When there are music groups, there are also break-ups. And when there are break-ups, there are also artists going solo. Occasionally most or all of the members find success, as seen in the case of The Beatles or Genesis, but usually only one does.

For every Justin Timberlake, there is a Joey Fatone and for every *NSYNC, there is a 98 Degrees. So the past tells us now that One Direction is breaking up, we should expect to hear from somewhere between zero to one members again. But the boys of One Direction have an advantage over the boy bands of the past. Ongoing technological innovations, especially in social media, could save all of their careers.

Though the latest boy band to fall prey to this pattern, the Jonas Brothers, only fell apart a few years ago, the few years is actually a major difference. One Direction is the first boy band to form and come of age in the middle of the social media era. I’d like to tell you how many Twitter fan accounts there are for both the band and each individual member, but there are too many to count. What I can tell you is their official Twitter handle has 24.8 million followers, their biggest fan account has 1.25 million followers and that dozens others have similar numbers.

Beyond the accounts that are labeled specifically for One Direction, there are even more that are under a regular person’s name but the profile picture, account description, and majority of tweets are all about One Direction. These are people who define their existence on social media completely by one of their musical interests.

Changes like these are what may save the members of One Direction. During the height of the boy band era, when groups like *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were kings, one could only share their obsession with their real-life friend group. This capped the power of the fan obsession.

Now, a One Direction fan can interact with thousands of other fans, anytime, for however long they wish. They can devote their entire social media existence to the band and it’s members. Because of this, it’s hard to believe these fans would simply let their devotion, especially those centered around individual members, disappear, when their fan profiles won’t.

Of course there’s the chance that despite the increased strength of the devotion displayed online, the boys will fade anyways. Tickets sales for their latest tour already did, to the point that stadiums had to slash prices. But maybe actually seeing the band has just taken a backseat to a different kind of personal relationship developed through social media.

When close friends move away, many still keep in contact with them through social media. What we are seeing with young teens’ relationships with boy bands could be much of the same, and I’m sure their contemporaries, like 5 Seconds of Summer, are betting on that.

Mark DiBona is a senior television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at mdibona@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @NoPartyNoDisco.

Published on August 31, 2015 at 6:47 pm