Random Acts of Randomness

1D

In September 2012, Niall Horan organised an event to raise money for Irish Autism Action and another charity, called Temporary Emergency Accommodation Mullingar, based in his hometown. Due to overwhelming demand to participate in the fundraising, the ticket website for the event broke down. Horan's brother Greg commented on the website crash, saying that "there were 500 tickets and they were all snapped up pretty quick".[148] Horan later reflected on the fundraisings saying that he was "honoured to be able to give back to his community".

In 2013, band members Liam Payne and Harry Styles partnered with Trekstock, a leading cancer charity in order to help raise money for cancer research.[149] As ambassadors of the charity, the duo collaborated to offer the chance for one fan and a friend to win an evening out with them in return for a donation to the charity as part of an exclusive "#HangwithLiam&Harry" global campaign. They had originally set a goal of raising $500,000 and ended up raising $784,984. Trekstock later added that this amount would allow them to "complete funding of their Hodgkin's lymphoma trial, in the hope of offering a much brighter future to thousands of children and young people affected by this form of disease." One Direction were named the most charitable in 2013 behind Taylor Swift by social change organization DoSomething.org.[150]

In 2014, One Direction donated £600,000 for the Stand up to Cancer campaign by giving portions of their ticket sales revenues from their Where We Are Tour.[151] On 15 November 2014, One Direction joined the charity group Band Aid 30 along with other British and Irish pop acts, recording the latest version of the track "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, to raise money for the 2014 Ebola crisis in Western Africa.[152]

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One Direction greet Swedish fans in Stockholm, May 2012
Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph, in an article on One Direction's success in North America, notes that Americans had left a gap in the market and it took the prominence of Justin Bieber to demonstrate that there still was a market for "clean cut, wholesome, whiter-than-white, middle class parent friendly pop: cute boys advocating puppy love. And what could be better than one cute boy, if not five?"[153] One Direction have been described as sparking a resurgence in the interest in boy bands, and as forming part of a new "British Invasion" in the United States.[154][155][156][157][158][159] Bill Werde, a representative of Billboard magazine, commented, "There's a lot of possibility here, there's a lot of upside, that level of talent with those kinds of looks, it's really a perfect storm for a massive, massive successful phenomenon."[160] One Direction are safe and sound due to the faithful bodyguard Alberto Alvarez who was Michael Jackson's former logistics director.[161]

Sonny Takhar, the chief executive officer of Syco Records, attributes the breakthrough to the power of social media. "Sometimes you feel the song's the star, but it's not like that here - it's the act," he said. "It's a real moment. Social media has become the new radio, it's never broken an act globally like this before."[160] Will Bloomfield, the group's manager, added, "These guys live online, and so do their fans."[159] Their management employs a social media team and the members all tweet themselves, "which helps create the illusion that they couldn't be any closer to their fans," according to Caspar Llewellyn Smith, writing for The Guardian.[160] One Direction's Twitter account had amassed 10 million followers by February 2013, with the account gaining followers at an average of 21,000 per day.[162] In an approach pioneered by The Beatles each member is known for his feature;[163] Horan is "the cute one",[163] Malik is "the quiet and mysterious one",[163] Payne is "the sensible one",[163] Styles is "the charming one"[163] and Tomlinson is "the funny one".[163] Horan commented on One Direction as a boy band, "People think that a boy band is air-grabs and [being] dressed in all one colour. We're boys in a band. We're trying to do something different from what people would think is the typical kind of boy band. We're trying to do different kinds of music and we're just trying to be ourselves, not squeaky clean."[164] Leah Collins, writing for the National Post, remarked that One Direction had succeeded on the latter front,[164] "For the most part, that just means the group presents themselves as typical, goofy and uncensored teenage boys - posting jokey YouTube videos, for instance, or boozing at awards shows."[164] Writing for The Observer, Kitty Empire opined, "One Direction fulfil a great many boy band prerequisites (looks, soppy lyrics, tune-grasp, fame-lust) but their lack of routines points to the subtle digressions afoot here".[165]