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Boy Band Weed Watch: Dull One Direction Make Smoking Marijuana Uncool

by | 2nd, June 2014

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THE video of One Direction members Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson smoking weed has been shared a million times on the internet and a number of op-ed pieces have fretted over the band’s reputation and the potential for the band misleading their fans into doing naughty things.

So, let us look at each in turn.

Will One Direction’s reputation be shredded by all this? Clearly not. The headlines that shrieked about drugs could’ve been re-written as ‘Young men smoke weed, like loads of other young people do’. Or indeed, the headlines could’ve said ‘Is weed really uncool now that boybands are smoking it? Even Bradley from S Club was caught smoking weed’.

Fact is, if you hear that someone’s been smoking joints, you’d have to be a god-fearing police sergeant or outraged-by-everything busybody to even muster up the energy to care. Of all the drugs, weed is barely a blip on the radar. Besides, young pop fans are pretty savvy and know that the entertainment industry is filled with people who take drugs.

Which leads us to: Are One Direction fans all going to start taking drugs now?

Well, a lot of the media pressed CTRL+V on Directioners’ tweets, where they were saying things like ‘I want to try weed’ or ‘I’d love to get baked with Zayn’ or whatever. You could bet your house (Ha! Like anyone has a mortgage any more) that most young people have thought about drugs in some shape or form. ‘I like the idea of getting high’ is often coupled with ‘but I’m too anxious to actually do it and find a dealer and I don’t know how to physically smoke a cigarette yet’.

Wanting to take drugs is barely the same as actually taking drugs.

To anyone who has seen the video, one thing is for certain – weed is definitely not being glamorised. In it, you hear Louis Tomlinson being the squarest human on the planet, bleating on about “illegal substances” and saying: “So here we are, leaving Peru. Joint lit. Happy days!” He may as well have shouted “LOOK! I’M ONE OF THE COOL KIDS NOW!”, bless him.

And furthermore, marijuana isn’t illegal to possess (in small amounts) in Peru, so they’re not even breaking the law as they giggle at passing policemen.

If, somehow, you’ve missed the clip, watch it here. Soon, it’ll dawn on you and the real story isn’t about the band’s rep (which has inevitably improved if anything) or the young impressionable minds of the fans, but rather, this:

Never, ever film yourself stoned because it makes you sound like a dribbling div.

 



Posted: 2nd, June 2014 | In: Music Comment | TrackBack | Permalink