Table of Contents
In the lead up to the album “Harry’s House” being released, there was a lot of promo involved. Some…not so great, to the point some would ignore it when it happened. Some were worthy of an obsession level of amazing. And everywhere else in between.
The Door
One of the most major parts of “Harry’s House” promo (in fact Harry used the door as a part to actually announce the album) officially began on March 18 (though had been noticed by some especially observant fans 2-3 weeks prior), this was the Youarehome.co and the associated Twitter account. Over the course of two months, the YouAreHome Twitter account would tweet something vague, as the website would reload and start opening to a new image everyday at noon EDT. Everyday fans all over the world would sit reloading the Twitter and/or website to see what “The Door” as they call it would be that day. While the door lasted two full months of daily content, we’ll only touch on five of the most impactful.
The Start
On March 19 (the day after the account had tweeted you are home), something unexpected happened. At noon EST the door that had been fixed shut for weeks opened partially, revealing a drawing of some sort of plant (later discovered to be the cover of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s book Nature and Selected Essays), and the account tweeted “the door is open, come on in”, sending the fandom into an immediate frenzy over the unexpectedness of the door opening. It was the beginning of an era, and something irreplaceable in fan’s hearts. Something, in the words of Harry himself, they “maybe don’t know what’s lost til you find it”,
A Fan’s Photo
On April 3 something fan’s believed to be unmatchable in loudness (little did they know) was behind the door. That door’s image was a photo of a rainbow boa, seemingly taken from the US leg of HSLOT (the tweet was “just wear the feathers” but in the grand scheme of things, that became unimportant in comparison). Already this was seemingly very loud-using [another] image of a rainbow for the door. But things only got louder. Quickly a fan noticed that the photo was identical to a photo they’d taken. Harry had used her photo for the door. The loud part? She is a No Stunt Larrie. And randomly HLDaily (an infamously suspicious Harry and Louis update account) tweeted stating that the image was the fan’s, they had never tweeted about what was behind the door before and never did it again.
We interviewed the fan, who would like to be credited as Cat K, her Twitter is @loutoinfinity
Interviewer (Alter): “Can we use the full pic?”
Cat: “Yes of course!”
Alter: “Where did you take it?”
Cat: “The pit at Uncasville CT night 2!”
Alter: “How did you fall in love with Harry?”
Cat: “I became interested in Harry’s music and everything he stood for when I saw how incredibly warm and welcoming the environment he created was. There really isn’t anything like the freedom one feels when at a Harry Styles show or while being in his presence, and I think that entire atmosphere of just how genuinely kind and loving he is truly defines how many people come to find comfort in his presence. His new album could not have had more perfect connotations as I believe we really all do find ourselves home while being a fan of his, and for that I will always be grateful.”
Alter: “How did it feel to have the picture behind the door? “
Cat: “Absolutely surreal. Never in a million years would I have thought that any of my work would be recognized by anyone more than my Twitter following, nevermind end up associated with Harry himself and the promo account for Harry’s House.”
Alter: “What was the freakout like from your friends and moots?”
Cat: “It was insane! Most people actually knew before I even did since I had been away from my phone when it happened. I came back around 45 minutes after the door was updated and my phone was entirely flooded with notifications from Twitter followers, both old and new. Once I got online I truly could not even comprehend what had happened, I think it took about a week for me to even understand the extent of what that really meant. The few hours after I saw the notifications I kind of just sat on my couch staring at all the notifications, genuinely just wondering how I ended up here.”
Cat’s Photo The Door
Loudest Day Yet
It having already been a hectic proof filled year, fans doubted things could get even louder. On April 13 they were proven very, VERY, wrong. Starting with the door, things only got louder as the day progressed and people realized more. The Door tweeted “half way home”. Two weeks prior Louis had registered the song “Halfway Home”. Fans IMMEDIATELY made the connection that the Door (which Harry controls) had just tweeted a Louis song (half way home was later learned to be a lyric in Harry’s song ‘Boyfriends’). Behind the door was an image of flamingos, which added to the list of monogamous animals used for the door, particularly an animal whose flock is called a ‘flamboyance.’ Then the connections came. First, we were halfway through Harry and Louis’ collective tour (combining their entire tour schedule, starting at the first date, ending on the last, we were in the middle), we were 28% of the way through 2022, the 28th YouAreHome tweet would be made the next day, and it was the day before the 7 anniversary of Home being written (7 and Home being infamously Larry), on HLD’s promo calendar, for the next day there was an image of a house, and we were halfway between the start of YAH newspaper ads, and the release of Harry’s House.
Then because Harry and Louis seemingly have a competition going on of who can out gay the other, Louis just had to be louder than normal for his show. By singing Change. Change is an unreleased song of Louis’ that had been taken off of the setlist for tour. Particularly, Change ended up replacing Just Hold On on the setlist. The song with the title lyric being “Everything’s changed outside, but I still feel the same inside” replaced “Darling, just hold on.” Change replaced Just Hold On. For fans this felt like Louis’ way of saying, “You don’t have to hold on anymore, a change is coming.”
Is It The End
On May 18, the unrealized two month anniversary of the start, fan’s were concerned that with the album dropping in two days the Door would be over the next day. Instead, at noon, ‘you are home’ was tweeted. And instead of the usual image being behind, it was a transparent background, with the option to create your own door. Quickly fans connected that it was the same tweet that started it all, and not having a usual door meant it likely was the end, just a day earlier than predicted.
Goodnight
Still, the next day, fans flocked to Twitter and the website in the hopes it wasn’t actually the end. As the clock hit noon they sat on the edges of their seats, refreshing again and again. With each passing second they became more frantic refusing to believe the thing they had clung to for two months was actually gone. Some even tweeted at the account begging that they were just a minute late (as they had been once before). Slowly realizing no tweet was coming, they migrated to the site hoping maybe something had happened there. And the realization that came with it was even worse. Like before 3/18, when you tapped on the door, it didn’t open. And even worse, the light dimmed. Harry was no longer in his house, the door was locked – we were no longer welcome inside – and the lights were out.
Harry had said goodnight.
“Pick Someone Supportive”
Over the course of Harry’s House promo, Louis would go out of his way to prove his role of supportive and proud husband.
The same day that Harry’s movie ‘My Policeman’ first screened, Louis had a show in Los Angeles, at which he wore a shirt with the initials TB on it. Harry’s character’s name is Tom Burgess.
The day Harry announced the album (March 23), at his Reykjavik show Louis wore a shirt with the word “Maison” on the chest. Maison means home/house in French.
The day ‘As It Was’ was announced, posters were put up all over the world with a black and white image of Harry, and a blue image with “It’s not the same as it was” written on it in a checkerboard pattern. The next day at Louis’ show in Copenhagen, his shirt looked suspiciously similar to that of the posters.
On May 21 Louis performed in Buenos Aires (the day after Harry’s House came out) wearing a shirt with the Harry’s House colours (yellow, orange, and blue). Three days later Harry did his performance in the BBC studio wearing a shirt with a similar pattern of the same colours.
While there were many more examples, these were just some of the most noticeable.
Stern
When it had been announced that Harry would be going on the Howard Stern show, it’s safe to say there was some outrage. Many believed that the previous time Harry had been on the show it had been an uncomfortable experience for him, due to Stern asking inappropriate questions and saying insensitive things. Still has the interview came closer, some began to be more hopeful about how the interview would go, believing that Stern would bring up certain topics allowing Harry to speak on certain things we wanted (a common thought was that Stern would bring up Louis in some capacity allowing Harry to potentially say they still talk, or would bring up Wilde and open the possibility of denying they were together).
Although there were moments in the interview that went just as bad as expected, if not worse, there were some points where exactly what was hoped for happened.
Taylor Swift
As was somewhat predicted, Stern asked about the connection from Harry’s song Daylight to Swift’s. And proving Harry is in fact capable of denying that songs are about a person, he gave Stern a hard no.
Stern: *mentions Swift’s song Daylight*
Harry: “Here we go.”
When asked if the song was about TS: “You’re reading too much into it, yeah. You know I’d love to tell you that you’re spot on, but I can’t. No, sorry.”
S: *says he wonders who the song is about*
H: “Well you will always wonder.”
Medicine
Medicine is a widely loved unreleased song of Harry’s, though he only performs it live, on rare occasions. A large part of why the song is loved is that it has lyrics that very clearly point to bisexuality, namely, “The boys and the girls are in / I mess around with him.” And while it was never been directly confirmed what the lyric/song is about, Harry came rather close during the Interview.
Stern: “A song like Medicine seems to be really important for people who either want to come out of the closet, or are having trouble with being accepted for their sexuality. Is that a fair statement, you think?”
Harry: “I’d say yeah that’s definitely a part of it in there. Yeah.”
One Direction
Harry did not hesitate when talking about the other boys, rather quickly shutting down the belief there was bad blood within them.
Stern: “You guys still talk?”
Harry: “Yeah, yeah we do.”
“I think there’s so much love between us, I think we kind of went through something together and I think it’s something that no one else, no one went through that specific thing and we did that together.”
“There’s a huge amount of respect there for each other and a lot of love for everything that we did and I’m proud of everything that we achieved.”
Rumors
Likely bordering on being most important to fans, like they had hoped would happen, Harry was asked about Wilde, giving him the opportune chance to deny rumors they’re together, and that’s pretty much what he did.
Stern: “You feel in love on a movie set?” (implying Harry is in love with Wilde)
Harry: “I had a wonderful experience being directed by Olivia.” (implies Wilde is only his director to him.)
Zane Lowe
In contrast to the reaction to Harry going on the Stern Show, hearing Harry would have an interview with Zane Lowe was very happy news to fans. The previous interview being one of their favorites, they were incredibly hopeful this interview would go just as well, if not better as last time.
“This is my favourite album. I love it so much.”
“It felt like it took on this whole new meaning & it was about a day in my house, what do I go through? A day in my mind, what do I go through? In my house I’m playing fun music, sad music, joy, pain, a day in my life.”
“As I started making the album I realized it wasn’t about the geographical location, it was more of an internal thing.”
“In the spirit of what Harry’s House is about, it started as a literal idea, very on the nose. I wanted to make an acoustic EP and make it all in my house and make it really intimate.”
“My favourite thing of this album is that whilst it’s so different, it was very much made with the same intent as Fine Line.”
Today Show
On May 19, Harry performed on the Today Show. For the rehearsal he came onstage in a denim on denim ensemble. Immediately fans took note of two things. First, the denim jacket he was wearing was very reminiscent of a certain jacket Louis had worn throughout the 1D days and all the way into 2017 (said jacket was affectionately nicknamed “the boyfriend jacket” so all over Twitter fans were screaming about the “yassified boyfriend jacket.”) Second, Harry was wearing a certain ring. A ring that holds a lot of symbolism to fans, and seemingly also to Harry. A ring he hadn’t worn since September 7, 2021 at his show in Denver – at which he wore a blue and white striped shirt, red pants and suspenders, very reminiscent of 2012 Louis Tomlinson. This ring is a simple band with the word “PEACE” engraved on the outside. Harry’s worn the ring since 2013 (it replaced a plain black band he’d been wearing before) and always on his right middle finger. It was one of the first rings he ever wore, and fans believe it to have been a gift (possibly a promise or even engagement ring) from Louis. For years Harry was seldom seen without the Peace Ring, until over the course of time he wore it less and less until it became a very rare occurrence fans would get incredibly happy over. So it’s safe to say seeing the peace ring back after more than 200 days combined with a pseudo boyfriend jacket, made the day fantastic for fans.
After rehearsal, for the actual show, Harry came back onstage wearing a yellow and black striped jumpsuit, and performed songs both from Fine Line and Harry’s House.
AIW Release
Harry went on multiple radio shows the day As It Was was released, but of all the airtime, there were two more noticeable moments.
While talking about ‘My Policeman,’ gay sex got brought up and Harry stated “I had never done that before, on-uhm-on camera at least I don’t think.” Confirming that he had had gay sex before, just never on camera. This was later edited out of the show.
The other notable moment was when logging onto Zoom for one of the shows, his Zoom name appeared, saying simply “TS”. The only reasonable explanation for this that fans could come up with was that it was a shared Zoom account for Louis and him, where they simply had the name set as TS for Tomlinson-Styles, which Harry had forgotten to switch it from. It was later covered up by the radio to have been a joke that it was for Tarry Styles.
While there was much much more promo involved for the album, these were just the highlights.
