Larry Stylinson and the Fourth Wall

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Synonyms:
See also:	The Fourth Wall, Tinhats and the Fourth Wall, Larry Stylinson, Larry Is Real, One Direction Fandom Wars
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The fourth wall, or lack thereof, in One Direction fandom has had a significant impact on the development of the slash ship Larry Stylinson and the fan theory that Larry Is Real. Larry Stylinson is the ship name for Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, the most popular ship in the RPF fandom and the subject of a popular conspiracy theory that the two are dating or married in real life.

1D fandom in general was famous (among other fandoms) for its non-existent fourth wall; on social media, fans interacted directly with not only the bandmembers themselves, but also anyone who was friends with or related to or worked with the band. Some interactions were merely embarrassing to other fans, but other fan behavior was outright rude, hostile or harassing. Everything about the fandom, including RPF and shipping, was highly visible on Twitter, and the band knew far more about fandom than many fans accustomed to traditional RPF fandom etiquette of maintaining a wall between fandom and celebrity subjects were comfortable with. It was impossible to keep One Direction RPF out of mainstream awareness, leading to the band being interviewed about it, journalists reporting on it, and even television shows like Euphoria filming Larry Stylinson fanfic.

Many fans who shipped Larry Stylinson also believed that their ship was real. These fans, often called Larries, brought public attention to their theories, frequently asking or even harassing bandmembers and their associates about it. Journalists reported extensively on fannish conspiracy theories about the band, creating a positive feedback loop reinforcing the beliefs of Larries. Public awareness of tinhats, shippers who believe that their ship are together in real life, has been a source of irritation in many fandoms, but Larry Stylinson shipping and tinhatting achieved an unprecedented level of visibility. Unfortunately, the public at large did not care about the distinction between the shipping aspect and the conspiracy aspect, an additional source of pain for Larry shippers who did not want to be associated with the beliefs and actions of Larries.

There have been debates over who is ultimately responsible for the fourth wall breach, and Larries believe that their visibility is part of why the rest of the fandom is so hostile toward them.

Band Response

The band members have been aware of Larry shipping since early on. In November 2010, while they were still on The X Factor, Harry Styles tweeted:

On the phone to my sister @GemmaAnneStyles :) she's telling me about 'Larry Stylinson' hahah!!

@harry_styles, 22 Nov 2010

And, in April 2012, he said, "The fans call me and Louis 'Larry Stylinson' cause we get on really well."

Some believe that the band members and/or their teams monitor fan Twitter trends, as well as what is what is often regarded as fandom-only space on Tumblr.

Because the Fourth Wall is easily broken by both sides in the age of social media, band members were aware of the Larry is Real theory by 2012. What's less clear is how deep their knowledge of specific Larrie theories goes.

On the one hand, in 2023 Louis identified a seemingly innocuous tweet by a larrie asking him "louis how do you make chicken parmesan?" as a reference to the chicken parma theory, which he acknowledged in his reply: "You start by realising all these ridiculous childish theories and conspiracies are wasted time and energy and then just throw the chicken in the oven to be fair. Simple stuff" (This incident became known as Chickengate or Parmageddon by Larries.) However, Larries go much further, arguing that the band knows all the Larrie theories and deploys Larrie symbols on purpose as a signal to the fandom. Examples include Harry wearing a blue bandana and Louis getting a dagger tattoo.

Tumblr anti-larrie lrambling commented,

The idea that people outside of fandom are informed about what’s going on within fandom, how things will be interpreted, what days and colors and references have special meaning, this is a big part of Larry. And you know what, we don’t know what they see, or how much they engage with fandom. We don’t know how this stuff filters out, what’s clear and obvious and what might be confusing to an outsider. But I absolutely do not think it is safe to assume that Louis, Harry and those around them are particularly well informed.

History

Early History: Bromance

Screencap of a Twitter exchange between Harry and Louis in June 2011, an example of the early flirtatious tweets between them that encouraged both shipping and tinhatting.

Fans have commented that in the early days, One Direction appeared not to mind fans' shipping of Harry and Louis's "bromance" and may have encouraged it with fanservice. Anti-Larries have argued that some of the evidence used by Larries to support their theories may actually be fanservice and that fans' positive response to Harry/Louis interactions encouraged them to continue and play it up.

Tweets from the boys and their families appeared to encourage it. (Tumblr larrie bulletprooflarry went as far as suggesting that Harry and his sister popularized or originated the term "Larry Stylinson" itself, but this idea is not widely accepted.) According to Helena Louise Dare-Edwards, a fan studies scholar:

Larry fandom was partly ignited by the many openly flirtatious tweets exchanged between Harry and Louis at the beginning of their careers, which also seemed to endorse Twitter as a space for such a fandom to operate. The candid nature of these tweets indicated a sense of authenticity, and the public display of their relationship/friendship was a central feature of the popstars’ formative personas, offering an illusion of intimate access to backstage behaviour that was then forced frontstage by Larry fans.

2012: A Changed Direction

Most recent tweets sent from Harry to Louis as of January 2024

Most recent tweets sent from Louis to Harry as of January 2024

Starting in mid-to-late 2012, Harry and Louis's public behavior changed; they became less physically close with each other at concerts and in interviews, stopped tweeting at each other, and eventually stopped interacting with each other in public entirely. Whereas in the early years Harry and Louis hugging was a frequent occurrence, their hug at the end of the last One Direction concert in 2015 was surprising and unusual enough to be the subject of fannish discussion and was referred to ever after as "the larry hug". In 2012 the change happened quickly enough that the whole fanbase noticed it, and non-larries blamed larries for ruining their friendship by not only posting conspiracy theories where the band could see them, but also actively harassing Louis and Harry's families and girlfriends. See Visibility and Harassment.

Louis somewhat confirmed this view in various interviews:

This is a subject that was funny at first but now is actually hard to deal with as I am in relationship. Me and Harry are best friends, people look into our every move, it is actually affecting the way me and Harry are in public, we want to joke around but there seems to be a different rumor every time we do anything. I act the same way with Harry as I do any of the other boys and my childhood friend Stan.

July 2012

"I'm so protective over things like that, about the people I love. So it created this atmosphere between the two of us where everyone was looking into everything we did. It took away the vibe you get off anyone," Louis said. "It made everything a little bit more unapproachable. I think [what's happened since] shows that it was never anything 'real' if I can use that word."

July 2017

Larries don't believe they are at fault. From larries' point of view, the band had changed from seeming to welcome Larry fans to actively discouraging them, and they suggested that the change in attitude was due to an intentional rebranding instigated by the band's management. Bullshit 1.0, for example, coincided with the first week of promo of their second album.

No Stunts Magazine explains the larrie view that management rebranded to appeal to a homophobic American audience and was also the source of the non-larrie explanation for what had happened:

From the early days on we saw these two adorably, sweet boys tease each other and touch each other in ways that push the limits of friendship into a more romantic place. As fans began to notice these things, management saw an opportunity and, at first, embraced the ‘Larry’ phenomenon. The boys had magazine interviews together, would sit together in interviews and had many beautiful moments captured by cameras.

However, by late 2012, management changed its tune and as their view turned stateside, interactions with the boys on camera or in public was reduced to the point that they barely even looked in each other’s direction while on stage or in public. Harry and Louis, however, managed to find ways around this, employing subtle touches, sign language that only they knew the meaning of, and singing to each other on stage.

With this change in direction, management also put out the rumour that Harry and Louis were so unsettled by the scrutiny and the obsessive observation of the interactions between them that it irretrievably broke their friendship beyond repair....

Larries believe that Louis's interview answers were forced upon him or altered by management, who were also responsible for physically separating Harry and Louis. Some Larries even believe that management had attempted to convince the general public that Harry and Louis were enemies, though Tumblr user hiddensymposiarch, who was still a Larrie at the time, asserted in 2015 that the "enemies" idea was really just an inside joke among Larries, who witnessed other fans concluding that H/L weren't friends anymore and made memes contrasting the idea of them being "enemies" with the photographic evidence that they were in fact quite friendly. If hiddensymposiarch was correct at the time, it's not clear that larries in later years got the joke. Tumblr and Twitter examples 2020-2023:

• "Unlike with Larry, Zayn and Liam haven't been painted as enemies." (2020)
• "larry partying in 2014, the year that their enemies narrative was at it's peak, and just hugging in a 'friendly way' in a bar when they were in rio. got it 👍🏻" (2020)
• "Those familiar with my blog know about separate narratives well Larry didn’t get a separate narrative they got an 'enemies' narrative. When the rumors got too big about them they got shoved farther into the closet, they rarely interacted, they weren’t seen together and rumors were spread through managements favorite gossip newspapers that they were feuding and hated each other." (2020)
• "this was the biggest glitch in 'larry is enemies' narrative" (2021)
• "I noticed some young fans don't fully understand that we're 100% not joking when we talk about that." (2021)
• "however 1ds management went with the the narrative that their friendship is growing apart and h&l started disliking each other because of larry rumors mOrTaL eNeMiEs remember ? this is the reason some idiots still use the 'larries ruined their their friendship' argument." (2021)
• "No cause 2015 unseens always look like harry & louis are closer than ever and happiest. It's like the biggest slap to everyone who bought into the 'oh they're enemies now' narrative" (2021)
• "Well if Larry was not a thing and we're wrong it means 1dHQ was right and Harry and Louis are mortal enemies and Larries ruined their friendship. So. I think you are not understanding. Bye bye." (2021)
• "1DHQ went as far as spreading this narrative that they hated each other in the press, promo, gossip articles and sites." (2023)

Tumblr anti-larrie larriefails argued that the idea of Harry and Louis being enemies was a straw man created by Larries themselves:

You still don’t get it. There was no “Larries broke their friendship” push. It was “Larries make Harry and I second guess every single interaction” and it was said by Louis in 2012. The photo OP here is talking about is from the Fabulous shoot in 2013. At that point, they still talked to each other and sat next to each other and WOW even smiled around each other

Denials

Many fans on social media have asked the band members about Larry; they've also asked some of the band's friends, family members, girlfriends, and friends and family of girlfriends where social media accounts were known. Some responded to fan questions. Likely because fans were asking about it or because Larry talk was ubiquitous on social media, journalists and others have also asked the band about it in interviews. As a result, the band and their friends and family have all gone on the record saying that Larry isn't real. Larries refer to these incidents as "Larry denials", argue that many of them aren't really denials, and generally don't believe that they are truthful statements. Tumblr anti-larries have compiled many of these denials into a masterpost: Louis, Harry, Family and Friends’ Denials of Larry (as a Whole or as a Theory) and Confirmation of Elounor.

Larries believe that the band's management told at least some of the interviewers in advance to ask about Larry in order to prompt the band to issue a denial:

I want to talk about the ‘denials’ twice a day until I die. This is a fairly long analysis of the three interviews I think were specifically set up to deny that Louis and Harry are romantically involved. And how they failed spectacularly each time.

larrycoincidences, 2013

In tracing the change in H/L's public behavior, Larries often cite the September 2012 tweet they call Bullshit 1.0 as a major turning point; Louis Tomlinson tweeted, "Larry is the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. I'm happy why can't you accept that."

Larries felt some of these denials were derisive in tone, implying that fans who believe that Larry is real were delusional and unwelcome as fans. Larries were deeply upset by these denials, but came up with rationales for why the denials were illegitimate.

In November 2013, for example, a print article reported:

"That's a f----ing annoyance," Tomlinson says of the false rumours linking him to Styles.

Can he not appreciate the impressive amount of work that's gone into it at least?

"I wouldn't say it was impressive," Tomlinson fumes. "I'd say it was f---ing annoying."

RIP Larry Stylinson.

Larries have argued that denials in print or on twitter could be discounted because without video proof, the statement could have been made by or edited by the band's management. (See management tweets theory.) However, by 2017, when Louis denied Larry on camera in a video interview with Dan Wootton (on Twitter Wootton said, "I will ask him ON VIDEO about Larry. To shut you all up once and for all."), Larries analyzed the footage and determined that he was sending a coded message through, for example, his use of the word "oBvIoUsLy". Louis's video denial of Larry is now another Larry proof.

"Gaslighting"

Larries believe that the evidence for Larry being real is so clear and obvious that the denials amount to an attempt by management to "gaslight" them into doubting their own eyes. They have interpreted the denials as evidence that Larry is real; they assume that management orchestrated the denials, so why spend so much effort on denying it if it isn't true? Other fans, journalists, and band members' friends and family have all called Larries crazy or delusional or conspiracy theorists or cultish, and Larries believe so strongly in Larry being self-evident that they assume this is all part of management's gaslighting. Furthermore, Larries believe that management's gaslighting of the fandom was incredibly "aggressive" and caused other fans to see Larries as acceptable targets for harassment and bullying.

A Larrie who claims to work in public relations wrote:

What I don’t understand, though, is the aggressiveness that surrounds it. There’s no reason that they should be coaching young teenage girls into bullying others for having differing opinions, and they shouldn’t be so insistent that there’s nothing going on. It’s like shining a giant torch on the fact that there actually is something going on. Their continued severe denial of the relationship just makes it look like they’re hiding something, and the longer they keep it up, the more people are going to notice.

goodbyeadulthood, 2014

One example of a response to Larrie theories that Larries consider misdirection at best and gaslighting at worst occurred on Tumblr in April 2014. Harry's sister posted this since-deleted reply to an ask:

[wherethissidewalkends-deactivat]

It seems people belief that they harry & louis have a romantic relationship has been reduced to a few pics & fanfiction. There are adults, doctors, lawyers, professors who believe & it's not bc of a few pics. We have reasons, but nobody addressing those head on. I just think if people are going to deny something, be straight up about it. Address why everything we have seen is platonic/normal buddy behavior. I'm a little older, so maybe guys act different than they used to.

[iamnamelessgem]

Doctors, lawyers and professors. Holy cow. What a WASTE.

While sending the involved parties asks like this is met with disapproval in some corners of the Larry fandom who feel either that the fourth wall should be maintained or that they are not entitled to private details of their personal lives,^{[citation needed]} the ask still happened.

Other fans have argued that Larries are the ones gaslighting themselves:

They like to claim that their invented attributions for his actions are something he communicated to them, personally, and now his denial of his involvement with them is him gaslighting them (or his team is, vicariously through him) by making them question their sanity and recollection of the past.

But they’re the ones gaslighting themselves by having made those attributions in the first place when Louis never claimed those things!

back-to-louis, 2017

• "larries have been gaslighting themselves for 4 years and they have the nerve to blame an out celebrity for their own stupidity lmfao" (2017)
• "harry styles™️ is just another way for larries to strip harry from who he actually is so he can fit their narrative and keep gaslighting other larries into believing he is living a lie and a horrible controlled life" (2020)
• "the way larries just keep gaslighting and lying to each other so that they can all continue to believe in their made up ship" (2022)

Or even trying to gaslight others:

• "daisy is 13. I've seen the worst type of gaslighting in her comments whenever she stands up against larries. 'we just want the best for your brother is that wrong? we just think harry is better for him than any girl.' this is real." (2018)
• "Larries at their finest gaslighting the LGBTQ+ Community. They keep pretending no one has spoken out about how their nasty ship makes us feel, and why they're wrong. This is what a delousi0nal pathological liar cult is." (2023)
• "larries trying to gaslight sane people into thinking larry is real the way they gaslit themselves" (2023)
• "The level of gaslighting that larries are trying to do with queer louies is INSANE" (2023)

Meanwhile, other fans have argued that Larries' use of the term "gaslighting" was offensive:

hey, abuse victim here,,,this is a giant fucking kick in the face to abuse victims lmfao like honestly? a ship and a fucking band aren’t this deep and you’re playing yourselves if you think so so much that you start thinking like this. if we’re gonna talk like this, i could technically say you and other big larries are gaslighting with the way y'all conveniently ignore the ugly things y'all do to people and then play the victim card when people call you out for being shitty human beings. so go fuck yourself and stop trivializing abuse just because you can’t get your head out of your ass and accept that a ship is a ship and a band is a band and nothing more.

Many Larries have expressed frustration with what they see as the band first teasing the possibility of Larry when it was advantageous, but then turning around and implying that Larries were crazy conspiracy theorists for believing what they were marketed:

this is to all the larries out there: we've been getting people gaslighting us ever since they decided to enter the us market and decided to separate those two and make us believe we "ruined their friendship" when they were the ones who even came up with a name for it in the first place and who till this day still drop hints and refuse to straight up deny it. management gaslight us till this day and manage to turn even the fandom itself against us when we're really not doing anything wrong cause if we were then they would have stopped us by now by actually denying it and be careful not to give us "coincidences". don't give in to their gaslighting and remember we're just here to support them and they love you for it.

copyofthetimes, 2021

Some Larries may have channeled this frustration into harassing the people who'd issued denials. Meanwhile, larries maintain that management's gaslighting worked. Tumblr larrie lapelosa wrote that:

The effect of all this on the fans was to frighten them into passivity, self-censorship, and great aggression against other fans to force censorship on them too. Fans became frightened to say what they really thought, for fear that the boys would hate them–print quotes from Louis said that he found larry fans 'fucking annoyance’ and they were ruining his life and relationships–other fans would hate them and they would become the target of a mass bullying campaign, and they would be personally responsible for 1D breaking up as a band. Fans were afraid that if they acknowledged what they were seeing, or if they acted happy about what they were seeing, then they would be responsible for the boys being punished and for the fans being punished. I had a very odd moment last year when an anon told me that they had grown up under a dictatorship in South America and the atmosphere of fear and passivity in the 1D fandom reminded them of that. And another person started screaming at that person that they were being disrespectful to those who grew up under a dictatorship. There was a major disconnection there. It was very odd.

lapelosa, 2015

Larries say this has resulted in a number of Larries becoming ex-Larries, Houies or simply leaving the fandom. However, they also say that denials (and even the announcement of that Louis was expecting a baby) that have been covered by the mainstream media have also led curious outsiders to investigate Larry Stylinson and become Larries. Some have expressed that this was due to what they saw as puzzling inconsistencies in the way they were handled.

Social Media Visibility and Harassment

See also Larry Visibility and Harassment, One Direction Fandom Wars - Twitter Fans vs Everyone

Usually tinhatters comprise just a small portion of an otherwise diverse fandom. But the belief that Larry Stylinson is real has become such a popular and dominating theory among One Direction fans that it often dwarfs other branches of the One Direction community. For more than four years — that's at least as long as people have been quantifying Tumblr's tag usage and noting Twitter's frequently Larry-centric worldwide hashtag trends — the ship has been one of the largest elements of the One Direction fandom, which itself is one of the largest fandoms on the internet.

Aja Romano, 2016

On social media sites many Larries have harassed the people they believe are involuntarily closeting them. Since one theme of some corners of the Larry fandom is that they are supporting Harry and Louis and helping them fight the Big Gay War against the contract thought to be keeping them in the closet, fans may be justifying abusive comments on the social media accounts of supposed Modest! employees (including friends and family) as a way of showing Modest! that closeting is unnecessary and counterproductive. According to an anon confession on 7 Feb 2016 at confessionsofexlarries: "I used to send awful things to Eleanor because I thought that she would quit and Louis would be able to come out if she did that."

Because of the very public nature of social media, the Larries who directly harass the band and their associates are some of the most visible One Direction fans and have become the main representation of Larry fandom to other fans and to the public at large. It may be that the harassers represent only a minority of fans who believe that Larry is real, but at its peak the One Direction fanbase was so large that even a small percent of accounts engaging in harassment would have been overwhelming.

There is a wide range of opinions in the Larry side of the fandom regarding what constitutes appropriate social media or public interactions in a real person fandom, and many Larries have spoken out against social media harassment. Some fans keep all their fandom activity on Tumblr, avoiding services such as Twitter and Instagram where the band members and their families are present. (One exception is Harry's sister, Gemma, who has a Tumblr account and has responded to asks about Larry Stylinson; see Gaslighting above). Some avoid having fandom Twitter accounts entirely as the band members themselves are on there and sometimes tracking^{[citation needed]}. Many will intentionally avoid commonly tracked tags on Tumblr, such as One Direction, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson, Larry Stylinson, though this may be more due to attempting to avoid attention from anti-Larries and sometimes with the knowledge that many non-Larries prefer not to be exposed to Larry content.^{[citation needed]}

Do I support fans sending messages to Briana or Louis family? Of course not. But like they say 'there is no smoke without fire'. We can’t all be wrong…

Tumblr, 2016

I tell someone I’m a larrie and they immediately hate on me as if I’m someone who sent hate to Eleanor or badgered them about coming out. It’s strange because this seems to only happen with larries in this fandom. The majority of larries don’t send hate, invade their privacy, send them edits and shit, and yet we all get grouped into that toxicity immediately.

Reddit, 2021

Some have suggested that an impetus behind Rainbow Direction, beyond supporting LGBTQ+ Directioners, may have been giving fans who thought that Harry and Louis were being victimized by their management a more productive way of expressing support than social media harassment.

Some people, however, have argued that, even if they are not engaging in it themselves, fans (especially Big Larries) who talk about Harry and Louis being forcibly closeted may be responsible for inciting others to engage in harassment.

A number of anti-Larries have expressed that breaches of the fourth wall social media harassment are some of their main motivations:

It's hurtful to ignore their wishes and continue to ‘attack’ them with your misbeliefs. If you don’t believe them, at least show them the courtesy and respect they deserve for choosing to live their lives however they see fit. If you want to tinhat, do so privately. Leave the boys, and anyone associated with them, out of it. They don’t like it, Louis especially and for good reason. By his own admission, his friendship with Harry, especially in public and maybe in private, has changed and not for the better. Maybe that’s all due to growing up and finding different interests, but I’m certain tinhatting played a part as well.

The band members' as well as their friends and families' social media feeds have also frequently been inundated with comments about Larry. Sometimes these are composed of just the word "Larry" or blue and green hearts. Louis's instagram banned mentioning the word "Larry" in 2016

Concerts

The visibility of Larrie theories at concerts is another type of fourth-wall break.

Posters

"If god hated gays why do Harry & Louis look so cute together" A concert sign projected onto the screen at a One Direction concert in Gothenburg, Sweden on 23 Jun 2015.

Many Larries have brought Larry-related posters to One Direction's concerts. In June 2012 an anon on Tumblr joked about "The awkward moment when i hold up a larry poster near eleanor at a 1D concert..#yolo", and in November 2012 a Twitter fan commented, "When someone brought a Larry poster to a concert, everyone yelled at her", but Larry concert posters were discussed on Twitter more frequently in 2013 and 2014. In May 2013 a rumor circulated that Louis gave the middle finger to a Larry sign (the girl holding the sign allegedly said she gave him the middle finger first, so he wasn't actually responding to the content of the sign), and another rumor circulated among Larries that Management had ordered Larry signs to be confiscated. Someone allegedly handed out Larry posters at the June 25, 2014, concert, and everyone on Twitter had an opinion about it.

These posters have been a source of friction in the fandom, with many other fans objecting to their presence, for a variety of reasons. Some fans said they were disturbed just to encounter Larry tinhatting in the real world. Others argued that Larries were forcing a sexuality or a relationship onto Harry and Louis or that it was "disrespectful". Some fans objected on the grounds that if Larry were true, the signs were outing them. Post-One Direction, fans on social media have continued to argue over the appropriateness of bringing Larry signs to Louis's solo concerts. Even some Larries have argued that Larry signs at Louis concerts are disrespectful.

Other Larries have argued that the sexual signs brought to concerts by "het girls" are much worse than the Larry signs.

Larry signs have been projected onto the big screen at concerts and Liam in particular has read a number of them out loud ("Investigate Wellington", "Always in My Heart"[1], "my first real crush was Louis Tomlinson"). Clips of Liam saying, "Investigate Wellington, what does that mean?" at an August 2015 concert in Baltimore were shared all over twitter. The clips include fans at the concert screaming excitedly in response to his comment, but fans on twitter also seemed very excited, with some posting cryptic memes about Harry and Louis knowing the references and being reluctant to explain it to Liam. Other fans thought Liam was only pretending not to recognize the reference and had purposefully read a Larry sign out loud. ("Investigate Wellington" is a reference to a 2012 Larry proof where Harry and Louis were filmed at a bar in Wellington, but with a very bad camera from very far away, so fans disagree on what happened in the video.)

Other fans reacted differently to Liam reading the signs aloud:

I really hate this growing trend of getting Liam to read off old L*rry quotes it’s so manipulative and nasty like he’s trying to do this nice, sweet thing by interacting with as many fans as possible and trying to notice people and give them special moments and they’re literally just using him, they’re setting up traps and laughing when he walks right into them and it’s infuriating and sickening and unforgivable.

Flags

A number of Larries brought Larry signs along with rainbow flags to concerts. The fan project Rainbow Direction, which encouraged fans to bring rainbows to concerts, was the subject of controversy over whether it was a Larrie project (the founders and many participants are Larries) and whether fans who participated in the project did so to support Larry or to support LGBTQ+ fans. (The Rainbow Direction controversy relates to longstanding criticisms against Larries for misrepresenting how LGBTQ+ activism works and harming queer fans.) Non-larries who attended concerts complained that they saw fans with both Larry signs and Rainbow Direction stuff; when Liam Payne was quoted in a 2015 interview saying he thought a lot of the rainbow flags at the concerts were due to Larry, this was taken as further evidence of Rainbow Direction's failure to divorce itself from Larry.

Harry has frequently picked up flags brought by fans and waved them around onstage, a habit that has continued in his solo concert tours. Some of the flags are pride flags, and Harry waving them has meant a lot to LGBTQ+ fans. He has also waved country flags. At the June 23, 2015 Gothenburg concert he picked up a Swedish flag that had the Always In My Heart tweet printed on the other side; videos and gifs circulated widely, with some Larries concluding this was evidence for Larry being real, other fans arguing that he looked annoyed in the videos, and still others arguing that it wasn't clear whether he even noticed what was printed on the back.

Some Larries thought that Harry waving rainbow flags onstage itself counted as a Larry fourth wall violation, because they believed that Harry was signaling with the flags that he was queer and in a relationship with Louis.

Larry Stylinson in the Media

Example of a 2014 print article published in the Mexican magazine Notas para ti that reported on Larries' matching tattoo theory. Larries shared the article on Twitter and Tumblr. One reblogger noted that some Larries had speculated that 1D's management had the article published with the intent to "seed" Larry (prepare the way for them to come out).

As noted above, the lack of a fourth wall in 1D fandom led to fans asking the band and their associates about Larry, or asking interviewers to ask the band about Larry; the band responding to these questions meant that the topic of Larry became newsworthy and was covered in the press (because everything the band said or did was covered in the press). In the early years many fans expressed embarrassment or displeasure at interviewers for asking the band about Larry and bringing public attention to the Larry side of the fandom. Larries have argued that it's rude to put the band on the spot (in part because Larries believe that the band's denials are lies, so by asking the question, the interviewer is forcing the band to lie).

Larries have also complained that interviewers are violating Louis and Harry's privacy by asking questions about their personal lives instead of focusing on the music. (Some Larries make it obvious that when they say "personal life", they are referring to Larry.)

Other fans have argued that Larries' opposition to interviewers asking about Larry is because Larries do not want to hear the answers. They believe that Larries are hypocritical for objecting on the grounds of privacy while continuing to post publicly about Larry.

In 2020 one Larrie suggested, "Lets stop involving Louis’ family in Larry and stop asking everyone about it. If you really believed they are together now you wouldn’t need to ask every single person associated with Louis and Harry about it. All your doing is being rude and getting more denials."

Newsmedia articles about Larries and their beliefs have been published since at least 2012, but the airing of Crazy About One Direction may have pushed it into the spotlight. Crazy About One Direction was a documentary released in 2013 that followed a number of teenage One Direction fans. It was seen as mocking the fans and in particular Larries. Its airing is often considered the event that firmly brought Larry Stylinson into public awareness. It prompted extreme reactions on Twitter, including deletion of Larry fan accounts and (unverified) reports of suicide, and the director and fans that were featured became targets of harassment.

The director later wrote:

One of the most intriguing arguments made by the YouTubers in my sample is that including Larry meant I had trespassed on their “private” fan spaces. But although the majority of fans use aliases online, they do not prevent outsiders from seeing their productions, which are readily available on Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube. Although all the fan art I included was cleared with individual artists, the fandom assumed they must have been stolen. They consider Tumblr to be an almost sacred space, in which the Larry fandom can be private, and this false sense of obscurity may have prevailed for a few years because outsiders did not know what to look for. As Zubernis and Larsen (2012) write, “The twin cultural biases against overt displays of emotion and (for women) displays of inappropriate sexuality combine to keep fans in the closet” (p. 45). Larry is in the closet and the closet is Tumblr. So Crazy About One Direction outed the Larry ship.

Larrie Journalists?

Meanwhile, some media outlets were publishing some very Larrie-friendly articles, like "Harry Styles Hints That He Is Bisexual In New Interview, We Look At ALL* The Larry Evidence" by Stephanie Soteriou of Yahoo! News. Larries felt validated in their beliefs by these articles. Anti-larries have complained about cynical clickbait articles pandering to Larries, but they have also argued that certain journalists have gone even farther and may be either Larries themselves or doing a good job of pretending.

In January 2016, after the birth of Louis Tomlinson's son and the rapid spread of the babygate conspiracy theory, Aaron Butterfield wrote an article titled "We Need to Talk About One Direction" at breatheheavy.com (later deleted). A Tumblr anti-larrie wrote an expose on Butterfield, arguing that his previous Twitter interactions with Larries showed he was a Larrie:

I’d like to say I’m surprised he is full of shit. But I’m not. This is someone who is hiding behind the facade of being a real journalist and unbiased. But he’s not. He’s a manipulative liar who is using Larries who are so desperate for any shred of “proof” They are clinging onto the hope of, “Well if someone who is so removed from the fandom can see what’s going on then it must be REAL” But it’s not. This article is another work of fiction crafted by someone who is just just as absorbed and “educated” in the fake!freddie narrative as they are.

sexatoxbridge, a Larrie, wrote a rebuttle:

I have had a lot of messages today and seen some rather slanderous posts bringing Aaron’s credibility into question and instead of answering everyone individually I want to make myself extremely clear with where I stand on the matter.....

This whole personal smear campaign vendetta people seem to be so hellbent on whenever someone sheds a light of common sense on these situations is exactly why most media outlets are just happy to write whatever 1D’s team gives them, because it is not worth the fucking grief of bullying that gets thrown your way....

I don’t know when people are going to get it through their minds that there is no ‘Dark!Larrie Agenda’ as much as people want to make that seem to be the case. These articles are literally just a cohesive timeline of everything that has occurred. Neither Aaron nor I have set out to turn the world into Larries, rather we have very articulately and, in Aaron’s case for sure, quite neutrally explained what is happening for the people that are not paying attention to details.

The following day, sexatoxbridge (username is a reference to the original topic of their blog) announced on their website that the One Direction articles they had published on the Buzzfeed Community page for the past two years had all been deleted "without reason or explanation today". sexatoxbridge believed the real reason was "because I called Simon Cowell out for being a shady ass hoe." A few months later sexatoxbridge reported that their blog had been hacked and they thought it was due to Simon Cowell again. (Simon Cowell was a judge on The X-Factor and signed One Direction to his record label.)

Harassment of Journalists

See also Larry Is Real.

Negative depictions of Larry Stylinson and Larries in the media has sometimes resulted in harassment of interviewers and members of the press. As Larries are quick to point out, this is not unique to Larry or Larries. There have been many incidents of the wider 1D fandom harassing media representatives who criticize band members, such as when GQ faced harassment over their One Direction cover story.

When journalist and slash fan Aja Romano published an article in The Daily Dot in 2012 describing the tinhat phenomenon, they were attacked in the comments. (It should be noted that Aja's journalism covering fandom has been heavily criticized by many fans for being (deliberately) provocative, sensationalist, and/or misleading. However, there is no excuse for harassment.)

In 2019 The Mirror reported that DJ Joe Cooper was still receiving death threats for asking Louis about visiting Toys R Us with his son. Although the article didn't mention Larries by name, Joe Cooper's November 2017 tweet about the interview still show replies from angry fans demanding the interview focus on Louis's music and not his personal life; it's clear from context many of them were Larries and their objection was to the mention of Louis having a son.

Circular Reporting and Blind Items

Larries often responded enthusiastically to media coverage favorable to Larry, and at times may have interpreted it as independent confirmation of their theories.

An extreme case of circular reporting occurred in 2012-2013, when larries were following blindgossip.com, a site that publishes celebrity gossip "blind items". Many larries were reading it, someone posted an extensive masterpost compiling the Larry-related blinds, and at least some thought it was a reliable source. A larrie posted a debunk in October 2013 showing that the source of the Larry-related items was larries' own speculation posted publicly on social media.

Let’s look at his history of 1d blinds. Going back now- none of these were ground-breaking stories. None were a surprise. And all but one (and that one is arguable) were actually published after the items were highly discussed in this fandom online via Twitter/Tumblr.

In March 2014, another larrie commented,

I find the fact that so many people still believe in their stories worrisome.... I think people need to realize that we aren’t just viewed as fans, but also as consumers. If we express interest in something—say the relationship between two members of a boyband—then media sites (especially gossip sites) are going to capitalize on that interest if it means benefiting their own bottom line.

Larries have also used media stories reporting Larry theories as evidence that 1D's management is leaking Larry-friendly stories as a deliberate tactic to prepare the general public for Larry being real. See Seeding.

Ethics of Outing Celebrities

Larries believe that Harry and Louis have been forced to stay in the closet, and this belief has also led to broader discussions of closeting in the music industry. Larries have frequently debated the ethics of outing celebrities, with some asserting that closeted people's sexuality shouldn't be publicly discussed.^{[citation needed]} However, what counts as public discussion is also a matter of debate, with many Tumblr Larries believing that Tumblr is a fine and private place, and many Twitter Larries seeming not to count their own tweets as part of visible public discourse. Instead, Larries are more likely to view their own fannish discussion spaces as private and media interviews with the band as public, criticizing journalists as being invasive for asking Louis about his personal life. See #Larry Stylinson in the Media.

Some fans who believe Larry is real have criticized Larries:

There’s a problem with how the closet and a potential coming out are viewed and discussed by Larries.

Something that doesn’t endear Larries to the LGBTQIAA+ community is that many of them treat Harry and Louis being in the closet and especially the idea of them coming out, without any respect.

The closet exists because being out can be dangerous. No one should be forced into the closet, but no one should be forced out either. Coming out and the timing of it is a personal decision that Harry and Louis should make if that’s what they want. Coming out is not something the fans are entitled to.

believingisnotlarrie, Tumblr, 2016

However, believingisnotlarrie's post above received 0 notes in a fandom where Larrie posts often got thousands of reblogs. The majority view among Larries has always been that Harry and Louis want to come out and therefore Larries are not doing anything wrong by outing them. Anti-larries have criticized them for this:

How do you explain away how terrified closeted people feel in getting found out when you’re sat there trying to insist your documentation of two closeted people’s sex lives is a valid LGBTQIA activism cause? How do you reconcile that? There was no way. It’s why I’m no longer a Larrie and could never be one again. You can’t justify it.

thelarrative-blog, Tumblr, 2016

Some Larries have suggested that public speculation over a celebrity's sexual orientation should be treated as akin to other celebrity gossip, and that treating it differently implies that there is something wrong with being gay.

There's plenty of reasons to believe (some wof which you will see) that they do not want to be closeted and probably never really did, which is the biggest reason the fandom is allowing ourselves to discuss this to the extent we do.

I don't see how suggesting that Louis and Harry have been in a committed, log term, healthy, happy relationship with each other is any worse than how they are - or for the longest time were - being presented in the public's eye.

Nobody ever says that heterosexuality or het relationships are private (at least not in that sense), so should queer sexulaity and relationship be 'private'? Shouldn't we be past acting like there is something wrong with being LGBTQIA and trying to hide queerness? Love is a beautiful thing in all its forms.

charlie2cute, LiveJournal, 2015

In general, I think it’s always okay to question if someone’s perhaps not straight, why not, 10% of the population isn’t. It’s okay to talk about information that already out in the public domain. It’s also okay to use one’s brain in public and put one (mention of Club X on Facebook) and one (knowledge I have because I know Club X) together. Why on earth not? And it’s ridiculous to deliberately interpret gay innuendo as a joke, or ignore it alltogether. Most of all I have this rule:

0. Respecting privacy is not the same as allowing yourself to be cajoled into perpetuating the closet. Respecting privacy , according to Boling, is gently “coaxing from the closet” by “building a strong, vocal, and supportive gay and lesbian community”. I would edit that to “building a strong and supportive fan community” and hell yes, why wouldn’t we be vocal about it? That will strengthen rather than weaken everyone, celebrities and fan communities alike.

thisiskatsblog, Tumblr 2013

Some Larries have argued that Harry and Louis's public behavior demonstrates they are at minimum comfortable with public discussion about their sexualities and may even be encouraging it. They argue that Harry and Louis are using symbols associated with the queer community or knowingly invoking Larrie symbols and beliefs with their actions. Some Larries think they are open about their sexualities and relationship behind the scenes ("everyone knows"). In 2019 one Larrie speculated that their use of symbols and coded languages suggested that they may have "at least [come] out to people in the community and to close allies."

See Also

• Crazy About One Direction (2013)
• Truth Slash Fiction (2016)
• One Direction Euphoria Fanfiction Controversy (2019)
• Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It (2022)
• Tinhats and the Fourth Wall
• Bandom and the Fourth Wall