Sold To One Direction 

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I'm glad that the One Direction fandom collectively agreed "Yeah, I could see them engaging in human trafficking."

"My name is Indigo Charisma. You sold me to One Direction. Prepare to die."

Do you ever just put your long blonde hair in a messy bun as you stare at your aqua orbs and then you throw on a hoodie and go downstairs and your alcoholic mother tells you she sold you to one direction to fund her drinking habit and then you stare into Harry’s amethyst orbs and I have no clue what happens after that

"My name is Indigo Charisma" broke every rib in my torso on impact, killing me instantly and sending me straight to the part of hell where all the sexiest girls and gays are

I am completely sure that the first "Sold to XYZ" fanfiction predates the internet. There was absolutely some poor, repressed 19th century boy who picked up his quill and wrote a story about a faceless self-insert slave being sold to Heracles or some other mythological hero instead of doing his Latin homework. Sadly, these works probably have not survived to the present day but I'm keeping my eyes open whenever reading old manuscripts. If looking at old texts has taught me one thing, it is that people have always been the same.

I saw this and immediately thought of that tumblr post that's like "one direction didn't want me so my mom sold me to oingo boingo" "why would oingo boingo want you" "I shred on the trumpet. They need me"

The sold / kidnapped trope does predate the internet by a loong while. I remember my *grandma* having a lot of old "trashy" romance novels and the mean male lead that kidnaps you is *at least* a 20th century thing.

I don't think we talk about the cultural impact of sold to 1D fics. It was insane

I also think all these kinda "bought by" or "kidnapped by" tropes are a way to make the OC more invisible and passive in the story. Thus broadening the appeal.

Imagine how powerful a nepo baby who was raised by all of One Direction would be though.

As someone who was ACTUALLY sold to One Direction, I appreciate you making this video

"I've personally never read RPF except the sold to One Direction stories" sir you've read RPF about YOURSELF i think that counts!!

Calling the trope "Asshole Harry" and not "Harry Asshole" is such a miss tbh

i dont think the SOLD writer has anything to worry about career-wise when cassandra clare is out here thriving

"My name is Indigo Charisma" is immediately iconic

Not gonna lie, Indigo Charisma would be an excellent drag name.

the idea of sitting at a typewriter and writing led zeppelin fanfiction has me screaming

Im not like other girls, i was sold to one direction by my mom 💔

The name "Harmony Davenport" is KILLING me because Davenport is the name of a big drag dynasty, so now I'm going to imagine every one of these stories being reenacted by drag queens. It's great everyone should do it.

What's fascinating is that stories about imperilled heroines being sold/captive was also a huge trope in romance novels in the 1970s and 80s. The explanation for the trope's popularity at the time was, like "sold to 1D" RPFs, it was a way to write about women's sexual desires and experiences without making them active protagonists pursuing sex. This is all the more interesting given that culturally it was a turning point for women with the advent of feminism and the sexual revolution.

rpf history is so cool to me. my grandma wrote beatles rpf in the 60s in class. she’d write them in class and insert her friends into it when they’d ask

As someone who maladaptive daydreamed as a kid, I can kinda understand and empathize where this trope comes from. I grew up in a shitty home. For me a common fantasy was being whisked away to be a princess, a lot of my childhood stories/ imagined storylines with my toys involved adoption or orphans, also hospitals, kidnapping, and boarding schools. A way to imagine a life separate from the people in my real life treating me horribly. While this probably wasn’t the case of all of them, I’m sure there were a few people who wrote sold to one direction as a way to imagine a situation better than the one they were in. A way to escape and be treated better. I was never into one direction at that age. But if I was I could very much see myself roleplaying a world where I was sold to them to escape my shitty home life.

The only two things I remember from this side of Wattpad. No saying the word eyes or kiss. Eyes are always orbs and it's always "our lips collided" "he smashed his lips into mine" "our lips pressed together." Honestly I love it, we all have to learn that it's okay to say said sometimes.

Whenever the main characters have regular names you know it’s either dedicated to a friend or about the author themself

One of my friends in high school wrote a fanfic about being sold to green day, truly ahead of her time tbh

devastating reality than many with caramel brown hair and bright blue orbs are subjected too 😔😔😔😔😔

I'm old enough to confirm that girls were being sold to the New Kids on the Block back in the late 80s.

I always like it when Strange in particular talks about these kinds of topics, because she tends to be more empathetic towards the fans who write this kind of stuff. Like, for as many “sold to one direction” jokes as I appreciate, there are so, so many other people who are downright cruel about it, when these are clearly just written by pre-teen or young teenage girls (and a few boys, let’s be honest) who are exploring their sexuality for the first time through fanfiction, and who want to be found attractive by someone, so they make a reader-insert or OC so they can do that. I don’t like it when people shame fandom practices like that, because like, it’s just a part of growing up, really. You may consider it “cringe”, but you too have been cringe at one point. Especially as a teenager, because of not only hormones but the way society treats teenagers. You’re too old for your favourite games, you’re too young for the new games you want to try, you’re too old for hugs, you’re too young to be alone, you’re too old to play with toys, you’re too young to do “adult things” on the computer. It goes on and on; adolescence is an awkward in between state. It’s the state of transition between child and adult, and people are scared of change. Anyway, my point is, teenagers do things we think are silly, stupid, dangerous, or just cringe all the time. And it really upsets me how people always shame them for just,,, being teenagers. Being grown children discovering themselves and their maturity for the first time. Anyway thanks for coming to my TED-ex talk sorry for my random pseudo-philosophical rambling lmao.

your videos about fandom history are so comforting it's like hanging out with a friend from that era

Thanks so much for reaching out to me to include my input/POV and to help dig up internet lore! Wait, sorry, I have to put my hair in a messy bun and go downstairs...I think my mum is calling me...

I remember my mum talking about an author she hated, going “all those stories are of a sweet innocent girl being sold as a slave to some rich people” and i was like oh boy history repeats itself

RPF started when Dante wrote about going to hell with his favorite writer and ended up creating the entirety of christian hell theology

i'm very proud and not at all ashamed to say that i read exclusively self insert fanfiction. why WOULDN'T i want to be cool and hot and pretty and have all my favorite characters in love with me. i read it on ao3, but i go on wattpad to write it because, to be honest, i love the community there. it's so unserious.

My favourite fun fact about the After series is that the author tried to invite Harry himself to the premiere of the first movie and she pestered him so many times that he eventually got a restraining order against her

I need non-tumblrinas to understand that these stories and weird posts and historic events are so brain chemistry altering that we still think about them daily.

I remember getting a "fanfic rec" from a friend back in the day that she insisted was a beautifully crafted love story based on mutual attraction in the middle of trauma and it was porn. It was so porn-y I genuinely had to stop reading it and I messaged her asking if I had found the right story. Anyway it was a 1D slave story.

your mom selling you to one direction and your reaction being “omg my mom is such a biatch” is WILD

The "beautiful woman sold to bad boy" trope goes way back. The earliest I can think of is the 1782 Mozart opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" where Konstanze, a Spanish noblewoman, is kidnapped and sold to Pasha Selim (Pasha was a high rank within the Ottoman political and military system). Konstanze's English maid, Blonde, (which is a fantastic name) is kidnapped alongside her and sold to Selim's servant Osmin. Konstanze's betrothed, Belmonte, and his servant, Pedrillo, who is incidentally betrothed to Blonde, mount a darig rescue while Konstanze and Blonde withstand their captors' romantic ouvertures by simply not agreeing to sleep with them. The rescue ends up being discovered, and Belmonte and Pedrillo are captured by Selim. Belmonte tries to negotiate with Selim, saying that his father, the governor of Oran, will pay a big ransom for them, but it turns out that Selim and Belmonte's father are enemies. For a minute, Konstanze, Belmonte, Blonde and Pedrillo think they'll be tortured to death, but Selim decides that the best way to get one over on Belmonte's father is by showing them mercy, so he lets them go. ~The end~

Soon I’m going on my first queer date in years, and I just found out she also loves one direction. So excited to use this video as conversation material

I just saw a tumblr post recently discussing how sold to/captured by stories were ways for writers/readers to explore concepts that might normally be taboo (maybe due to purity culture/homophibia) without feeling as much guilt in exploring those thoughts.

"Hello friends, I have some very exciting news, I-" and immediately my brain filled in "have been sold to 1d"

I always just assumed that fanfiction like this was so popular and appealing to tween girls because they just find tragedy and dark topics incredibly fascinating. Every little girl played executioner and hostage scenarios with her barbies, we all loved to play pretend being starving single mothers on the streets, i quiet literally did kidnap/slavery/torture scenarios with my friends and cousins when we were not even like 10 years old lmao Little girls just love that shit, so sold to xy/kidnapped by xy stories are pretty tame compared to that in my humble opinion lol its just the little girl brain doing gods unholy work and actually i think that is what makes it beautiful

This just unlocked a memory of writing a fic where the hotter, better version of myself was sold to the Backstreet Boys back in like 1998. Actually, I had several but I remember them all following a similar theme of being sent off to live with the band for various reasons mostly involving somehow "working" for them. >__>

how did i never realise how dark this trope is? i guess it kind of makes sense, when you think about that meme about how companies expect little girls to play with dolls vs how they actually do. this really isnt all that different from the storylines i made up with my barbies as a kid.

A friend and I were obsessed with hatereading 1D fanfiction for all of middle school, so I have pretty strong opinions on the topic, lol. It's very funny how Harry was always the bad boy when the one who the producers usually gave the bad boy aesthetic was Zayn.

Reminds me of the time I got caught reading Sold To One Direction fics on wattpad when I was 11 and got my phone taken away for an entire year

my favorite 1D fanfic trope will forever be the teen pregnancy au, especially if it features taking the usually couple month to a year old child to a concert and then plopping them down on the meet and great table and going like "here's your baby!"

It's funny, I actually think these tropes were inspired by popular movies of the time. Pop Culture Detective has a really great video on "Abduction as Romance", which really traces the roots of this in 80s/90s/00s cinema. The sensationalism and logical improbability of these Wattpad plotlines written by tweens are fun to clown on, but their ideas about romance are learned from various pieces of media which portrayed the "toxic bad boy who stalks and/or controls you for your own protection" or "dangerous, violent kidnapper/slave owner who is made soft by falling in love with his captive" as if those are things which will lead to a happily ever after.

i just KNOW girls were writing "sold to the beatles" fanfiction in the 60s but there was nowhere to publish that. i wanna read it so bad

I accidentally found catboy fanart of my own uncle once and while i fully respect the artist and their talent, it was also hilarious.

in high school i read *alot* of "demi lovato adopts a self-insert character from an abusive home" fanfic, which means i definitely read some sold to 1D fanfic that also featured demi. for me it wasnt a desire to be romantically involved with them (i was actually pretty turned off by fics that featured that) but a big desire to be whisked away from my abusive home by this very kind and cool person that understands what its like to be abused and mentally ill

recently a friend of mine was describing a fic she read and it involved mafia and abortions and like twelve plot twists and i was like 'oh?' because she didn't strike me as the type to read fanfiction. turns out it was some variation of 1d x reader on wattpad. i asked if it was good (genuinely, cause it really isn't my thing) and she strongly recommend it. it was over 30k words though so i really didn't want to (as someone who isn't into 1d or has opened wattpad in years) so instead she said 'okay try this' and it was also a 1d fic, this time not x reader, but just straight up porn. 'hey i think you'll like this' and it's porn; no lead up, no intro, first sentence in and they're already horizontal. thinking about converting her to ao3 just for better quality works.

I participated in N*SYNC RPF communities in the late 90s. I don't remember any specific stories (sad), but my favorite thing was that people would put out casting calls to fill in other Mary Sues for their stories. You would fill out a long application to fill the role of Lance Bass' girlfriend (lol). I loved these so much, and in true ADHD fashion, I would regularly put out casting calls and spend many hours pouring through other 12-year-old girls' applications and crafting the perfect balance of personalities and tensions, and then spend many zeroes of hours writing.

I wrote an originating fic (demonstrably - if you search the tag/genre on AO3 and sort by time, I am right there as the first) and while not quite as noteworthy as "Sold" setting the conventions for One Direction RPF, I did notice the fics that came after echoed descriptors and concepts from mine. I have a complex relationship with it because it's arguably the most influential thing I've pushed out into the world, but every time you talk about Tumblr sexymen in your videos I kinda live in fear that I'll see my own name lol.

I love these physical copies of fanfiction from the 70's and 80's where they had to go to Kinkos and make photocopies of it, and have it spiral bound if they're feeling fancy. There's a level of bravery to do that

As per usual, learning about late 2000s-2010s fan fiction culture has clarified A Lot about self-published romance novels of the here and now.

My mum used to write fanfic about The Beatles when she was a kid, she was very young and it was very innocent but I still find it hilarious 😂

ok being totally honest i love writing my own ocs into fandoms like not even as a self insert (though thats probably a subconscious part of it) but like sometimes I just really want to watch certain random scenarios play out and the fandom its in doesn't have any characters that could execute that, so i make my own. like excuse me for wanting the main character of my favorite series to get a hot girlfriend when none of her male love interests fit and all the other female characters are just really straight like cmon i have needs. i like reading about zuko getting a mother figure who cares for him and helps him heal from his trauma its not my fault i have mommy issues

A couple of years ago, I was sifting through the stationary owned by the guide unit I helped out at and found some unopened packets of one direction themed pencils. I exclaimed in surprise, these pencils must have been sitting unopened in that cupboard for at least 6 years by that point, seeing as they all featured Zayne's face along with the other boys. Some of the girls came over concerned, asking what was wrong. I showed them, astonishment showing on my face, these unopened one direction pencils. One of the girls asked "one direction? What's that?" I felt myself die inside a little. "You know Harry Styles, don't you?" "Yes, my mum listens to his songs all the time" one of the girls replied. "I really like his music," another added. That was a relief, at least I didn't have to explain who Harry was to them. "One direction is the band he was in before he started making songs all by himself." I explained. "Harry styles used to be in a band?!" One of the girls exclaimed. That was the first time I, who at the time was only the tender age of 18, first truly felt old.

i have fond memories of helping my best friend in the 8th grade proofread her 1D fanfics, and i cant help but wonder if she ever was one of these popular wattpad authors. like every time she hung out at my house she would hand me her old iphone and ask me to check for spelling mistakes on her notes app fanfics and that was my only exposure to them because i didnt have much access to the internet at the time to know her online handles. so shoutout to chloe i hope youre a famous author now and i wanna think i was the "thnx to raven" of your 1D fanfic authors notes.

I find your discussions of fandom stuff like this really interesting. You've got a nice combination of, like, detached academic interest, while not just being snarky and mean to the people that took it seriously. I was in college during the height of this, and even though I write fan fic of a generally frowned upon nature, it's not RPF. I was aware of the Sold to One Direction trope via Quotev and Internet Osmosis, but never actually looked at it twice. So thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject. As for the Question being a Spider-Man character, hey, one of the original Spider-Man creators created the Question, so it's not that crazy a mistake a make.

Can confirm that kidnapping/being sold is a way of, ironically, regaining control by taking it away from a self insert. You have no way of escaping your circumstances yourself (depression, loneliness, etc), so by writing another character/person suddenly taking you away, you have an out. Someone wants you, even if the intentions aren't good at first (if ever). Also, rpf isnt just limited to celebrities, bc i basically wrote down my daydreams of what i wished would happen after my ex broke up with me in middle school lol although those were just like "i hope dances with me at the school dance" and that sort of thing. And i only wrote like...two lmao

I love how meme content like Sold to One Direction seems so modern amd niche, but it's older than The Sheik by E.M. Hull in 1919. This is something deep in our species that we will be grappling with for centuries to come.

this is my favorite bit of fandom lore thanks for covering it

Not even joking: Harmony Davenport is an A+ OC name. (OKAY I like to think I'm hard to shock but I did a double take at "sold to Saruman". I mean....get it, girl.)

i love how the goblin child just magically appears on her shoulder (it's not the editing it's his ancient powers)

Part of the appeal of kidnapping/selling trope to me when I was like twelve was just Not Wanting To Be Where I Was because I was going through some shit both at home and at school and the idea of a Hot Werewolf Bad Boy or a Popular Band scooping me up and taking me Anywhere Else was some real tastey escapism. Also oh my god QUOTEV I remember quotev. I only really took the quizzes as opposed to reading fics but my god That Webbed Site

without having watched the video yet i came to say- sold to one direction fics are the modern evolution of those old kidnap romance novels. the allure of being wanted that badly by someone desirable, the fantasy of being whisked away by them in such a way that sheds all social norms and barriers. sold to 1d fics are what your grandma would be reading instead of "kidnapped by pirates/ect" if 1d had been around.

I think part of the appeal of fan fictions like these are the escapist fantasy, kids who grew up in unsafe homes dreaming of somehow getting out of it and getting to live this fantasy where the people they idolize are their friends and they never have to return to their parents

My favorite thing about Strange is that when I see a title like "Sold to One Direction," I have to click to know whether she's talking about fandom spaces, a highly-specific scandal, or something she's doing when reacting to a music video or something,

When I was a kid, I'd read a book about an average girl who is acquaintances with a rich girl from a famous family, and who gets taken as well when the rich girl is kidnapped for ransom by her kooky psychiatrist. (Yes, this was a real published YA novel, "The Kidnapping of Courtney Van Allen and What's Her Name.") This inspired me to write, for my 6th-grade creative writing assignment, a story in which I was kidnapped alongside my favorite famous people of the moment ... New Kids on the Block. (Gah, just typing that ... I'd have been less embarrassed to tell you about my Darkwing Duck self-insert story from a couple years later.) Anyway, it's kidnapped ~with~ a boy band rather than kidnapped ~by~ a boy band, but if it's of interest to your research, this would have been 1989-90. Though I had a huge crush on Joe McIntyre, I didn't make it a romance because the age difference would have made it creepy. (How sheltered we were pre-internet.) So instead it was an escape story. (Oh, shit, now I'm remembering another book I read as a kid, "Prisoners at the Kitchen Table," in which ANOTHER kid who is hanging out with his rich [but not famous this time] friend gets kidnapped alongside her. "One and a half" is how one of the kidnappers describes the kids, knowing they won't get much if any ransom for the boy. Moral of the story, don't hang around with rich kids. Anyway, the story of how the kids escape probably informed my fanfic.)

I've been subbed since the first onion boy book review and even when I'm not watching every vid, popping in to see how she changed her hair is always a source of joy for me.

I still cannot believe that in middle school someone told me that Wattpad was a website for free books. I went on there and was flabbergasted, but luckily saved myself and left after finding the first werewolf fanfic

truly one of the fanfiction tropes of all time

indigo charisma feels like a name straight out of a colleen hoover book

as cringey as it was, reading that quotev fanfiction was one of the only things that I had energy for during my severe depression as a young teenager. It was very entertaining.

One of the most iconic self insert fanfic genres

Incredible that the debate over rpf has been ongoing for over 40 years

The most dangerous gang in town having the name "One Direction" is such a funny concept to me. Maybe it's because I already associate that name with a teen boy band that girls obsessed over, but I just can't see that being the name for a gang

As someone who got my start in reading and writing fanfiction in 2012/13 and was a fan of One Direction, I can tell you I read at least one of these, and I specifically remember it being honestly kind of sweet and basically an adoption story

21:55 - My guess when it comes to the originator of this trope would be The Sheik, the late great grandaddy of the late great bodice ripper genre. These days, openly rapey heroes are much more taboo in romance novels, but back then the owners of said bodices need not have consented to their ripping. The Sheik was about a, well, sheik that kidnapped and "tamed" the heroine. From our modern standpoint, it's an extremely fucked up little story that includes a straight-up Stockholm syndrome, but the 20's housewives loved it so much it was adapted into a famous silent picture.

you and draco (im sorry i forgot your girlfriend's name again) are literally such couple goals

Oh no Mr. Strange! Maybe we can buy you back if we pay off your mother’s debt. May your messy bun and not-like-other-girls book keep you safe!

Now I have the intense urge to jump over to Jenny Nicholson's deep analysis of the classic work of literature Stuck In A Island With Josh Hutcherson

early 2010s quotev was genuinely a very insane place, the drama on there got really intense . i imagine one of these days a youtuber will discover the goldmine of untapped video essay potential that lies there. niche quotev micro celebrities, their rise, and subsequent downfalls.

Example of the proliferation of rpf and its effect on young people: in middle school, my friends and I wrote several hundred pages of fanfic about our friend and his crush (with his consent!) and my theory is that we thought it was okay because most of us were in the Dan and Phil fandom and read lots of rpf. Looking back, it’s one of the craziest and worst things I’ve done but at the time it felt like the most normal thing in the world.

RPF wasn’t my thing, but there were similar tropes in other fandoms, and I absolutely drank up stuff like this as a kinky teen.

I actually am wearing you “the fool shirt” as I watch! I work in an all cat hospital and on fridays we get to wear cat related shirts so I have both of your kitties and love wearing them! The first day I wore the Star I got a complement! Also I adore hearing about weird fandom history because I know I am also a weird fandom person. I adore how you come from a place of understanding and don’t just go “lol that’s weird what freaks.” I mean you do and that’s fair but it’s affectionate and not dismissive or cruel. Love your content and I hope you keep it up! Give your kitties some scratches from me!!

In the 8th grade my friend used one of these for her book report. Megan I hope you are well

I just watched the Pricilla Presley movie and all i could think about is how her life is the plot to countless 1D fanfics...

Finding out 25 minutes in that the origin of sold to one direction was on quotev was like being shot in the chest. When I was younger I was never on wattpad or ao3, just quotev. I joined in role play groups and posted art in those fanart pages people would make, I even joined in the whole “CEO of (blank)” craze when it reached me. What I didn’t know was that when I joined the community it was already dying. I never actually read much on there, only like a handful of fics which I never finished and one original work. Honestly? Probably the happiest I’ve ever been.

idk how to express how thankful i am for your videos cause im doing my ba thesis on fandom culture and parasocial relationships and you save me from reading countless studies from 60yos who havent experienced the glory of directioners

Okay hear me out: Dante's inferno was the first RPF

These old band fanfics written on typewriters were oddly touching to me. Like, despite all differences between ages fanfiction must be something very human haha

Historical fiction is technically a form of RPF, but in most cases historical fiction only involves no longer living people, which is an important distinction to RPF involving still living people.

Would you rather be sold to One Direction, or trapped in a island with Josh Hutcherson?

because i pretty much exclusively use ao3, i hadn't realized that wattpad was still being actively used by a lot of people. i was on tiktok looking at ship edits for a minor ship from teen wolf, and i was surprised to find that the fandom was still very active, especially in making fanfic edits and just writing fics in general. and a lot of the samefics were being named as being great, and i was like oh fun let me check them out, only for me to realize they were all on wattpad??? i was like what? people still use it? and enjoy it??? unironically????

It's so funny being in the Star Trek Fandom and being somebody that likes content like this + delving into various fandoms' History because of how much star trek likes to pop up 😂

This video unearthed an ancient memory of mine of a writing site I used to belong to called Movellas. I can't speak to the density vs something like Wattpad which I never used, but I swear it felt like every second story on there was 1D based. One of the most notorious ones (I just checked and it's still the 2nd most popular story ever hosted there, behind another 1D fic) was called Auction, which was a sort of spin on the "sold to 1D" trope where it's a school dating auction instead of actual black market slavery. Apparently the author also self-published the whole trilogy on Amazon, which I remember being a huge deal at the time.