The grief over Liam Payne’s untimely passing is interlaced with nostalgia for an era that defined so many of us — those of us who came of age in it — and for stars and shows that never really did fade away. (Photo: Liam Payne/ X)
As you grow up, childhood memories become faraway snippets — a piece of a lyric, a scene from a movie. You are sitting in a corner of your room, crying and singing along to music that echoes your breaking heart. Drinking for the first time at 16 and getting carried away, singing out loud with your friends to music that makes your heart soar. A breakup, growing up, giving up, laughing it off — and through it all, soundtracks that tie them together, make their memory sacred. This, I imagine, at least in part, is why musicians become obsessions. Especially for teens and tweens. Remember your teenage years? So many big emotions, all of which felt unconquerable, until you heard a lyric that provided comfort and company. For many in my generation, the boy band One Direction meant just that (And of course, it helps that the boys behind the music were so gorgeous).
Between the mid-noughties and 2010s, when I was growing up, a brave, new world was being created. It started with Facebook in 2004, Twitter came next (2006), Tumblr after that (2008), and Instagram was launched in 2010. Vampires were the new hot thing, drawing screaming-tweens and their screaming-for-entirely-different-reasons parents into theatres for Twilight 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It was around then that One Direction released their first single ‘What makes you beautiful’ in 2011.
For the first time, social media apps gave fans tools that allowed them to interact with each other, create art, memes and blog posts that generated fandom, community and connection. It was a heady experience unique and unprecedented — hard to explain, harder yet to comprehend. But at its centre were people and characters who had become icons in the first age of the social-media boom — the five boys of One D, Edward, Jacob and Bella (Twilight), and the incomparable trio of Harry Potter, Hermoine, Ron.
In the decade since, social media and the world-building it allowed have moved from the dewy-eyed to the ironic. Yet, these names, shows, bands, and films have remained in constant circulation, only the level of sincerity in engagement has shifted.
Tributes to Liam Payne, a former One Direction band member, are seen at the Hard Rock Cafe in London’s Piccadilly Circus. (Reuters)
On October 16, when Liam Payne, one of the five members of One Direction, passed away, many who were even laterally connected to Payne through internet lore, were stunned. Payne’s fandom was not merely because of the dizzying popularity of the band’s music. One Direction has not worked together for almost a decade. His fandom owes also to the permanence of a digital footprint and its impact on a generation. This is why so many found Payne’s death devastating — nostalgia played a critical role, sure, but the internet also kept the band alive in its culture and language. So many internet references and memes have One D and Twilight lore woven into them. The Fan Girl has shot to relevance – out of the www all the way to the big screen. A Twilight fanfiction became a book series called Fifty Shades, now a multi-million dollar box-office project. A Wattpad fanfiction about Harry Styles gave us the After movies. It’s a culture of spin-offs that keeps reproducing itself (quality be damned) keeping the stars alive in reel- and real-time.
The grief over Payne’s untimely passing is interlaced with nostalgia for an era that defined so many of us — those of us who came of age in it — and for stars and shows that never really did fade away. The internet froze a lot of this culture, immortalising it uniquely. So while we remember those times and the joy they brought us, perhaps we can sit against a wall again, scream-singing ‘Forever young’ with friends. And be grateful for the community, the connections we found (without a lag, unlike before social media) when the going was good.
sukhmani.malik@expressindia.com
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 19-10-2024 at 19:17 IST
