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Project Home: One Direction Fans Take Over The Internet With Social Media Campaign

By Sara Hunter Smith
Published on: 13:51 PST, Apr 23, 2016

Project Home has been trending all day on Twitter, but do you know why? It’s all down to a devoted group of One Direction fans, and like anything to do with 1D, it’s over the top, kind of wild, and definitely awesome.

According to the official site, Project Home was created “to promote the song ‘Home.’ The fan release of the song is on APRIL 29 after a week of promo leading up to it.” People are encouraged to contact radio stations around the world and request that the song be played on air. Also, a Spotify playlist has been created, and it is hoped that this, plus the airplay, will help “Home” to conquer the charts.

But Project Home is not just about fans getting their favorite song on air while One Direction is on hiatus. The project means much more than that. “Home” has given hope to thousands of people and has helped keep the “family” together during the band’s hiatus, which began this January. “Home” has been said to have a particular meaning to LGBTQA* followers of One Direction.

“Home” first appeared on the One Direction EP Perfect, which was released in October, 2015, shortly before the group’s fifth album Made In The A.M. came out on November 13.

Perfect contained four songs; two remixes of the eponymous hit single, a remix of the group’s hit “Drag Me Down,” and “Home.” Although fans were gearing up for the Made in The A.M. release, “Home” quickly caught the imagination of fans worldwide. This was in no small part to the efforts of band member Louis Tomlinson, who wrote the song along with Liam Payne, also in One Direction, and singer/songwriter Jamie Scott.

Tomlinson first got social media interested with some cryptic tweets.

“Home,” with its lilting melody and pre-chorus sang with startlingly high notes by Harry Styles, is worlds away from One Direction’s biggest hits like “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Best Song Ever.” Its far more grown-up than “Little Things” or even “Story Of My Life,” and much like Made In The A.M. itself, marks a change for the group who are trying to outgrow their boyband roots.

Project Home is a well-organized campaign. Some would say the 1D promo team could learn a lot from it. The project has the usual social media channels, but also the added “fandom” requisites. These include art designed by fans, YouTube videos and anecdotes of what One Direction, and “Home” in particular, mean to its legion of followers.

Project Home isn’t the first fan-led campaign to propel a 1D song into the charts. Project No Control, organized in early 2015, successfully shot “No Control,” another Tomlinson/Payne song, into the realm of the general public.

One Direction Fans Launch Campaign To Promote Unreleased Song
Liam Payne And Louis Tomlinson [Photo by Luca Teuchmann/Getty Images]
As reported by LA Weekly,“the anti-symbiotic relationship between One Direction’s fans and the band’s label and management has culminated in a huge push on the part of fans to release a third single off of the band’s latest album Four…the campaign has inspired 1D fans to take their favorite band’s career into their own hands. ”

Tomlinson commented on Project No Control during an appearance on The Late Late Show With James Corden.

“It’s pretty incredible, actually…it’s been A-listed [put into heavy rotation] at radio stations all across the world, because of these amazing fans.”

“No Control” even won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Party Song in 2015 — incredible for an album-only track, and it was featured in the hugely popular “Carpool Karaoke” segment of Corden’s show. All thanks to the No Control project.

The commitment of 1D fans to Project Home is demonstrative of the close connection they have with Louis, Harry, Liam, and Niall Horan. One Direction have been heavily involved in social media interaction with their followers ever since their first appearances as a group on The X Factor in 2010.

Since then, the lads have gone on to pretty much dominate the world of popular music, but they have never forgotten their connection with followers, or the importance of fan service. While fans of One Direction are often presented as being teenage girls, in fact a wide range of genders and ages are represented among their vast fan-base.

Despite many rumors to the contrary, all four members of 1D have insisted that the group will return after their hiatus, which is simply a well-deserved rest after a solid five years of albums, world tours, and everything in between.

Project Home will undoubtedly succeed, if the passion of the 1D fandom has anything to do with it. At the time of publishing the #projecthome hashtag had close to one million tweets. That is dedication to four ordinary British (and Irish) lads and the love they share with the fans.

“We are so thankful for your support and enthusiasm. This is for One Direction!”

[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]

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