#action 1d

July 15th, 2020: We are only 8 days away to the 10th year anniversary of One Direction.

We are counting down the days recalling key charitable work they did over the years as a band.

Today we want to remember about Action 1D. This wasn’t exactly a charitable project, but was part of Action 2015 which was a humanitarian project to bring attention to pressing world’s problems such as poverty, inequality and climate change, ahead of two world’s summits that year.

Flashback:One Direction Launch Action 1D Campaign

July 8, 2015 One Direction launched Action 1D which has its focus on these areas: to end extreme poverty, address inequality and slow down climate change with the help of the bands millions of fans. It is part of the wider action/2015 campaign, a global citizen’s movement that is all about the idea that 2015 can be the year when the world can set the agenda to end major global issues. One…

We’re giving away five Action/Directioners bracelets, and you could win one for yourself. Not feeling lucky? Buy your own bracelets here. The campaign hopes to raise funds for Small Steps, Comic Relief, Stand Up To Cancer, Believe in Magic, Eden Dora Trust, Make a Wish Foundation, Red Cross, UK Charity Water, Save the Children, and Futures Without Violence. The charity campaign has a goal…

Rewind a couple of months with me, if you will.

On July 8 One Direction announced they would be hosting a new project called action/1D. It was a global initiative to get fans in all areas of the world with different backgrounds and demographics interested and becoming an active part of the new global goals that would culminate in a video for the UN Summit being held in September.

Action/1D had a lot of excitement going and there was a lot of potential regarding what it could do for their image and getting the band and brand name out to a larger group of people outside their normal demographic. When Louis’ video was dropped on July 14, there was a lot of hope surround this.

That very same day babygate broke.

That pattern never really left me, because a lot of work had gone into planning out action/1D and yet so much if it got overshadowed by scandal for almost all of the members, but most especially Louis. The timing seemed interesting.

Back on September 4, Billboard brought attention to the fact that One Direction, along with many other high caliber musical acts, would be a part of Global Goals. This was exciting, but we didn’t hear much about it after that and as busy as this fandom has been, I’m guessing many others (including me) forgot about it until today.

Today, September 26, a video was released of Stephen Hawking calling out specifically to Louis to share awareness with his friends and fans about the Global Goals initiative, which interestingly enough is focusing on the exact same three main goals action/1D focused on.

The reactions garnered by this video becoming available in our group chat, namely by silentlarryshipper and unintentionalarry, got me thinking.

Babygate seemed almost intrinsically linked to action/1D, so a similar announcement about Louis specifically being called out to help in this initiative bears resemblance and makes me think there could be another, different announcement coming.

I do think the differences need to be examined, though. Ashlee pointed out that a very specific subset pay attention to Stephen Hawking, and this is true, however he is also a man who’s name holds a large amount of respect. The fact that he is the one calling on Louis’ assistance is huge and far different from how action/1D was made to sound like the boys volunteered themselves and their fans to help. This is someone with a large amount of sway in different communities around the world asking for his help in spreading the word.

This is also on a slower roll out. Action /1D was announced and less than a week later the first video came out. Global Goals was announced in the beginning of September and only now did this video drop. If my inclinations are correct and this could signal the end of babygate, then a lot of the speculation which has been running rampant could absolutely be right.