How I Became a One Direction Fan

No one who knows me will really be surprised by this turn of events.  In fact, they'll probably wonder why it's taken me so long to get to this point.  In hindsight, it does seem like it was inevitable.  I have a weakness for boy bands/girl groups as well as for British singers.  (Hence, I also have become a Little Mix fan.)

When 1D first became popular, I was dismissive.  At that point, they were still teens and singing extremely thought-provoking lyrics such as, "the way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed."  I mean, how many guys was I overwhelming on a daily basis with my hair flipping?  Who knew my hair had such power?  Don't get me wrong, I can handle cheesy, but this went too far.

I also resented the fact that they didn't dance.  Did they not know that if you wanted to be the member of a boy band that you needed to do some choreographed dance moves?  My first boy band love, NSYNC, understood this very well.  Their dancing was always on point and sometimes they even wore matching outfits.  I think 1D has probably been wise to stay away from overalls, but hey, look at how much group unity is conveyed in this photograph.

Source

And ultimately, I just wasn't that into a lot of their singles.  I'll admit, "Best Song Ever" and "Kiss You" are extremely catchy.  However, some of their other big hits ("Night Changes," "Story of My Life," "Little Things") didn't really appeal to me. 

Several years passed and the inconceivable happened: Zayn left the band.  While I love his ex-fiancée Perrie, I was never a huge fan of him personally.  I didn't know too much about him but it seemed like he was involved in a fair number of Twitter feuds which didn't appeal to me.  I wondered if the world's biggest boy band could withstand his departure.  But then a couple of months ago, they released their first single and video without him.  And it was pure pop perfection:

This song is so good that I can no longer deny 1D's appeal.  I totally get it, pre-teen girls of the world; I'm sorry it took me so long.  I can only hope that the rest of their upcoming album will be half as amazing as this song.  And I'll admit, now that I've fallen down this rabbit hole, I've found some other songs from their previous albums that I'm fond of: "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," "Happily," "Strong," "Fireproof," "No Control."

Some may look down on my newfound fandom.  That's fine because "nobody can drag me down (nobody, nobody)."