#also WMYB is exclusively Harry’s

[crinkle-eyed-boo]

The thing is that Louis is ALWAYS going to choose from Midnight Memories forward for his 1D covers because that’s when he really took ownership of his songwriting and steering the band’s sound.

Give me a Louis and Steve Durham arranged version of something like Strong or Fireproof over something from the first two albums ANYDAY.

[twopoppies]

This is gonna be a long one so strap in 😂 tbh ive been a tad apprehensive today about going purely cause of what ive seen in Twitter (and we all know its bullshit but it sent my anxiety reeling). this probably isnt exclusive to harry but the people around me standing werent super friendly (i say this off the back of mcr in which you buddied up with the people around you in an instant for mosh pit safety) but we move - this soon changed and i found friends (going solo can be tricky) but there were still some bad vibes. i got to the venue literally as doors opened so ended up at the back (which for Brixton is still very good)

The pre show playlist is VERY one direction heavy. H is lierally the biggest fan.

cannot even begin to describe how good he was, the crowd were insane and there was a moment during little freak where he genuinely looked surprised at how many people knew the words. Matilda made me sob but whats new there, especially when he prefaced it by saying we had to make sure we loved ourselves.

mitch literally hid in the darkness when harry talked about writing sings with him - this poor man just wanta to play guitar in peace bless him

anne was there and he apologised for some of the lyrics he was singing including cocaine, sideboob choke her with a sea view

before boyfriend's he read out a sign from a girl whose boyfriend had slept with her best friend. safe to say some strong words were said - this is a family show.....or is it 😂

love of my life was beautiful - i have no words

had lil break which was nice and they whacked the ac up which cooled us all off.

adore you and watermelon sugar wete epic as always - he said something about it being to do with oral sex (i may have misheard) - there was also some very vulgar signs toward the front that people held up during 😡

his rendition of wmyb is interesting? im not sure how i feel but i had a great time anywho. Ended on kiwi and my god his lil dancey dances ate adorable, he made sure to baptise the first few rows at least (if not more) with water.

it was amazing, i cant wait till june and it felt so intimate to be in such a small venue - it didnt feel like he was hartd styles the household name, it felt mire like we'd all popped in for a lil sing song 🥺

Apologies for the trash photos 😭

Ahhhhh! It sounds like a great show!! Sorry about the bitchy people at the beginning though. And yeah, I heard he said something about oral sex. 🙄 I cannot believe people brought vulgar signs to such a small venue. With his mother there, on top of it. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Anyway, sounds like you had so much fun. Thank you for the update!!

[yessoupy]

i think i have to unstan harry styles.

best weekend of my life (so far)

it's been a week [a fucking year] and I still haven't posted my review. at this point y'all know the show was awesome. hannah is posting her pics after a week straight of actually working (let's take up a collection to hire hannah to go to harry shows and produce exclusive content for us, what do you say?). after a week [a YEAR] away from the harrie commune all I can say is.... I don't know if I can continue on this way without it. i might have to stop altogether. [somehow, i’ve made due.]

after the last show of the 2018 tour I had such a fierce feeling that I'd missed out on something I would have really loved. there was nothing to do for it, since it was my sister's wedding day, so I moved on pretty quickly. but I also made the decision that for harry's next tour, I was going to go all out.

my dudes, what a way to ring in the new era. [and present me needs to interject here that i think i knew that something was going to go horribly wrong in 2020. even with tickets in hand to such faraway shows as phoenix, denver, and raleigh, i could NOT book flights or hotels as late as february. i knew about coronavirus in late december because i was traveling abroad and acutely aware of travel warnings about wuhan province. and in early february we had our mardi gras party and franny showed up kind of sick and i hugged her but cautiously, mentally cataloguing her symptoms. so when it finally happened i think i was just ... resigned. and that’s why i wasn’t as upset as i would have been if nothing had changed from the time i started writing this review.]

this kind of show always seemed like something that happened to other people. getting the actual tickets was rather stressful (though not as stressful an experience as others had...) but once everything shook itself out i couldn’t even think about the weekend or else I’d implode. thank god for @chasm2018‘s organizational abilities. 

we missed a measles exposure at LAX by 2 days (bless). my first harrie commune™ experience of the weekend was riding the connections shuttle to pick up @papiermachecat at terminal 6 like she was a conquering hero (she is). we rode the connections shuttle to pick up @stylesinthewild and found a little table at starbucks in the baggage claim to wait for the bay area harries to arrive in their rented minivan full of goodies.

we piled in and hannah got us to our two hotel rooms, one with three queen beds, and somehow we got to the forum twice, once to buy pre-show merch and then the final time for the fine line show. we all dressed up and then took just ONE picture. one.

you know how the show went. i’m trying to cover ground that the squad hasn’t already posted [a YEAR AGO]

here is the note I DM'd to harry the next morning, which i think sums everything up nicely:

thank you for the show last night at the forum. I flew in from Houston and met up with friends from all over, only one of whom I'd gotten to hug in real life prior to yesterday. today we're sharing beds and toothpaste and fond memories. thank you for being you and bringing us all together. 💜

i don’t remember WHEN i sent it, maybe 3am, but later that day i took an uber to a vegan tattoo artist’s backyard studio to get a planned tattoo that @papiermachecat had sketched for me and my impulse tattoo of a fine line around my left wrist. while i was doing that, the squad finished up eating breakfast with other harries and then went to stand in the pop-up shop line.

you’ve heard the line stories. i fucking LOVE standing in a line for something because of the people you meet. in front of us we had a personal DJ who’d play what people wanted to hear and airdropped a picture of harry’s dick from WMYB. we’d break off in pairs to go to CVS or visit other people we knew in line. and this hasn’t been written about before, but one of those times hannah and i were walking around the block we saw some men standing by some cars near the entrance and we kind of stopped.... and i think at the same time realized who we were looking at ... and after looking around and realizing that no one else in the fucking line recognized jeff azoff hannah went in for the kill. we thanked him for taking such good care of harry, answered questions he had for us, thanked him again, i had the presence of mind at the end to tell him our names, and we took the pop-up shop merch menus that hadn’t been passed out to anyone yet, and then walked back to our spot in line silently, processing that moment. sometimes i’ll think about that conversation and get all warm and fuzzy thinking about that show and how well it went and how much LOVE there was for everything and harry and between all of us and it sustains me through a shitty, shitty pandemic day at work.

eventually we got through the line and got our merch and looked at all the things they had set up and after moving our reservation back we got to cafe habana to sit at a very familiar table and i took off my bandages to show my tattoos to everyone (to this day i regret not having the presence of mind to show jeff my brand new fine line tattoo, he would have loved it) and we ate and laughed and had the server take our picture and that’s probably what i miss most about the weekend, being in that place imbued with such silly meaning to us and all FEELING that gravity of where we were and being able to recognize it in each others’ eyes and smiles. perfect weather, amazing food, the best company.

the early morning saw our three queen room breaking up, and @papiermachecat left a single zyrtec in the middle of the room on the floor, bringing me to tears laughing even without her physical presence. @chasm2018 and i went to randy’s donuts (where we met up with @treatpeoplewithnice again) and GOD i want to eat donuts that good again. 

it was sad to leave LA that afternoon, wearing my new tpwk oversized hoodie. it wasn’t the last time i was around a big crowd of people, wasn’t even the last concert i attended before all of this happened (that was in vienna on december 30), but it was the last time i was going to be full of unbridled joy. that weekend was the real ode to joy.

we’ll get back to it, it’s just going to take some time.

@stylesinthewild, @papiermachecat, @greeneyesharry & emily, @treatpeoplewithnice, @aggresivelyfriendly, and @chasm2018: fine line forum squad forever in my heart. that weekend will always be so special to me for so many reasons and it wouldn’t have been the same without each and every one of you.

@accidentalharrie and @styloff - ONE of these times we’ll be in the same place for long enough to do more than hug and grin at each other.

@ferryboatpeak and @ticklefighthockey - it was great to meet you! and la who would have thought then our next meeting would be in the backyard of an airbnb sitting six feet apart because we don’t want to spread a disease?

to harry, who isn’t reading this but i need all of you who ARE to know my heart ... thank you for bringing these people into my life. this experience of being your fan has changed me in such profound ways that there’s really no way to express it. it’s less about you and more about those who love you like i do, and i love them. and you.

to jeff, thank you for taking such good care of harry and having his best interests at heart. 

to anne, thank you for raising such a good person and giving him to the world.

to camille, thank you for fine line. without you, that weekend doesn’t happen the way it did and i love that weekend. 

[ssfoc]

1/2 I’m torn between Harry being in control of his career vs the question about previous obligations, especially related to this new CBS show. I feel like he has complete agency over Harry Styles™️. And his EP is in service to a bigger package that the public is not privy to, yet. But then I wonder about all this CBS connection. By what year do you think Ben and James knew the LLS was a possibility? I ask because I’m curious how far potential seeding could have put into play.

2/2 I saw a 2013 Access Hollywood clip with OT5, infamous for Liam‘s answer to favorite thing a woman could wear (“Daisy Dukes“). Harry grimaced & then answered the same question with “her smile.” That goes in line with many comments that year where Harry was the voice of being non- objectifying of women. They were asked about fave tv shows. Harry spoke of Gogglebox. But H then also quietly mentioned CBS’s 2 & ½ Men. Which we revisited this year in a photo from his tour. Coincidences?________________________________

Hi anon,

You raise some very interesting points!

Facts first. Fulwell 73 was founded in 2005 by Ben Winston, Leo Pearlman, Ben Turner and Gabe Turner (http://www.fulwell73.com). James Corden was made an equal partner in January 2017. In March 2015, James took over as host of the Late, Late Show from Craig Ferguson (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4280606/plotsummary?ref_=m_tt_ov_pl).

One Direction features prominently in the success of Fulwell 73. You can get a sense of that by looking at the main page— not only is the group mentioned in 2/5 paragraphs of its home page, but Harry’s LLS stint continues to be one of few acts prominently featured as company “news,” months later.

The music video for “Best Song Ever” (2013) was the first 1D video directed by Ben. “Comedian James Corden wrote the concept for the music video. Ben Winston directed it over a period of two days in Miami Beach, Florida. “Best Song Ever” is edited also to include footage from the film “One Direction: This Is Us.“” (https://www.thoughtco.com/one-direction-music-videos-4079662).

Ben Winston directed the music videos for “Story of My Life” (2013), Midnight Memories (2014), “You and I” (2014), “Night Changes” (2014), and “History” (2015).

Ben and Gabe Turner directed mv for “Steal My Girl” (2014) and “Drag Me Down” (2015).

For completeness, John Urbana directed “WMYB” (2011) and “Gotta Be You” (2011). Declan Whitebloom directed “One Thing” (2012). Vaughn Arnell directed “Live While We’re Young” (2012), “Little Things” (2012), and “Kiss You” (2013). Sophie Muller directed “Perfect” (2015). Woodkid directed the “Sign of the Times,” produced by Fulwell (2017). Us directed “Kiwi” (2017).

It’s probable that James Corden’s name came up for consideration in 2014, when Craig Ferguson’s replacement for the LLS was considered. And it’s likely that Fulwell’s role as producer of the show gave James the bargaining leverage to share ownership of the company. The timeline shows that Ben and James have been working with One Direction since 2013 (BSE mv), when Harry began to be publicly associated with Irving Azoff.

Clearly, Ben Winston/ James/ Fulwell have interpreted the success of One Direction as primarily Harry’s success. Harry is the only band member to have had the kind of star treatment he has received: a one-week residence, hosting gig, solo carpool karaoke, special London show with rooftop performance.

I don’t know the contractual structure between CBS and Fulwell, but “Happy Together” shows the company relying on its past successes to venture further into the network. With the recent announcement of Harry as EP of “Happy Together,” it’s possible that he has had formal agreement/ contract to share in the revenue of past work, and has as-yet-unannounced Fulwell 73 partnership projects, possibly with CBS. You’ll recall that CBS had the exclusive Sunday morning interview with Harry.

On air, James has made derisive jokes about Kendall Jenner (Azoff family friend), referring to Harry’s supposed past relationship with her, and Harry has played along. These actions push Harry’s image as womanizer and serial model-dating rock star, and counters his opposing image of gender fluidity and support for equality.

I’m not sure that the show will move the needle for Harry’s public image very much. Being Executive Producer on the show lends Harry’s tacit agreement to the show’s premise. Being paid for it also brings into sharp relief the difference between words and action. As always, action speaks louder, and audiences react to it. One can sell as many “Treat People With Kindness” t-shirts as one wants (again— a commodification of a good moral principle). It still doesn’t negate the damage done with dated, misogynistic humor.

Ben’s body of work isn’t promising for coherence, originality, or creativity, but he isn’t writing or directing the show, so we should reserve judgment, despite the show’s tepid trailer. We can give Harry the benefit of the doubt, too— but money does change things.