This past weekend, “One Direction: This is Us” opened in theaters and replaced “The Butler” as number one in the box office. One Direction is a boy band whose fan base consists of mostly teenage girls. When it comes to a teenage girl and her obsessions, there is very little that will stop them from being the ultimate fan. I’ve seen this a lot over the past couple of years.
In June of 2011, Justin Beiber had a concert in Rockefeller Center. The night before the concert, there were already hundreds of teenage girls in line who were going to camp out all night just to see the show. That same year, Channing Tatum was to appear on a couple of talk shows in New York to promote a film. In the morning, he went to “Live! With Kelly” for an interview. I was there for the show and what I witnessed was insanity. Waiting for him, outside the studio, were hundreds of screaming girls trying to get his autograph and a picture with him. Later that same day, he had an interview a few blocks away at the NBC show “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Some of the same teenage girls that had been waiting for him at “Live! With Kelly” were also waiting for him there. When his car left the studio, they ran after the car down the streets of New York City.
This past summer Demi Lovato was to have a concert on Good Morning America in Central Park. I walked past the park the morning of the show and there was an immense line that extended out of the park! These are just a few of the occasions where I have witnessed the intensity of teenage girls when they are really passionate about something. That being said, it is no surprised that “One Direction: This is Us” grossed $17 million dollars and became number one at the box office. I can only imagine how packed theaters, across the nation, were with teenage girls that had ordered their tickets the instant they became available.