just made the soundtrack to thousands of sexual awakenings.
the corrupt industry works hard but gay subtext works harder.