Harry Styles

Name:	Harry Styles
Also Known As:	H, Sue, Harold
Occupation:	singer
Medium:	pop music
Works:	see One Direction Discography, Fine Line, Harry's House
Official Website(s):	twitter instagram vine
Fan Website(s):	https://famflix.wixsite.com/harryflix
On Fanlore:	Related pages

Harry Styles is an English singer, film actor, model, and the most well-known former member of the boyband One Direction. He was born in 1994. See Wikipedia for details.

Styles is known for his flamboyant style of dressing and charismatic stage presence which often causes him to go viral on social media. He has acted in four films: Dunkirk, Eternals, Don't Worry Darling, and My Policeman. All of these films have some presence on ao3, and Dunkirk RPF is also popular.

Before One Direction went on hiatus, Styles had the most Twitter followers of any 1D member. In 2017 media outlets reported that Niall Horan's follower count had surpassed Styles'. As of 2023, Styles has 38.4 million followers, and Horan has 41 million. This is most likely due to the fact that Styles rarely uses Twitter, and has openly referred to it as "a shitstorm of people trying to be awful to people." Styles is slightly more active on Instagram, and has 47.8 million followers on that platform as of 2023. He also owns an account called HSHQ which has 6.9 million followers.

Harry Styles fans self-identify in a wide variety of ways, but are generally split into three categories: Harries (fans who are primarily though not exclusively interested in Harry Styles), Larries (believers in the Larry Stylinson conspiracy theory), and OT5s (fans of One Direction, also known as Directioners). These groups are distinct but overlapping, and their close proximity to one another online means that there is a lot of infighting between the groups on social media.

History of Harry Styles' Fandom

X-Factor

Styles auditioned for X-Factor on March 27, 2010, and he was very popular right away. Since the beginning, Styles has been the most popular One Direction member in fanfiction, closely followed behind by Louis due to the popularity of Larry. Early Harry Styles fans can be found on the first LiveJournal community for the group that existed - one direction. In a series of posts created by confessionsxoxo, early Harry Styles fans can be found interacting with images of him wearing cute hats in ways that are remarkably similar to Harries and Larries (then self-identifying as Larry Stylinson shippers) a decade later:

Harry IS a puppy. He must be a were-puppy or something because that's the only explanation.

 likehumanflesh

There needs to be a new word to describe Harry because cute and adorable simply aren't cutting it anymore

 confessionsxoxo

Harry's popularity in fanworks corresponded with One Direction's growth and hiatus, but he has consistently remained the most popular for a decade. Source: Aethel

what is it about Harry that makes him look as pretty as a girl in some photos?

daisychick_22

Some of the earliest recorded Zayn/Harry, Liam/Harry, and Louis/Harry shipping can be found in the comments sections of these posts. Unfortunately, jokes about being attracted to him while he was underage were also common around this time (see this masterpost of Harry's hipbones where otfivedirections calls him "the underage notorious lolita", fuckyeahwandarection meme post opining "HARRY STYLES Y U NO LEGAL?", and livejournal user mistrusts joking about "wrestling with possible pedophiliac tendencies") An (alleged and refuted) leaked nude circulated, which was added to many masterposts about Styles' body that were usually (but not exclusively) created by Larries. Many of these posts exist on Tumblr as broken links under the cut due to both the illegality of the photo and the changing social mores of Harry's fandom (i.e. unwillingness to share content that is legally child pornography.) According to former larrie, thelarrative-blog:

There are LOTS of moments when Harry was aged 16-18 that the Larries sexualize and fantasize and graphically depict among themselves publicly.

thelarrative-blog

The first fic about Harry Styles, written by gibberish-fiction and titled "Nerves," was uploaded to Archive of Our Own on January 25, 2011. In 2023, some people (usually younger Larries or OT5s) have adopted the name "fetus Harry" for the era of his career in which he was underage. Around this time, Harry dated Caroline Flack, which produced a lot of backlash.

2012 - 2016: One Direction

See Timeline of One Direction Fandom.

See Larry is Real

This image is often used to illustrate "frat boy Harry" in Twitter and Tumblr posts.

By 2012, Larry is Real was in full swing. Aja Romano wrote an article for the Daily Dot that claimed Larrie tinhatting existed online "to an extent never before seen in Real Person Fandom." On Archive of Our Own, 902 Larry fics were written between January 1, 2010 and January 1, 2013. However, other Harry ships were also growing in popularity on AO3 during this time, particularly Niall/Harry (180), Zayn/Harry (144), Nick Grimshaw/Harry (123), and Liam/Harry (86). Harry was the most popular member to appear in fanfics, with 1582 fanfics tagged with his name. On Wattpad and Tumblr, Harry Styles self-inserts and ship fanfics were also quite popular, though this is much more difficult to quantify. These trends would stay fairly consistent over time. At the end of 2015, when One Direction went on hiatus, Harry would have 25,765 fics to his name on AO3 with 18,215 of them Larry fics, 2711 of them Narry, 1687 of them Zarry, and 976 of them Gryles. More information on the history of Larries can be found in the article on Larry is Real. Harry also was close friends with Nick Grimshaw and dated Taylor Swift in 2012, the details of which can be found in the Haylor and Gryles articles.

Around 2013, writers on Wattpad began writing Dark Harry fanfics depicting him as what Sophia Andrade, writing for Slate, described as "a possessive, hypersexual, emotionally unavailable, sometimes even abusive boyfriend." One of the most popular (and most controversial) of these fanfics was After, which spawned its own fandom, as seen at the link. The author attained a six-figure book deal from the film, and the fanfic has been adapted into three films. Despite some backlash, Dark Harry fics continue to be written to this day. A slightly less dark, hyper-masculine version of Harry that was also created in 2013 is called "Frat Boy Harry," epitomized by an image of Harry wearing a backwards baseball cap (some fans in the 2020s may also call any photograph of Harry wearing a baseball cap "frat boy Harry.") Frat boy Harry is characterized as rambunctious, silly, rude, and sometimes sexist or homophobic. Many fans have expressed confusion or anger over this characterization, as it has little in common with Harry Styles in real life:

why is he called frat boy harry he wore a snapback and went to a house party once, and he did the fucking dishes 😭

hugoeveIyns

saw ANOTHER tiktok that said some bullshit like “frat boy harry would call me a slur” … HE was called slurs back then, he publicly supported the first openly gay football player. he has ALWAYS been loving and supportive

songbirdsues

petition to change the term frat boy harry to sorority girl harry

ch8teau

Also around this time, fuckyeahzourry (which would later become Harry Styles Daily on Tumblr [now deleted], Twitter, and Instagram) as well as Larry update accounts like HL Daily on Twitter started to proliferate.

As One Direction reached its end, Harry began to embrace the LGBT community more and more. In 2015, he waved a pride flag on stage for the first time.

Solo Career

Shipping

This evocative photoset of Harry with his friend Ben Winston is frequently passed around on "Harry with men" accounts.

While One Direction was still together, shipping was a huge part of Styles fandom. Together with fellow ex-1D member Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles was one half of One Direction fandom's juggernaut ship, known as Larry Stylinson. Judging by the number of fanworks posted on the Archive of Our Own, Larry Stylinson is by far the most popular Styles ship, past or present.

However, many Harries have a more ambivalent approach to shipping due to the history of conspiracy theories surrounding his life. Theoretically, the juggernaut ship of Styles' fandom is Larry Stylinson. In practice, after 1D's breakup, the remaining fans who still create Larry Stylinson fanworks are the tinhat fans, called Larries, and they exist in their own fan ecosystem that is entirely fueled by conspiracy theories about the couple. Harries create block lists of Larries on tumblr and the two fandoms have separate update accounts for Styles' work on twitter, tumblr, and Instagram. Larries tend to spread the idea that Harries are straight and desire for Styles to be straight, but for the most part this is not true and he is viewed by many Harries to be a queer icon and safe space.

As stated previously, fans have also shipped Harry with the other members of 1D (Zarry with Zayn Malik, Narry with Niall Horan and Lirry with Liam Payne). Zarry shippers are also often conspiracy theorists though they exist in much smaller numbers than Larries. Styles is also shipped with other people associated with One Direction, such as videographer Ben Winston. He might also be shipped with friends like Ed Sheeran or his nonfamous friend Xander (Xarry), his manager Jeff Azoff (Hazoff), or his current guitarist, Mitch Rowland (Hitch). Prior to 2019 (when Nick Grimshaw got a serious boyfriend), he was often shipped in Radio 1 RPF fandom with presenter and friend Nick Grimshaw (See: Gryles). Some fans create accounts dedicated to collecting photographs and video of Harry expressing attraction to or being flirtatious with men. See the gayharrybot (for Larries) and the since-deleted harrybeinggay (for Harries). Though these ships and accounts are quite popular among many queer Harries, some queer fans have expressed ambivalence about the intersection of m/m shipping, biphobia, and misogyny in the fandom:

Popularity of different Harry pairings on AO3 July 2012-June 2014. The rarity of Harry/Original Female Character here is due to site demographics; 1D het fic is more likely to be found on Wattpad or onedirectionfanfiction.com

I don't mind too much flirty / sexual jokes about harr and [a friend who attended his concert] because I know he loves love and sex more than anything, but what I do mind is when these jokes are phrased as an insult to his female partner (esp since they are v ignorant of how both H and [Olivia Wilde] talk about monogamy). H just released an orgy video with 25 people in the same bed and O referred to negative double standards in society as part of a misogynistic monogamous system or something on this line... take a hint.

chrryprettstbby

All the popular Harry ships are m/m; however, there is a large volume of m/f fanfiction about him on the internet. Most of it exists on Wattpad as self-insert fics but a few stories on AO3 focus on his known relationships with Caroline Flack, Taylor Swift, Camille Rowe, Olivia Wilde, Kendall Jenner, and others. Harry Styles imagines are also very popular on Tumblr. Like most other fandoms for real people in the 2020s, the ethics of RPF are hotly debated in Styles' fandom. Harassment of Styles' known partners is common and very aggressive.

Tropes & Fanon

In general, fandom agrees that Harry is a ray of sunshine skipping through the daisies who doesn't have a mean bone in his body. For example, see this vid comparing his tweets to those of the other band members: two types of people (posted February 13, 2014). This view of Harry has been consistent over the course of thirteen years. On Twitter, Styles is frequently compared to kittens and a variety of other baby animals. In fanworks, he is often characterized as polite, friendly, outgoing, sweet, and flirtatious (or innocent and naive, or innocently flirtatious and naive). At one point, this sweet and innocent version of Harry was known as Cupcake Harry (bears a resemblance to actual Harry, but with fewer sexual innuendos and crotch grabs). He usually very tactile and, in fic where another character is pining over him, likely oblivious to the effect he has on them. This perception of Harry is epitomized in an April 2022 profile of Harry written by Lou Stoppard for Better Homes and Gardens Magazine:

Styles is teddy bears on your teenage bed, perfect handwriting on thank you cards, picked flowers on Sunday morning, puppies running on fresh-cut grass, Grandma's favorite homemade cake.

Exclusive: Harry Styles Reveals the Meaning Behind His New Album, 'Harry's House'

A lot of fanfic also makes him sex-positive, which was originally based on a combination of tabloid gossip and on Styles' fandom bicycle status. In recent years, Styles has seemed to embrace this image. Styles released a music video in 2019 for the song "Lights Up" which portrays him, according to Paper Magazine as:

a sweat-slick shirtless Harry being caressed by crowd of all genders. Both men and women grab at him, grind on him and and kiss his neck. It looks like a modern update to orgy scene in the Hair... as we know, Harry is addicted to the '70s.

Harry Styles Is Drenched, Tripping and Maybe Coming Out in His New Video

He followed it up with the Watermelon Sugar music video in 2020 and the Late Night Talking music video in 2022, both of which feature cheeky portrayals of Styles engaging in group sexual encounters with a variety of genders (as well as those people engaging in group sexual encounters with each other.) See this fanfic example of both tropes, where Harry has accidentally scheduled two hookups for the same night:

Harry must see Niall's exasperation, because very carefully and as if any of it makes sense, he explains, "I had the first girl set up since yesterday and then when the other one turned up backstage today she was really fit and I just forgot about the first one. They're going to show up in five minutes, Niall, both of them, I just need you to take one off my hands."

Niall looks at Harry's earnest face and puts his head in the crook of Harry's neck. Harry smells kind of sweaty, but he's really comfortable. "You need sleep, Harry. Just send one of them home. No, send 'em both home, you need a night off."

"I can't do that! It would hurt their feelings!"

Maybe With Me by threeturn

There are, of course, some examples of this characterization being seen as undesirable, as Tumblr user theboycanthelpit addresses in a post written on December 28, 2014:

Harry is very good at letting himself be whatever people want him to be. I’ve always found him hard to write because he’s so layered, and I feel like we rarely get a good look at who he is under layers and layers of being whatever people want him to be.… …I am fascinated by the Harry who nearly killed himself on 1D day, and dances when he gets off planes, and eats food off the floor, and steals people’s children and renames them Eric, and screws up, and dances with Niall, and punches unsuspecting Liams, and says he likes girls who don’t wear makeup, and throws pouty little fits. The one who, back on the TMH tour, whispered an answer to the question “What don’t you like to eat?” to Zayn, and it was “pussy.” The one who, on the X-Factor finale, told whatshisname ON MIC, “think of all the pussy you’re gonna get.” That dude is FASCINATING and kind of dirty and not at all perfect, and I love him. But I forget that sometimes, because what gets retumbled usually is (some of tumblr) fandom’s sanitized, perfect, saintly, pronoun-game-playing, teflon Harry.

Anonymous asked: what is fandom construct harry how does he differ from real harry I'm new to the 1d fandom? Thanks!

Harry has a fanon twin, sometimes named Edward. See the Edward Styles AO3 tag, plus the styles twins and edward styles Tumblr tags. Occasionally they are triplets, with Marcel as the third brother. Styles has a fanon daughter named Darcy.  Following the release of the Best Song Ever music video in 2013, there was a flurry of fanworks featuring Harry's awkward character Marcel the Marketing Guy and depicting Harry as Marcel. Depictions of Styles as a nerd in fanfiction predates Marcel because this trope involves a lot of fannish projection and speculation over Harry's actual personality.

In-depth discussion of Styles’ characterization in fanfiction has massively decreased across platforms in the late 2010s and early 2020s as RPF has become more stigmatized. The relocation of the majority of his fandom to Twitter and TikTok has also contributed to this decrease. In the 2020s, the main conversations about Styles’ characterizations in fanworks involve his sexuality and sexualization.

Depictions of Styles’ sexuality in fanworks are all over the map, with conspiracy theorists on all platforms in the 2020s tending to write fanfiction where he is exclusively gay, and non-conspiracy theorists on AO3 tending to depict his sexuality as more fluid. The latter is much closer to how Styles exists in the real world (he does not label his sexuality and sings songs about liking men and women), but the former is much more popular in fanfiction due to the tendency of tinhats to be prolific writers and readers of RPF. In self-insert and Mary Sue fanfiction on Wattpad and Tumblr, Styles’ same-gender attraction is largely seen as irrelevant, though the belief that Styles is heterosexual has decreased significantly over time among Harries, and is almost non-existent in the fandom in 2023.

The sheer number of explicit fanworks about Styles, as well as the way he is depicted in them, has sparked intense in-fandom debates about fetishization and hypersexualization of queer men. Larries are often accused by Harries of being fetishists of gay men, and Harries are often accused by Larries of only caring about Styles’ looks and sex appeal (for this reason, Larries frequently refer to them as “het Harries” or “Wattpad Harries.”) Larries also frequently say that Styles has a “womanizer image” in the media, which some fans have claimed may be a combination of projection and slut-shaming:

It's kind of wild that long ago 1D fandom settled on the media painting Harry as having a "womanizer image" because it neatly allows fans to disengage from the slut shaming, invasiveness, and hypersexualization of his queerness they've engaged in for over 10 years. Fans have no issue portraying Harry as hypersexual w men and have no issue shaming him for women (and sometimes men) they think he's slept with or making obscene comments. He is the most prominent example of the way bi men are sexualized. But "womanizer" distances fans from that.

 no1cheesestan

Styles openly finds the concept of himself as a sex symbol to be a little weird, and he says he used to feel shame about people knowing he had sexual feelings and experiences, but his photoshoots in lingerie, sensual music videos, and R-rated sex scenes in film seems to suggest he has embraced the image to an extent. In May 2022, Styles covered Wet Leg’s song “Wet Dream” on BBC Radio 1, which some fans interpreted as commentary on his own sexualization.

So-called Dark Harry, extreme versions of which can be seen in After and Duplicity, is a popular het self-insert fic trope which turns Harry into an abusive jerk, hard drug user, and/or a criminal. The extreme opposite of Dark Harry is the hyper-submissive transfeminine Harry found in fics written by believers in the Harry is a Girl conspiracy theory.

Harry is also fannishly considered one of the Immortal Celebrities.

Art Tropes

• Flower Crown Harry - Tumblr/Twitter meme started in March 2013 that generated so many photoshopped images of the band wearing flower crowns that some fans were inspired to throw real flower crowns onstage at concerts, resulting in canon flower!crown!Harry photos that are difficult to distinguish from some of the more sophisticated fan edits. See the AO3 tag Flower Child Harry for more fanworks.
• Angel Harry/Harry with wings - Minor art and fic trope that's been around since 2013. This is another trope where concert photos (from March 2015) of Harry actually wearing something thrown onstage by a fan surfaced after photoshopped versions were made by fans.

Fanwork Examples

Fanart and Graphics

• 

  popular 1D reaction gif of Harry Styles shouting "Please!" at a public event circa 2011

• 

  This 2011 charcoal pencil drawing by joannatu is one of the most favorited Harry portraits on DeviantArt. As one user put it, "The way you brought texture to the skin is amazing and I love the little spots of light on the nose and cheeks and aaah outstanding work!"

• 

  Disney-cartoon style digital fanart by mainlyapes, depicting a shirtless Harry with canonical tattoos and non-canon Flower Crown; this piece spawned the Flower Crown Harry meme on Tumblr. See also this piece by the same artist, in which Harry looks like a cross between Ariel and Bambi. (2013)

• 

  early fl of a concert photo from 2013; early flower crown meme example

• 

  Screencap of a Harry gifset consisting of 9 gifs; see the original post by blamestyles to admire the perfect synchronization of each gif that creates the illusion of a (very) short black-and-white film. (2014)

• 

  Fan art by Crurulbys advertising the Harryween Rainbow Project in which Harries lit up Madison Square in which Harries lit up Madison Square Garden in rainbow colors during the song "Lights Up" on October 31, 2021. Crurulbys is very prolific, and made popular pin-up calendars of her work for several years. (2021)

• 

  Fashion appreciation (and debate) is a huge part of Styles' fandom. H.S. Doodles on Instagram regularly draws Styles' tour outfits and streetwear both on him and on the rack as seen in this picture. (2022)

Fanfiction

• After by Anna Todd
• Sugar on the Asphalt by justanchorandhope. Harry/Original Female Character
• May You Enjoy Your New Life by aimmyarrowshigh. Harry/Louis. (2012-2013)

Fanvids

• Secrets by freddieismyqueen (Aug 22, 2014)
• Carolina by Gibelle Kit (Jul 7, 2017)

Podcasts

• Talk Direction: The 1D and Harry Styles Podcast (2015-2021)
• We Blame Harry Styles (2020 - Present)
• Treat Harry With Kindness (2021)
• A Harry Situation (2022 - Present)
• Ever Since 2012 (2022-Present)

Meta/Further Reading

• A Starter Kit for Understanding the Appeal of Harry Styles by Sadie Bell for Thrillist (May 20, 2022)
• Harry Styles Threw Up Here: The growth and power of fandom on the internet—and in the real world., ^{Archived version} by Laura Miller for Slate (June 12, 2022)
• Harry Styles Fans Put on a Show by Helen Rosner for the New Yorker (September 14, 2022)
• Killing Our Darlings: a fandom expert on why we urgently need to get to grips with the hate engine by Sacha Judd for Letterboxd (September 28, 2022)
• At Harry Styles concerts, young gender-nonconforming fans celebrate the freedom to be themselves by Jessica Gelt for the LA Times (October 29, 2022)
• The American Far-Right Hates Harry Styles. Why is Everyone Laughing? by Grayson Cabarle for Medium (December 29, 2022)

Fannish Resources

• Harry Styles fanworks at AO3
• Harry Styles with flags by stylesnews
• A Huggable Masterpost by str8stylin
• Harry styles womanizer timeline, ^{Archived version} by whenyouknowyouknow (larrie masterposts)