oops yeah i meant weed not week!
Okay, well on May 27th, 2014, the Daily Mail posted an exclusive video of Zayn and Louis in the back of a car smoking a joint. The video had been filmed when they were in Peru on April 27th, and most of the video is just Louis and Zayn being dumb and silly because they were high. There were two aspects of the video in particular (beyond the fact that they were smoking weed, obviously) that were controversial within the fandom. Firstly, it sounds like Louis used an abbreviated form of a the n-word. Secondly, Zayn mocks the One Direction merch a bit and talks about the type of merch that fans actually want rather than the typical “bullshit.” In the video, Louis also says that fans are tired of the “same old shit” (meaning merch) that they’ve seen before.
I think Louis’ phone is visible at one point during the video, so a lot of us were wondering what he was filming on. I think the consensus was that he was using google glass, but obviously we do not know for sure.
How did that video leak? I’m sure we’ll never know, but I (and a lot of others) think that Louis leaked it intentionally as part of the back-and-forth that was clearly happening between One Direction (particularly Harry and Louis) and their management last year. I think he could have leaked the video firstly because it showed them smoking weed, which does not appeal to their younger fanbase and the parents of their younger fans, and secondly because of the mocking of their merch. Also, supposedly there is 10 more minutes of the video that have not yet (and may never) see the light of day.
In regards to Louis’ use of a racial slur - there is no excuse for the ignorance he showed in saying that, but I do not believe he is racist. People make stupid decisions sometimes, but fortunately, there is no indication that Louis didn’t learn from his mistake. I think Louis leaked that video to the DM himself and received an unintended backlash, which was likely a huge wake-up call for him. I firmly believe that Louis is an amazing person, but a lot of people turned on him for making a stupid decision and saying an ignorant thing. Unfortunately, many of those people have been absolutely disgusting in the year and a half since the video leaked, including F*Z and others who refer to Louis as a racist rat, etc. In my opinion, that is an unacceptable response to ignorance. People do not learn when you turn against them and treat them like trash, people learn when they are educated. I do think Louis has learned, but it was IN SPITE of the nastiness people turned his way, rather than because of it.
So yeah, hopefully this answers any questions you have about the weed video. If not, feel free to ask me and I’ll try to answer if I can.
