The loss of Liam Payne, and the importance of community in grief
An essay on the One Direction fandom following the death of Liam Payne. Welcome back to the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT.
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There are a handful of significant news moments in which you’ll never forget where you were when you found out about them. Michael Jackson’s death. (I was in my parent’s bedroom with my mom, and after watching we went to Trader Joe’s where I found out Farrah Fawcett died.) The Boston Marathon bombing. (I watched the live coverage with my dad after school.) The mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine that happened while we were living in Maine. (My husband and I were at a work event that he had to leave abruptly to go report on the devastation.) Liam Payne’s death on October 16 will be one of those moments for me.
Jack and I were heading to the city to walk around. I was telling him I wanted to write an essay specifically about 2012. It’s a year I believe to be one of the best. My parents were alive—it’s the last full year I had with them and what felt like not a true worry in the world. I was halfway through high school, and the pop culture at the time drove my friendships, my downtime, my life. Tumblr and Perks of Being a Wallflower and Catfish and Imagine Dragons and Instagram and Red and, of course, One Direction. I said if I could go back to any point in my life, it would be 2012. It was a significant year for me, using media and online spaces to discover who I was. It was logging offline to watch TV with my parents and sister. It was going to a friend’s house to watch a scary movie and drink Monsters to pull an all nighter. It was growing up, and it was coming of age. It was home.
No more than 20 minutes after this conversation, Jack and I went to a coffee shop where I used the restroom. When I came out, he said, “Liam Payne from One Direction just died.”
“What?” I was shocked, then overcome with a sadness. I asked if he was joking, because it felt so out of left field, such a specifically hard loss. I couldn’t believe someone who was a big part of what we were just talking about, of the sanctity of 2012, was gone. I knew what 2012 meant to me, and for millions of Directioners who found community and safety and good memories in Liam, Harry, Niall, Louis and Zayn.
Where do you go for comfort when a huge piece of what you normally turn to is gone? It’s something I’ve been asking myself since my parents died. I haven’t found an answer, but community and collective care are my best guesses.
And one beautiful thing about the One Direction fandom is the community surrounding it. I spoke with four people who shared with me their grief and what One Direction meant to them.
Maddy Dion told me she longs for “how you felt when you were a teenager, listening to One Direction, invested in their lives and how much easier life was also for you as an individual in that period of time.” Following Liam’s death, people from different faucets of life reached out to Maddy to send their condolences. One Direction and the community became her “whole life” in high school, and she still has friends she made from that time.
Alex Zuniga also found a lot of her friends through One Direction. “I was very, very much a part of the fandom. It was my identity.”
A huge part of the One Direction fandom for both Maddy and Alex was fan fiction, a way for them to write and build community.
For Katie Malone, One Direction fan fiction was a way for them to explore sexuality. “I want to see these two guys kissing,” lead to conversations with friends around masturbation and other aspects of sexuality that can otherwise be taboo in your teenage years. They also mentioned that One Direction radicalized them in their worldview, forming the beliefs and values they still hold today.
For Benjamin Zawilski, he admired One Direction’s “challenging and bending of gender norms… which is very valuable to understand the ways those kind of labels can be transcended.”
One Direction impacted people’s lives, becoming a part of their everyday.
“For me, it was having something to always look forward to,” Alex said. “They’re always doing something. They’re going to release a song… an album… go on tour. There’s always something One Direction.”
Alex attended a vigil for Liam held in San Francisco to be in community in her grief.
Adding to the complicated emotions surrounding Liam’s death are the abuse allegations that came out this year from his ex-fiancé, in addition to manipulation allegations from members of the fandom. Katie told me the One Direction community is one that believes women and survivors; they, like many others, are dealing with nuanced feelings on who Liam is, juxtaposed with their parasocial idea of who he is.
And, of course, comes the complications of grieving the loss of someone you didn’t actually know. To anyone reading this: Any feelings you have on the loss of Liam Payne, or the loss of anyone for that matter, are completely valid. You’re allowed to mourn someone you never met. You’re allowed to mourn someone who was a part of your life, however much or little they were. Grief and loss isn’t black or white, and it’s not meant to be simplified as such.
Liam’s young age, 31, is a stark reminder of our own mortality, that life is fleeting. That we’re all growing up, and some won’t get a chance to. I know I can’t get 2012 back, no matter how hard I stretch my arms and fingers out, desperate to make contact and grasp it.
Alex told me 2012 was exhilarating for her. “Like the feeling of getting into a good book… just going down the rabbit hole of all their funny moments, funny videos on YouTube.” This included adopting a British aesthetic. “Everything that they would do, I would do.”
Maddy said, “That summer in particular, it was like, I probably would have started floating through the sky with my love and obsession of One Direction, if gravity would have allowed it.”
The One Direction fandom is one I’m in awe in. I’m glad people have an outlet to discuss their grief together. In these hard times, I’m hopeful these open conversations around grief and loss will have lasting effects in the fandom and beyond. Through it all, community is the most important thing someone can have. And the One Direction community isn’t going anywhere. Katie shared with me, “People are talking about One Direction as if they never stopped.”
If we can’t get 2012 back, at least One Direction will make it feel like home.
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