Words: Rebecca Frazer

For most people, the week beginning the 24th January 2022 wasn’t out of the ordinary. But for the fans of Harry Styles, it marked a week full of realisation and harsh truths. As every single ticket to the newly announced European and South American legs of Love on Tour sold out, including two shows at Wembley stadium (the second biggest stadium in Europe), a fact seemed to become very apparent to all of us—Harry Styles is actually famous. 

That may sound like a silly admission to some people. One fifth of the world’s biggest boyband, a man who has an array of accolades under his belt—including a Grammy—and brushing shoulders with the most notable singers in the industry, whilst balancing an acting career on the side. Of course he’s famous. But the success of Fine Line has propelled him from simple stardom into the history books forever. And now, it’s not just his most dedicated fans that adore him, but those casual listeners too. The ones who enjoy listening to Watermelon Sugar on the radio or seeing him on the cover of Vogue. The ones who couldn’t tell you a single One Direction song other than What Makes You Beautiful. 

It’s a hard pill to swallow.

Maybe that has something to do with his beginnings. Picture the scene. You’re a teenager in the early twenty-tens and you stumble across a One Direction compilation video on YouTube. Next thing you know, you’ve dedicated your life to the curly headed, cheeky one and endure all of the teasing and ribbing from your friends about being so ridiculously in love with him. Fast forward to the hiatus period—you’re still in love, still dedicating your time to anything Harry Styles related and then he announces new solo music and alongside it, his first ever solo tour, in humble theatres and auditoriums for those fans who were still there with him. You’re still getting teased for obsessively loving him, still getting eye rolls from people when you say he’s one of the most talented artists of a generation, but it’s okay because you know the truth.

But something shifts around the release of Lights Out in 2019. You see people who have never been interested in Harry before beginning to take notice. You see more articles about him, more trends on Twitter about him. Those same people who used to tease you for loving the band are now posting his songs to their Instagram stories. And when Fine Line comes out and the music videos for the array of singles are released one by one, you realise that the number of fans he possesses has now grown astronomically. No longer are you trying to defend him as a solo artist or feeling like part of a rare club when you wear his merch. Now you’re part of a wider group of fans and you feel like yelling “I was here first!” into the void, because it’s true. 

Don’t get us wrong, Harry becoming more popular is wholly deserved. His hard work and dedication to honing his craft, as well as his alluring personality, has always meant that he was destined to end up a star. Finally, people are recognising what we’ve always seen too. But there’s a sadness in that realisation too. With more people comes more demand. Fans now outnumber concert tickets available. Merch is snapped up in an instant. Even the magazines he appears on the covers of are ridiculously hard to get copies of. With the extra fame comes the greater feeling that you are having to battle for your place. 

The newly announced legs of tour selling out was proof that it is now harder to be a Harry Styles fan than it was a couple of years ago. Gone is the safety of knowing that you’ll secure a spot at his next concert. And, naturally, there’s a bit of resentment at the thought that people who haven’t been a fan as long as you—who didn’t vote for the band on the X-Factor, who didn’t memorise every vine he made or who didn’t attend his first ever shows in theatres—are now jumping ahead of you in the metaphorical queue. It’s only normal to feel protective over the individual whose songs have saved you and whose videos have put a smile onto your face when you desperately needed them. It’s normal to feel annoyed that there is no veteran’s discount for those of us who have been here from the start.

But on the other hand, we’re getting what we’ve always wanted. More people to recognise Harry for the artist and individual he is. No longer do people scoff when he’s mentioned in the list of greats. Now, they nod and agree. He’s regarded highly on every list he’s included on—whether it’s about fashion sense or acting abilities. The list of record-breaking achievements keeps growing, the latest being that he is on track to be the first X-Factor star to sell out a stadium tour. He’s now a household name and not just someone your mum hears about all the time. He really is, in every sense of the word, successful. A dream for all of us who always recognised his potential.

So, despite the urge to gatekeep him, maybe we should see this increase of attention and popularity as a good thing. Because it means that when we do get to see him, or listen to his new music, or watch him in a new movie, it’s even more special. We can smile and know that we were there alongside him throughout his whole journey. That every vote and every tweet and every album we bought helped him to this point. And now, we’re all reaping the benefits of it. 

Gatekeeping Harry is fun. But watching the world fall in love with him is even better.