what was the no control project?
the No Control Project was a One Direction DIY single completely led by fans. It was created in the spring of 2015 when Zayn had freshly left the band, the boys were on a break for OTRA, and the twitter feud that erupted between Zayn/Louis/Naughty Boy had came about. it was a very frustrating and dark time, and besides wanting everyone to come together as a unit in the fanbase, we all wanted to celebrate louis, celebrate his voice, and have a song that everyone loved and thought got paid dirt to have the spotlight it deserved.
So in early May, a thunderclap was made for the campaign titled PROJECT NO CONTROL where everyone could request/buy/promote the track to radio stations, to friends, to family, to social media, to anyone and everyone they could. Fan art was made, advertisements were created, stories were written, videos were pieces together— and most importantly, it became a fucking movement where almost everyone in the fanbase came together to get this single on the radio and out in the mainstream.
i went and looked it up, but the six days that the campaign was pushed, the thunderclap had over 34,000 supporters and a social reach of over 55 million people. Media outlets began covering it, BBC 1/The Breakfast Show talked about it, and James Corden used it as a big talking point when One Direction were one of the first guests on the Late Late show when he came over to America. And then when OTRA came back in full force in June, No Control was added to the set list on June 13th, 2015 in Brussels. The entire venue lost their minds, live-streams were broken, this video of the performance continues to be god-tier, louis never looked as happy and confident as he did when that song was added to the set list (he quite literally came alive), harry began his slut phase during each performance of the song for the rest of tour, and it was one of the last times the whole fandom has ever come together and known peace. truly, honest to god, one of the wildest and absolutely gobsmacking fan-led movements i’ve ever seen in pop culture. it was so much fun.
