Most of November, all of December, and through the first weeks of January, there hasn’t been much happening in the Larry world. Both Harry and Louis have been on breaks and it’s been relatively quiet for the most part. During these quiet spells, it can be difficult to keep focused on being a supportive base for both Harry and Louis, and also for each other too. The devil makes work for idle hands, and that is certainly true in the online world. When there’s a long break such as this one, people can begin to argue or be upset over things they wouldn’t usually worry about. It can be difficult and lonely which can often lead to discontent in the fandom. In times such as these, it’s important we remember the fun moments that we enjoyed as a fandom, of the times we came together to enjoy and support Harry and Louis. There are several people in the fandom who are amazing at keeping up everyone’s positivity levels, including Hannah, or @boyfriendspark, as she’s known as on X (formally known as Twitter).
Hannah, a 25-year-old One Direction fan and Larrie from the US, has been a popular and prominent figure in the fandom over the years. Her posts are always upbeat and fun, engaging many fellow fans and generally spreading an infectious and much needed positivity throughout the fandom. Luckily for No Stunts Magazine, Hannah has generously agreed to give up some of their time to answer some questions on their time in the fandom and their much loved X posts.
Hannah has been a fan of the boys since the early days, as far back as 2011/2012. She was in the 8th grade and sitting with a friend for lunch who happened to be a fan and showed Hannah a picture of the boys in their onesies all zipped up, claiming she could guess who was who without seeing their faces. Hannah was intrigued and searched for One Direction on Youtube when she got home, only to be sucked into a fandom that would last for years to come. Although Hannah is definitely a Larrie, she was a One Direction fan first. Although they both kind of happened around the same time, it was listening to their first album Up All Night album which had her hooked. In particular, I Should’ve Kissed You, which was released as a B-side to their 3rd single One Thing, caused Hannah to ‘fall in love with them.’
After listening to the album, Hannah watched the video diaries, any X Factor content, and any One Direction content on Youtube. While watching the video diaries, she quickly noticed the dynamic between Harry and Louis and became interested. Hannah explained that ‘I remember the entire fandom openly talking about Larry as a bromance and most people liked it for either their friendship or because they thought it was romantic as well. There wasn’t so much of a divide, we kind of all just loved their bond.’ The more she watched Harry and Louis interact, the more she believed there was more than just friendship between the two boys, and quickly became a Larrie. ‘One of my first instagram posts was the first Larry hug on X Factor…I’d say I’ve been a Larrie since 2012 for sure.’
Once Hannah had fallen in love with the boys, she couldn’t wait to finally see them live. In 2013, she saw One Direction for the first time in Pittsburgh during the ‘Take Me Home’ tour, citing it as ‘a life changing show.’ She sat right away at the top of the stadium but said she didn’t mind because she enjoyed it so much. She saw the boys again in 2014 in Philadelphia during the ‘Where We Are’ tour. Unfortunately, Hannah and her mum were involved in a minor car accident on the way to the show and her neck was sore with whiplash, but she pretended to be fine because ‘there was no way I was going to miss that show.’ We really can’t blame Hannah for this as many of us would have done the same thing! Lastly, she saw One Direction in 2015 for the ‘On The Road Again’ tour in Buffalo. It was her first time having a floor seat ticket and she remembers she ‘lost my mind when Harry picked up a pride flag on my side of the stage.’ That must have been a very special and formative moment in Hannah’s fan experience and I’m sure everyone in the fandom is a little bit jealous.
Other than seeing One Direction, Hannah has also seen Harry, Niall, and Louis live. She saw Harry at Philadelphia for ‘Live On Tour’ and at MSG for three nights of the ‘Love On Tour’ residency. During Hannah’s final residency show, she and her friends were lucky enough to secure a spot at the barricade. She remembers how she threw Harry her flower sunglasses during Cinema. Although Harry tried to catch them – we all know how amazing he is at catching these things! – he missed and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ to Hannah before continuing with his show. Understandably, Hannah says she felt she ‘blacked out’ at that moment! We would have too!
In 2023, Hannah admits to going ‘a little crazy’ and attended 10 Faith In The Future World Tour shows! She listed the shows she attended for us –
‘In 2023, I went a little crazy with going to shows. I went to 10 FITFWT shows this year…I can’t believe I did that. To recap, I went to Toronto, Red Rocks, Maryland, Boston (both nights), New Jersey, Forest Hills, Brighton, London, and Birmingham. Yes, I do count Red Rocks because it was a planned concert trip and I have hail trauma to prove I was there HAHAHA. Honestly, I think because of what happened at Red Rocks, that made me so persistent with wanting to see Louis at so many other shows because when I went to Red Rocks, I didn’t have any further FITFWT tickets for future shows.‘
When asked about her popularity within the Larrie fandom, Hannah seemed to be shy and modest when talking about it. Although she has over 9,000 followers and often has a large amount of engagement with her posts, she still feels surprised that so many people like and interact with her. She told No Stunts Magazine ‘I’ve been here a long time and I’ve always just been in my own little corner just being my rat self and suddenly so many people see everything I say online.’ Although it’s a little surreal, Hannah says there are ‘tons of positives that have come from it,’ such as encouraging people to engage in some really fun interactions and the popularity means that she can reach more people with her posts than before. One slight drawback she mentions is that she never knows how her posts will be taken, and sometimes she will say something that can end up upsetting some people or causing a little drama. She expands on this, stating, ‘I wish no one would ever take my tweets seriously and that we could all understand that I’m just a girl who really loves One Direction and I’m a huge rat and that’s all.’ However, no matter how much accidental drama is occasionally caused, Hannah always remains positive, taking any criticism in her stride and with good humour.
Since they’re such a loved part of the fandom at the moment, we had to take this opportunity to ask Hannah about her bracket posts where fellow fans vote on different things. We asked Hannah where she got the idea to create the voting brackets from and she said it was inspired by the Larrie Awards. Although people voted, the results were never shared due to some drama and comments made by some people that were upsetting. She said that it seemed such fun and decided to make her own version of it, stating ‘we’re such a big community and I think a lot of times we get too wrapped up in our differences instead of celebrating the things we all enjoy.’ Thus, the idea of voting on all things One Direction and the boy’s solo careers was born.
Although it may look simple, Hannah told us just how much work goes into creating each voting bracket. Apparently, it can take half an hour just to create the post thread with all of the polls to be voted on. Thankfully, she found a website that helps when creating the brackets themselves, stating ‘making a bracket has gotten quicker, but when I first started it would take me a few hours.’ We had no idea that the posts, which are a bit of levity and fun within the fandom, required such hard work from Hannah!
The most recent poll – the One Direction reunion setlist – raked in 500 responses, which is huge for one poll. When we asked if she ever thought her posts would be so popular, Hannah responded that ‘it’s really fun seeing everyone get involved in it, just as much as I am,’ adding that it’s ‘overwhelming’ and ‘blows my mind.’ When asked what her favourite poll so far was, Hannah confessed it was the 128 Larry moments bracket that claims that spot. Although, she also confessed she loved the One Direction discography bracket too. Hannah stated, ‘I loved compiling that huge list of larry moments and watching a bracket that big with so many individual battles.”
One particular poll Hannah recently held was where people had to finish popular ‘Larry/One Direction-isms. We asked if she had a personal favourite from the options, and it turns out Hannah has a soft spot for the phrase ‘that’s beautiful, Harry,’ and finds herself saying it whenever the occasion calls for it. Also, Hannah said she loves their sign language interaction with the thumbs up always towards each other to symbolise ‘sweethearts,’ as well as the very cute nose scrunches they both do so often.
In view of the many difficult choices participants often have to make when voting in Hannah’s brackets, we decided to give Hannah a difficult choice of her own for fun! We asked Hannah which of all the One Direction and solo songs was her favourite. It was rather funny to see Hannah’s response which was typed all in capitals –
‘WHAT SORT OF QUESTION IS THIS. YOU’RE ASKING ME, SOMEONE WHO HAS LOVED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE SONGS MORE THAN ANY OTHER MUSIC FOR THE LAST DECADE TO CHOOSE ONLY ONE OF THOSE VERY SONGS AS MY “FAVOURITE”??????????? HOW????????? HOW WOULD I EVEN ATTEMPT TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION I LITERALLY– I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO FORMULATE A RESPONSE.’
To be fair to Hannah, it was a rather difficult and slightly unfair question to ask when there are so many amazing options to choose from. The response certainly made us chuckle, though.
Interestingly, it isn’t just fun posts and voting brackets that Hannah enjoys. She also loves to spend some of her time reading some of the many fantastic fanfictions available within the fandom. We asked which fanfic in particular was her favourite, and her response was Scintillating by Scrunchyharry, which can be found at the following link – https://archiveofourown.org/works/7835881/chapters/17888563. Hannah confessed that ‘this one feels the most all encompassing to me of so many elements that I enjoy. Young, innocent, pure, fluffy, magical love mixed with real life struggles that get thrown your way mixed with chasing your dreamed turned into not what you expected mixed with famous/non-famous mixed with angst and a POV switch in the middle of the story that allows you to get a full rounded perspective of both characters and their feelings/motives.’ Scintillating is certainly a popular choice, boasting over 900 kudos and over 51,000 hits! If you haven’t read this fiction, we recommend giving it a go!
Lastly, we wanted to end the interview on a fun note, and so asked Hannah 3 silly but fun questions, as can be seen below –
Q1. If you were locked in an escape room with Harry, Louis, Liam, Niall, and Zayn, who do you think would be the most/least useful and what would their strengths be?
A – Would you get out of the escape room or be locked in there forever?
My instinct is to say that Niall would be the least helpful because of how he reacted to the fake giving birth prank but he went to a little escape room on James Corden and he wasn’t too bad. I don’t think Louis would be able to take it seriously for a second and would just mess around with everything, so I think he’d probably be the least helpful. I think Liam and Harry would be the most helpful, I think they’d both have lots of ideas and start trying things without consulting everyone else but would end up figuring things out for the team! And Zayn would just be vibing, he’d probably lowkey figure out the hardest part out of nowhere and save us all. I think we’d make it out in the end. I think it would be complete chaos until the last 15 minutes but as time got down everyone would lock in and they’re just a solid team when they really focus in on it. They work great together.
Q2. Who is your favourite superhero and which of the boys would you cast to play them if you had to?
A – Honestly, I have never been into superheroes. It just never was a concept that struck a chord with me, never grabbed my attention. I guess I’d have to say cat girl maybe? Because there’s nothing better than a bad bitch . And obviously, if I’m casting anyone as cat girl it is going to be Louis Tomlinson.
Q3. You’re a bartender and the boys all ask you to make them a random cocktail based on how they look – which cocktails would you make which boy?
A – Oh God, I’m not the best with cocktails. I literally only drink margaritas on the rare occasion that I do drink when I’m out. Let’s see…
Niall – Guinness (I mean I can’t really fathom giving him anything other than beer and if I’m going with a beer it’s gonna be Guinness)
Louis – Quaddy Voddy Red Bull obviously (Liam has talked about this drink being the Tommo classic back in the day and said they’d drink one before/after shows sometimes. It’s quadruple parts vodka and red bull mixed together)
Liam – Mixloshe (hoping I spelled that right but with Liam’s discussions of sobriety I wouldn’t feel right giving him an alcoholic drink and I’m sure he loves these anyways)
Zayn – Whiskey Sour (he gives me big whiskey vibes for some reason. Just sit back with a small glass sipping while singing angelically, making music. I see the vibe)
Harry – Green Tea Shot (I just feel like this suits him so well and he seems like a shot kind of person to me)
No Stunts Magazine thanks Hannah for taking time to answer our questions. The interview was a lot of fun and Hannah’s answers have been so detailed and, at times, hilarious. She’s certainly a staple in the Larry fandom and we hope she still will be in years to come!
