Post 23: Tumblr and Tyler Oakley (1-23-14)

The other night while all of the Twitter drama was happening between Liam Payne and Tyler Oakley, I saw that a lot of people were posting their opinions about it all on Tumblr. So I joined in and spoke my mind.

 

Then on Sunday I was randomly looking through my notifications and I saw this:

That made me really excited. A lot of people say that Tyler Oakley stalks his tag but I didn't really believe them. Well, I do now. I thought it was pretty cool that he saw what I had to say and liked it (literally and figuratively). Sometimes it's really hard to be in the public eye and take criticism but I think he accepted my criticism. I was not rude, I argued both sides, and gave them both the benefit of the doubt. I feel that's only fair.

I was kind of confused as to why I was so excited that Tyler liked my post. People seem so into these things lately. "Follow me," "Like my post," "Reblog." It's almost as if these things we get from celebrities are badges of honor. "Oh yeah, I have 4 out of 5 members of One Direction following me." People seem to measure their worth these days by numbers. Number of likes on a selfie. Number of followers on this social media platform. Number of reblogs. Number of celebrity followers... number... number... number.

Maybe it was always like this, just different. Actually meeting the celebrity as opposed to getting them to follow you. Actually getting an autograph as opposed to an electronic reply. Maybe in a few years it will just get worse. "I met Justin Bieber's hologram today." Let's hope not. I think one of each celebrity is enough for now.

Post 21: Duck Dynasty, Drama, Directioners, Drama, and a Little More Drama (1-19-14)

Normally I only write on school days,

but it's a long weekend so I'm not sure I can survive that long without blogging. Alright, the main reason I'm really writing this post is because there has been major drama. It started off with a little bit of Twitter drama but now it has escalated into a hot mess.

Saturday night Liam tweeted this:

Now, it's a pretty vague tweet. If no one knows who he's tweeting to, it's Willie Robertson from Duck Dynasty. I don't watch the show so I didn't really know anything about the tweet, nor did I really care, until a lot of buzz started generating.

Tyler Oakley, a YouTuber, tweeted this:

So I had to do my research because things were starting to get nasty and I had absolutely no clue why. 

Alright. So Willie's dad made so anti-gay remarks, and Tyler is inferring that because Liam said "he supports their family values" that he supports the anti-gay remarks. I can see where Tyler is coming from, but I honestly think it's a bit of a stretch. I think Willie was thinking of adopting a kid, maybe he supports that. Maybe he supports the way Willie is handling the bad press he's getting through this. The tweet was so vague so it's easy to jump to assumptions. Now, Tyler should of stopped there, but of course not. Why stop there?

Hold it right there, Tyler. Liam said absolutely nothing about supporting bigotry and homophobia. It's a very vague tweet and it's really hard to make assumptions based like that. If you constantly make assumptions based on very vague things, you're going to live a very unhappy life.

Alright now this pissed me off. No matter what Tyler does, no one should ever tell him to go kill himself. He is a man with feelings and he was just trying to defend something he believes in. He is openly gay but he's also a huge Directioner so it's not like he was trying to start things on purpose because he hates Liam and wants to get him in trouble. 

I understand that you support the LGBT community but that tweet was so vague and you're assuming things and completely blowing this out of proportion. 

As this was going on, I see a tweet from Jack (thatsojack) to Tyler.

For those of you who don't know what he's talking about, in One Direction's music video for "Best Song Ever," they had alter egos of sorts. They were themselves in the video but they also dressed up as people from a major Hollywood company and did a bit of an acting skit. Liam dressed up as Leroy, the choreographer:

That's what Jack was talking about. Then he didn't stop there.

Thank you for being rational, Jack. At least someone has a head on their shoulders. Jack is also a Directioner, and he may be gay but I'm not totally sure so don't quote me on that. I do know that Jack supports the LGBT community so he's not being homophobic or anything.

Liam tweets this to explain and as I saw on Tumblr, some people were pissed off because he didn't officially apologize. What is he apologizing for? He said nothing about being homophobic! People need to stop assuming the worst in people. 

This kind of pissed me off a little. I love Tyler dearly, but who does he think he is? Liam didn't say anything about being homophobic, so I don't really understand what he means by "being accountable for your words" maybe you're the one who needs to realize that your "words have more weight than you realize" because you blew this whole thing out of proportion and look what happened. 

I thought it was over. Liam stayed on Twitter for a little while and replied to fans, Tyler stayed off the radar for a little while, and I went to bed figuring that everything was done and I would have an awesome blogpost to write on Tuesday.

With me thinking about writing about all this drama, maybe I should have realized that if I, an aspiring journalist wants to write about Twitter drama, then the real ones probably do too. I woke up to this.

(All tweets should be read from bottom up)

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Well this has turned into one big hot mess. That's the one thing I don't like about journalism. Journalists look for stories and they go where the drama is, but a lot of times the stories hurt the people they're about. Liam is going to get bad press about it, and I'm sure his little tirade on Twitter isn't helping. He probably shouldn't have gotten so angry publicly like that because that can be used against him. No twisting his words this time because the tweets are all there. 

Liam's sister tweeted the above tweet in a last ditch attempt to salvage what was left of her brother's reputation in this blow up but I think it's just a little too late. The damage has been done. 

However, a little later I saw this:

This upsets me and I totally believe it. Liam has been on tour practically the whole of three years. Whenever he's off tour he probably just wants to catch up on sleep and hang out with family and friends. He probably doesn't really watch tv. So he was watching Duck Dynasty, admired the way Willie raises his family despite all of the media and this growing business, and decided to tell Willie that he liked that and supported those family values. He had no idea that Phil, Willie's father, had just recently had gotten into controversy for anti-gay statements. "I can't do anything right, can I?" That remark broke my heart. This is a boy who has messed up time and time again through no fault of his own and he's just trying to live as normal of a life as possible without offending anyone. That's apparently not possible. 

I don't even know what to say. The amount of drama that exploded in a few hours over one probably poorly worded tweet is pretty sickening to me. Tyler is getting death threats, Liam's reputation is being soiled, people are taking sides and there's drama, and I just want to take refuge in a fandom where there is no drama and I can be peaceful until this all blows over. 

Post 20: Niall's Knee (1-17-14)

Recently, Niall had knee surgery to fix problems he had in his knee because of a soccer injury or something like that. He wrote these tweets on the matter. (Read from bottom up.)

Then photos surfaced after his surgery which was in the United States.

As long as he'll be okay for the upcoming tour, I'm fine. I guess he needs knee surgery considering he does a whole lot of this on stage.

Why does Niall need knee surgery? Hmm , I wonder why.

Post 19: Impersonators (1-16-14)

Last night Niall tweeted this (read from the bottom)

This isn't the first time that this has happened and I'm sure it won't be the last. People have pretended to be parents, siblings, and even girlfriends. Sometimes people go as far as to pose and say that people have died. Someone once posed as Sophia, Liam's girlfriend, and said that Liam's mom died. That's a little too far.

Why do people do this? Are people really that desperate for attention and followers that they will go as far as impersonating people and spreading horrible rumors? Yes, and that makes me kind of sick. People these days are so desperate for internet popularity that they will hurt their idols. This may not be their intent, but this does hurt their idols. I'm sure it doesn't make people feel very good to see people pretending to be someone they're not and getting rewarded for it.

I wish there was a way to stop this but I'm sure there's not. The only way I've seen that can stop it is when the celebrity finds out and tweets that these accounts aren't real. So for now, that's really the only way to determine who's real and who's fake. Maybe in a few years you will need fingerprint identification to sign up for Twitter. Now that would be the wave of the future.

Post 18: Dangerous Daddy Direction (1-15-14)

Last night Liam posted this tweet (read from bottom up).

What was he talking about? Well, during their shoot for their new video these photos of Liam surfaced.

The bottom pictures were not pictures that surfaced but they were photos I found on Tumblr posted by fans. This honestly shows how upset fans were by this. They realized how dangerous it was for Liam that he did this and they were just glad he was okay.

I thought Liam's apology was adorable. He's always been so mature and responsible and he's always been very protective of fans. He didn't want fans to try this, so he said he does "not endorse any fans trying to repeat this" in a very "Don't try this at home" fashion.

Liam has always been the "Daddy" of the group, hence the name "Daddy Direction" and though the other boys have corrupted him a little and helped to loosen him up, he's still very responsible and mature. His apology goes to show that he really cares about his fans and doesn't want them to worry or get hurt by trying this themselves.