you flower you feast

I've been enjoying reading your thoughts on Zayn, really interesting stuff to chew on. I was wondering do you think the fandom would have reacted differently if one of the other boys had left? i.e., would what you call "OT4 culture" exist as it does today if the band consisted of Zayn and three white boys instead of the 4 white boys and Zayn as the villain? do you think the fandom would have been more understanding? thank you!

Aw thank you, I’m glad you find it all interesting! I don’t think it gets talked about enough so I’m just glad it’s been promoting discussion. 

So to answer your question, YES, absolutely, if one of the other boys left they would have been treated differently by the fandom and also by the media. In fact I don’t even think there would have been a villainy/demonizing narrative at all, I think it wold have been a sympathetic narrative. And I think the fandom would have eaten that up, granted that sympathy without the same skepticism they regard Zayn with. 

The fandom never hesitates to sympathize with the boys or discuss how they were wronged by or abused by their record label, management, Syco, etc. EXCEPT where Zayn is concerned, which I find especially shocking because his treatment within the band  was arguably the worst! 

The other boys garner so much pity and sympathy, even to the point of it being weird and infantilizing (see the whole culture around treating Louis especially like a literal toddler, I don’t want to talk about it because it makes my skin crawl but you see my point). We see countless posts talking about how unfairly they’re treated…Niall’s knee, Harry being sexualized from age sixteen and bearded to literal thirty year old women, Louis being pushed to the background and punished for being a thorn in the the powers that be’s side since day one, Liam for being made to lie and cover for the other boys when they were unable to carry the narrative themselves, and later for speaking openly about his anxiety while in the band (however, I will say I see Liam being similarly snubbed but that’s a different conversation). We see posts of users calling them “poor strong, brave babies!!!” and highlighting extensive evidence that they suffered from anxiety and health problems when in the band, but what do we get about Zayn? “Shady.” “Aloof.” “Dishonest.” “Pretentious.” “Arrogant.” There’s skepticism that he actually suffered from anxiety or a drug problem or an ED, the SAME symptoms we see in the other boys get questions or doubted with Zayn, or, even worst, interpreted as disingenuousness. 

Part of this is subconscious (or not) racism, absolutely.  Culturally, there’s a stigma surrounding poc and particularly dark skinned boys which robs them of their childhood. We don’t assume innocence or childlike intentions from boys of color because under the white supremacy, we already see them as threats, as “thugs.” Non white boys don’t ever GET to be boys, they’re seen as adults with agency and culpability immediately: sexualized, vilified, etc. We see the other boys in 1D as teenagers who were manipulated, abused children made to perform and sign their lives away, EXCEPT ZAYN.  Zayn was an adult from the start, in the eyes of the fandom and in the eyed of Sony, which brings me to my next point

Part of why Zayn’s departure from the band was treated differently and with less compassion than if any of the other boys left the band is this: 

Zayn was whitewashed and vilified from the very beginning, it was his BRAND. Study the sony leak sides. Look at that PICTURE of him, compared to the ones they used for the other boys.  No one is portrayed more cruelly and unsympathetically than Zayn is. His brand is BUILT on racist assumptions. Also consider my original ask where the person was like “I don’t like Zayn because he’s shady, pretentious, and insecure, not because I’m a racist.”  These are the words someone used to describe him and they might as well have been taken off this slide. 

Shady: the dark horse, a player. Zayn and his million highly publicized cheating scandals, playing off the stereotype that white boys are faithful but brown boys will hurt you, will cheat, it’s in their nature. He’s the bad one in one direction, the dangerous one, hell break your heart because he’s not safe. 

Pretentious: poser and Insecure: vulnerable.  Zayn’s anxiety has been evident since the beginning, and Sony and TXF dealt with it by portraying it as some aloof, too-cool, full of himself attitude rather than a genuine insecurity. He was shy, he almost didn’t GO to his audition, and all of it got rewritten as pretension, to place blame on HIM and his EGO for his teenage nervousness and self doubt. This of course came into play again when he left, the the official narrative (in spite contrary evidence in actual interviews) was because he was TOO COOL for the band, too cool for pop music, never wanted to be there. They USED his existing brand to sell that narrative and vilify him, and the fandom bought it. 

And then, there’s the white washing. His style in particular is designed to make him look whiter: “American” and “varsity jumpers” in particular. So Sony wanted to make him appear more white because they thought that was more “approachable” and marketable, certainly, while they SIMULTANEOUSLY built his image around racist stereotypes. So all of this is what the fandom has been internalizing about him for YEARS. Naturally, when he leaves, it’s easy for them to turn on him, and easy for the media to sell this particular narrative over a sympathetic one because they already have the seeds of his untrustworthiness and disloyalty sewn into the fabric of his brand: poser, dark horse, vulnerable. Of COURSE he never wanted to be in the band and always thought it was better. Of course. 

So yeah, I think if the one of the other boys had left, it would have been for the EXACT SAME REASON: anxiety, depression, inability to perform any longer. It could have been any of them. However, I think the other boys would have had a far more sympathetic narrative written about them if they had left, and if Zayn would have, for some reason, had a sympathetic narrative, the fandom wouldn’t have bought it.