Yeah, I think that's exactly what they're doing. I actually talked about that a bit a couple days ago with the Australian interview they did about the new single.

It definitely wasn't all of them.

Denial is a very strong impulse, especially when you're dealing with a lot of young people who haven't yet figured out just how much the world really lies to them. Cognitive dissonance and all that.

I think a lot of people aren't going to realise or accept what Harry's trying to say until he actually blatantly says it. It's not necessarily that they're homophobic or hate the idea of a male celebrity being gay. It's that they can't accept that they've been lied to for three odd years by someone who they idolise.

Ohhhhhh mmmmyyyyyy goddddddddddddddd

Does everyone see this? Do you see it? Do you?!?! This person should be working in politics if they’re this good at twisting facts and throwing out overly aggressive buzzwords.

Harry has lunch with his (by all accounts, completely straight) friend and a third person on a day off and he’s suddenly “with Jeff every given moment.” Louis’ not seen for days so he’s suddenly clearly in Las Vegas even though this anon openly admits that no one has actually seen him there. This anon doesn’t understand how it doesn’t faze me that Harry had lunch with his friend and a third person who was at the table with them! And because I don’t give any weight to the fully unsubstantiated rumours about Harry and his friend (whose father just so happens to be Irving Azoff, the man who is likely positioning himself to take over the management of the band that Harry’s in), because I don’t believe that they’re dating, then I think the “mere idea” of them being together is monstrous! MONSTROUS!!!

One more time, read that again. MONSTROUS. Because I think that the ideas that are shoved into my inbox (completely unsolicited and unwanted) on a daily basis are unfounded and ridiculous, because I’ve never once in my life heard anything that even remotely backs up these people’s claims and I therefore choose to believe they’re just pairing Harry off with whichever mid-twenties semi attractive man that he happens to be sitting next to, because they don’t seem to have any proof whatsoever that these two are anything other than friends, because apparently getting lunch together or instagramming photos of each other suddenly equals a relationship, because these people are saying it’s obvious that they’re dating despite the fact that they literally know so little about Jeff that they’ve never even heard him speak and despite the fact that these people know nothing about the way he and Harry behave together beyond what they’ve seen in completely platonic-looking still photographs, because I don’t believe that Harry is dating Jeff Azoff, then I obviously think that the mere idea of them being together is monstrous.

Wow. And now that I’ve made myself abundantly clear how I feel about Hazoff, can you people please stop sending me messages like this ten times a day? It’s obviously started to get on my nerves. I don’t come to your blog and try to convince you of anything.

Ship what you want to ship. I literally do not give one single shit if you want to believe that Harry’s dating Jeff Azoff or Nick Grimshaw or Cara Delevingne or the fucking sock under his bed and his own right hand. I don’t care. I won’t try to convince you otherwise. That’s your prerogative. But please, please stop coming to my blog to try and convince me with aggressive messages like this or I’m just going to start blocking the whole lot of you. Thanks.

I actually have a thought about that, but I was a bit hesitant to say it at first, because I don't want people to get their hopes up too much? This is 100% just me speculating, but the fact that her friends insinuated that she'd be in LA, then the tweets were deleted, then it was made known through social media that she was still here in London... I'm wondering if they're starting to seed a break up or "relationship problems" or something. Like she was planning on going, then something went wrong and she wound up staying home instead of going? Especially in light of them looking so blatantly miserable last time they were seen together. I don't know. Just a thought I had about the whole thing.

I actually think they may have switched strategies partway through X Factor. From what I remember watching them on the show and from some of their early videos that I've watched recently, Liam was their original frontman. All the press surrounding them at the start was LIAM PAYNE and the rest were almost an afterthought.But then again by the time their auditions aired (ie by the time the episodes were being cut and edited), they already knew One Direction would be a band. And Harry and Liam were the only two really spotlighted in those. So maybe they always knew it would eventually be Harry but originally pushed Liam because he was already a somewhat recognisable face. "Returning contestant succeeds on their second try" is a /really/ common X Factor trope, and it got the band attention at the beginning with Liam as the face.

As far as the purely promotional tweets go (Celebrity Big Brother, X Factor, etc), I don’t understand why people have any problem with it beyond the fact that they're maybe a bit annoying. Yes, it is part of their jobs. It’s standard. That’s what celebrity Twitter accounts are for. They’re marketing tools, whether that means marketing themselves or marketing sponsors’ products.

I also don’t understand why people say they do no music promo? They’ve done a MASSIVE amount of music promo over the last week or so. Almost an overwhelming amount. But there was that post going around yesterday about how “they pushed the fragrance so hard and now crickets on the music!!!” Which… No, they’re pushing the music pretty damn hard. They’re just doing a much better job of it than they did with the fragrance. Would you rather they did corny countdown videos and “BIG ANNOUNCEMENT 3 DAYS TO GO!!!” and continued to cater to the very young market? No, this is what well done promotion looks like. They shouldn’t be catering to tweens with the promo for their music at this stage, and it’s a really good thing that they’re not.

The one thing I DO understand people taking issue with, though, is the narrative that’s often pushed through their tweets and the fact that they so strongly deny publicist involvement. The way they’ve pushed things in the past hasn’t been great (“Larry is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard!” in particular… No matter WHAT you believe the nature of Harry and Louis’ relationship to be, that was unnecessarily aggressive).

And the fact that they try to say they’re personally the only ones with access to their accounts? PLEASE. That’s just insulting to think people would be thick enough to believe that. Literally every significant company in the world has a social media team, even ones with only a few thousand Twitter followers. And in particular, every /celebrity/ in the world has a social media team. You’re trying to tell me that the one exception to that rule, the one exception to the completely standard industry practise of publicity-managed Twitter accounts is the biggest band on the planet? Really? 109 MILLION combined Twitter followers, and you expect people to believe that they’re in control of their own accounts? That’s absolutely absurd. OF COURSE they’re not in control of their own Twitter accounts.

Oh, I’m totally aware that it might not be the case. I’m just interpreting the things that I see as I see them happening. People are 100% free to disagree with me (and I know some people do), and that’s fine. It’s just what I personally see happening by looking at the press trends, especially the recent ones.

I do want to make myself clear about the whole Niall thing, though, because I think my ideas may have gotten a bit twisted by a few people. I don’t think they’re trying to appeal to an exclusively “macho straight beer drinking mid-20s he-man” or anything. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I just think that, to me, it makes sense why they would choose Niall at this stage in the game. He has the widest general appeal, because there aren’t any preconceived ideas that come along with him, like the womaniser image or the bad boy thing. They can make him into anyone they want, or they can leave him as he is but put a spotlight on him.

Zayn doesn’t seem to particularly want the spotlight, a few people have pointed out that Liam doesn’t have a great history when it comes to handling the sort of tabloid gossip he might be levelled with if he were suddenly the face of the band, and, as I’ve said before, I think one of the big reasons they would be switching frontmen would be to draw focus from Harry’s relationship, which is why I think Louis would be an unlikely candidate.

One thing I do want to say, though, is that I really disagree that the frontman always happens naturally. It looks natural to most people, but that’s because they MAKE it look natural. These things are planned out months in advance and press strategies are executed very carefully in order to keep people from noticing that they’re being swayed in one way or another. There is some amount of the person’s own personality that goes into the choice, though, and I think Harry’s charisma and charm made him the most obvious choice for them to push for a long time.

But I also think he’s grown tired of the attention, not least because it brings loads of unwanted speculation about his love life, and I think he seems ready for the spotlight to shift off of him for a while. The kid needs a bit of a break, and if making Niall (or anyone else!) into the frontman can give him that, then maybe that’s what they’re going to do.

Having Harry sit in on an interview like that, where it’s basically just Niall talking, makes more people watch it and makes sure that articles will be written about it, because at this point, Harry's still mostly the frontman. This is still fairly early days in whatever shift they’re making, so they’re not going to start doing loads of solo Niall interviews. It’s too soon. But if you get an interview like that, where it’s mostly just Niall talking, that’s going to plant itself subconsciously in the back of your mind. Over time, people will start to think of Niall as the face of the band, even if he’s sitting right next to Harry.