One Direction was more than a band to many fans. Liam Payne's death marks the end of an era CNN

Mikaela D spent most of her childhood in a hospital bed.

Dee was chronically ill, in and out of the hospital so much so that her family elected to homeschool her. His friends were distant; Most of his interactions were with doctors, nurses, pharmacists and his parents.

Although he was 15, he found One Direction on “The X-Factor UK” – five floppy-haired, skinny teenage boys around his age, singing together on his screen. Looking back now, the members of One Direction seemed funny and kind, says Dee; Their zest for life inspired him. He created a fan account for the band on Instagram and befriended fellow fans across the country, even traveling to meet them in person. Suddenly, thanks to the band, he didn't feel so alone.

After going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016, the members of One Direction haven't performed together in nearly a decade, and their millions of young fans have grown since then. But when Dee, now 29, learned that Liam Payne had fallen to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina last week, he suddenly “felt close to the wall.”

“(Payne) was a light in my life when I needed it the most,” she said.

A grounding center for the group in their early years, Penn's unexpected death at age 31 has shocked many who grew up with the boy band.

Joe Azar, 28, has been a fan of the group since he was 14. He runs 1D Alert, an X account dedicated to One Direction news and updates with over 300,000 followers. To Azar and many others, the band was an escape from depression and bullying.

“They were my happiness, my safe place, my world for about five years of my life,” he told CNN. “It felt like my youngest heart had been pulled out of my body, stepped on and dumped on the floor.”

Affectionately known as The Pointers, the team was infamous for fans. Someone broke into Payne's hotel room and stole her underwear in 2013. (He wrote about the incident: “The weirdest way to wake me up is trying to force your balcony to open while you're naked in bed) A year ago, just to catch a glimpse of the boys, some informant hacked the airport's CCTV. A fan even tried to raise money to buy the band during the management dispute – a GoFundMe raised over $1,500.

Even now, One Direction fans are credited with creating the “Internet as we know it”, creating much of the culture that defined life online in the 2010s. And for Directioners, that meant many of their fandoms practically existed. Like Dee, many have connected through social media accounts on X, Instagram or Tumblr to form an internet community that has become like a family.

Penn's death, to some, seemed the complete end of that collective journey. When Zayn left to pursue a solo career in 2015, while the band went on hiatus the following year — it never felt quite final, Dee said.

“It was always open to 'Oh, one day they'll come back for a reunion.' Except now,” Dee said. “A member will never be a part of it.”

When beloved celebrities die, the grief fans experience can be intense. Despite not knowing a celebrity personally, they often take on a sacred status among their followers – making their death particularly shattering. When John Lennon was assassinated in 1980, for example, an estimated 100,000 people gathered in New York's Central Park to mourn. Thirty years later, many can still remember where they were when they heard the news – a person remembers their stepfather, crying over the announcement on the car radio.

While many gathered in cities around the world over the weekend to mourn Paine, it seemed more people gathered to mourn. In the years since the band's hiatus, many people have drifted away from their fandom social media accounts. Last Wednesday, some logged in to post tributes or reconnect with old guiding friends Before Payne's death, Azar's account had been closed for several years. Itsonedirection, another popular fan account on Instagram, has not posted since 2018. other devotees, Now an adult, reported get message From childhood friends and classmates about Penn's death.

Rafy Evans, 27, hosted a meeting for the grieving directors at a Los Angeles restaurant on Friday night, a way to bring together people who met because of their mutual love of the band. Roughly 40 people came out and, amid the One Direction coasters and stickers, lingered in the middle of the night reminiscing.

“The first question for everybody wasn't 'What's your name?'” Evans told CNN. “It was, 'How are you feeling?'”

Maya Minnich, 28, also became interested in the band at the age of 14. Looking back now, Minich says, those years were such a moldable time, and One Direction wasn't just a band he liked. They were his friends. When Penn's death was announced, he sat in his car and began to cry. Within minutes of the news breaking, more than a dozen people — some from high school, others she met through Internet connections — arrived to check in.

On the one hand, Minnich says, he's now an adult, grieving the death of a person, as anyone can. But on the other hand, his childhood self, who used to ride his bike to CVS with the new J14 magazine that had a One Direction poster inside; Whose every brain cell went out of school and into some play band.

“It's really difficult to grieve that childhood illusion,” she said. “It's 14, 15, 16-year-old Maya, who's still in the spirit of 28-year-old Maya.”