lads-laddylads:
Since Dan Wootton announced that One Direction would be “disbanding” (read: taking a break and not re-signing with Simon), most of us expected that Simon would begin carrying out a smear campaign against the boys. I personally think that the smear campaign really kicked into gear in October.
For me, the clear giveaway that this is an intentional smear campaign is the fact that all of the negative articles about the boys are stemming from two sources, The Daily Mail and The Sun. The Mirror seems to have stepped back into the light after years on the dark side - they have recently seemed to doubt the baby, been particularly complimentary of Louis, and even shaded the DM for an article about Harry and a “mystery brunette” (aka Ben’s wife).
I said the other day that I think the intentions of the smear campaign are:
1) Make it look like this is the end for One Direction.
2) Drag down the individual images of each of the boys as much as possible.
Although #1 does involve smearing the boys and their relationships with one another, it also requires non-smear tactics, like provoking talk about how Harry wants to go solo and how Louis wants to work behind-the-scenes in the music industry and/or as an X-Factor judge. Articles on those two topics actually compliment the boys rather than smear them, but in my opinion, it’s still serving the first goal of the smear campaign by casting doubt that the boys will return to One Direction after this break. I’m not including those articles on the timeline, but here are links to a few (solo Harry - x / x) (music mogul Louis - x / x / x).
This is a timeline of articles that I believe have been part of the smear campaign against One Direction since October began. I realize that not everyone will agree with all of the articles mentioned counting as smears, but that’s okay. This is just my view of things. I’ll keep updating this as necessary.
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