Liam Payne

Liam Payne was an English singer, most famous for being a member of the boy band One Direction.
He appears in a lot of fanworks.
Payne died on October 16, 2024 at the age of 31.
==Shipping==
As of April 30, 2015, according to AO3 tags, Liam appeared in 20,096 fanworks As of March 5, 2021 he has appeared in 32,497: 
* Ziam was the most popular Liam ship, with ex 1D member Zayn Malik: 6354 uses (9713 as of 3/5/21). This ship often appears as a secondary or background ship in Larry Stylinson stories, which may explain its overwhelming prevalence compared to other Liam ships. 
* Lilo with Louis Tomlinson came second with 1944 uses(2751 as of 3/5/21); 
* Niam with Niall Horan had 1678 uses (2360 as of 3/5/21).
* Lirry with Harry Styles had 1029 uses. (1520 as of 3/5/21)
Other Liam ships include threesomes and moresomes with 1D members as well as het ships with canonical ex-partners Danielle Peazer (609 uses(inexplicably 548 as of 3/5/21) and Sophia Smith (473 uses(813 as of 3/5/21), and, in significantly fewer numbers, with current girlfriend Cheryl Fernandez-Versini (9 uses(33 as of 3/5/21).
==Fanon and Tropes==
Dumb!Liam: Liam's terrible/endearing spelling and awful/earnest/adorable tweets often appears in fic, often contributing to the idea that he is not not the sharpest tool in the box (or misdirecting the reader to believe he is clueless when he is not). Examples: 
*One Hundred Per Cent by threeturn (Niall/Liam, Aliens Made Them Do It fic). 
*Lirry Tumblr ficlet by ihavea1Dbloghelp in which Harry interrupts phonesex between Liam and Sophia: 
The "Daddy Direction" trope: standing in opposition to dumb!Liam, this trope highlights how responsible Liam is, his business savvy and competence. The trope is based in canon, with the nickname tweeted by Liam himself in 2011 "daddy direction" tweet by Liam, April 8, 2011. and appearing in the descriptions of Liam given by Louis and Harry in 1D's This Is Us documentary. In fanworks, this sometimes literally translates to daddy kink and/or dom!Liam. Examples:
*Come a Little Closer (On My Face If You'd Like): A Romance by sunsetmog: in which Liam finds Louis' porn and sets to make it come true. 
*From the Start by mistresscurvy (Liam/Louis daddy kink), in which Liam is embodies all aspects of the daddy trope:
Lonely!Liam: He might be bullied, friendless or socially awkward, stemming from stories of his painful teenage years. Examples: 
*Squib/Veela verse by halfhardtorock, a Zayn/Liam Hogwarts AU in which Liam is the only Squib at school. 
*Won't Get To Space Because I Haven't Got a Rocket by sunsetmog, a Liam/Harry/Louis AU where Liam is a lonely mechanic with rubbish friends who's never been kissed: 
Liam's build and strength often feature in fanworks. For example, in AUs where he is not in the band, Liam is routinely cast as a firefighter or a mechanic: 
*Firefighter Liam is a canonical tag on AO3The Firefighter Liam tag has 27 works as of April 30, 2015.
*Firefighter Liam Tumblr tag featuring stories, manips and art. 
*in your hands, a camboy AU where Louis obsesses over mechanic/camboy!Liam. 
*Burning Away From Inside by scottmcniceass, in which Zayn has superpowers and Liam is a mechanic who needs a lot of saving. 
==Tinhatting==
A number of One Direction fans tinhat Liam, believing that his relationships to one or more known girlfriends were engineered by management to hide his true sexuality and more specifically his relationship to Zayn. See Ziam is real for more detail.
==Controversies==
Both Liam and his Twitter have been the subject of a good amount of wank since 2014. 
===Duck Dynasty Tweets===
On 18 January 2014, Liam tweeted at Willie Robertson of the A&E reality show Duck Dynasty, saying, "huge love to you/your family huge respect for your business prosperities and the family values you still all behold. big fan" . This came only a month after a GQ interview in which Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson had made a number of inflammatory homophobic remarks and was subsequently suspended from A&E's lineup;GQ.com, What the Duck?, 17 December 2013; cnn.com, 'Duck Dynasty' star suspended for anti-gay remarks, 18 December 2013 therefore, many 1D fans took Liam's tweet and reference to "family values" as his support for Robertson's homophobic views.thesecondwarm, Tumblr post on 19 January 2014 (archived): "Tweeting someone who went on a belligerent and homophobic rant equating homosexuality to beastiality with your support of their “family values”? Yeah. That comes off as being sympathetic to their homophobic ideals. Furthermore, the phrase “family values” is coded with so much condemnation and blatant hate for the queer community that we’ve learned to avoid people who use the term."
Twitter quickly began to criticize him, and Liam, as is his wont, responded with a number of defensive tweets () but never directly apologized for the initial tweet, which further upset fans. dazy-laze, Tumblr post on 18 January 2014 (archived): "to him he prob really does think saying ‘people can love who they love it’s none of my business’ is enough to make him 'not homophobic guys!!!’ and render his support of the family in question harmless, and he can’t understand, clearly, why it isn’t, and isn’t bothering to learn or apologise, is just getting defensive." And @aurosan, twitlonger on 19 January 2014 (archived): "Liam is clearly in a spiral of self-defense right now, and trust me, I'd love to believe he didn't tweet a right wing slogan that is entrenched in anti-gay hate on purpose, but I have a hard time spilling tears out for him or cheering him on. He had plenty of chances to acknowledge the weight of what he said given the context of the Duck Dynasty clan but instead he's just encouraged fans to keep attacking people who have every right to be upset."
===Other Remarks===
Liam also has a reputation in fandom for asserting his no-homo-ness, as in the infamous "kernel" tweet about KFC.This tweet seems to have been met mostly with humor from the fandom: see saintzitao, Tumblr post on 31 May 2014 In September 2014, he tweeted in response to a gay porn photo that featured a Liam lookalike, first calling it a "weird photo" and then continuing, "I'm 100% not homophobic. But I'm also 100% not gay so when somebody says I am I'm gunna say I'm not which does not make me a homophobe". 
During a concert on 18 August 2015, Liam introduced the song "Girl Almighty" by saying, "[this song] is about trying to find that number one woman in your life, which none of you can relate to because most of you are girls."@mustbefireproof, video tweet on 18 August 2015 This drew immediate criticism from fans, especially those who are not girls or not heterosexual.See studyinrainbows' Tumblr post (archived) & allegedlymags' answered ask (archived): "To me, it came across as flippant and thoughtless- like, literally thoughtless as in he wasn’t thinking- but not malicious whatsoever. This is honestly what I thought- “OK, Liam, I’m not THAT well-educated about these issues, but even I would have known not to say that.”" Liam's defense in the form of eight tweets in a row, which included phrases like "you guys know what I meant it was meant in general" and "I am in no way shape or form homophobic", concluded with "I'm sorry to those I offended really I am but there's no need for some of the things I'm being called". () Some fans considered this a non-apology and accuse Liam of continuing to act the victim when he is called out.See amortentialarry's answered ask (archived): "as if that wasn’t enough, he went on a very manipulative twitter rant after that, claiming he isn’t homophobic and painted himself as the victim in the entire situation and it was all very nasty and very triggering and just not nice for me. because that was manipulative. you can’t tell me otherwise. i experienced it before and it was exactly the same in that situation. " and verily-i-say's answered ask (archived): "it’s not about having accidentally said something potentially offensive, it’s about how you respond to being called out. …Liam (or, if you don’t believe the tweets were sent by him, “Liam”) played his standard victim card, where he didn’t apologise and then tried to make people feel guilty for having called him out." & riverforasoul's answered ask: ". It was heteronormative. Literally straight after the show, he was online playing the victim and complaining about criticism. He did apologise but not before making it all about him."
In September 2015, Liam gave an interview to Attitude magazine in which he dismissed the presence of rainbow flags at their concerts as being due to Larry Stylinson, among other remarks.scan of part of the article These sparked criticism from fans.See beau-ambiance's Tumblr post: "So many fans that identify as LGBTQIA are devastated, and feel unsafe and unwanted in this fandom. Many are now hesitant to go to OTRA Boston and/or bring their rainbows. Do you know how disgusting that is? Fans of a band are made to feel alienated and unwanted." and dracoandlouisbothloveaharry's Open Letter to Liam, and nsfwtomlinson's reblog: "Doesn’t excuse Liam’s generalization of rainbow direction. It doesn’t excuse the dismissal of something that keeps so many queer fans happy in this fandom. So he said he supports ‘gay’ marriage and treats his gay friends equally. Fucking amazing tbh, good for him, lets keep applauding cis-hets for being decent fucking individuals. He’s had personal struggles with this and that, well boo fucking too, that’s the queer struggle everyday he’ll never no a damn thing about." Some fans have defended this particular remark if only because the connection between rainbow flags and tinhatting is controversial within the fandom itself.hiddensymosiarch, Tumblr post: "He didn’t say he doesn’t like their LGBTQIA+ fans, he didn’t say he doesn’t like rainbows. What he said is that the Larries drive him nuts, and that he thinks most of the rainbows in the crowd are Larries holding them because they are Larries. Maybe he overstated that last point a bit, but from his perspective I understand why he thinks that." Again, Liam defended himself on Twitter. ()
===Body Issues===
Liam was briefly the subject of wank in March 2014 after two tweets that read "Lol just seen on twitter people think I'm fat?now I've never been called that before nice, on my way to mcdonalds then I'm off to fat camp" & "I'm so fat that when i twerk I become a wrecking ball". He repeated the same idea in two Instagrams in August 2014, one featuring Liam with a pillow under his shirt and the caption "I mean OH MY GOD I'm just so fat these days I think I need help! quick someone take the cookie jar" and another with a screenshot proclaiming his BMI and the caption "Or do I have to look like an Olympic swimmer just to get your approval into the cool kids or can I accept that the person I truly love thinks I'm the coolest kid in town anyway?". Fan responses??
A number of fans were on Liam's side on this subject, however, reminding each other that whatever Liam's body looks like, it doesn't deserve criticism.fannyann, Tumblr post (archived): "because thinking someone looks gross because you don’t like their hair or the scruff of their face or the way they dress themselves is one thing. but thinking someone looks gross because of the amount they weigh is an issue of its own that makes you a lot grosser than anything you think liam might look.", and hazelgracelancaster's reblog (archived): "You cannot come into a conversation about someone’s weight gain and said “he doesn’t look as good” and expect people to hear anything other than “if you are fat, you don’t look good.” That is just a logical thought progression —- “you looked good, you gained weight, you don’t look good anymore” = “you don’t look good because you gained weight”"
==="Underage" Girlfriend===
Liam Payne became public about his relationship with girlfriend Maya Henry in August of 2018, when she was 18.Who is Liam Payne's new 'girlfriend' Maya Henry? Meet the millionaire's daughter who wants to be a human rights lawyer. Posted 12 Aug 2018. However, Twitter user @SexAtOxbridge posted a thread in November 2019 with evidence that even though every article claims that Maya is 19, she's actually 18 and a senior in high school which would have made her 17 when Liam first started dating her.Thread by @SexAtOxbridge. Posted 4 Nov 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019. SexAtOxbridge is a known Larrie, and the post also contained an accusation that Maya's father is paying Liam to date her. This has led to other threads questioning Liam's relationship with Maya and wondering about how botch the release of Liam's solo album has been.Thread from @eyaislarrying. Posted 4 Nov 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019.
Regardless of the conspiracy aspect of their relationship, the confirmed fact that Maya was born in 2001 has resulted in many 1D fans calling Liam a pedophile, leading to him publicly denying the rumors.Liam Payne shuts down rumours girlfriend Maya Henry lied about age after joking about Cheryl reunion. Posted 8 Nov 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019. Even fans who don't buy into the conspiracy aspect of their relationship find the fact that Liam would chose to date Maya objectionable:
It has also been confirmed that she's met with Liam several times when she was truly underage at One Direction eventsPost from ot3flopped. Posted 7 Nov 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019. which adds a further layer of fan/creator to the relationship that some question.
==="Both Ways"===
On 6 December 2019, Liam's first solo album (LP1) released and fans were less than pleased with the lyrics of one specific song, titled "Both Ways." The song is explicitly about a bisexual woman and features extremely overt sexual imagery paired with the harmful trope that bisexuals are good for threesomes and drew controversy in light of Liam's repeatedly derogatory statements about homosexuality and comments about how he wouldn't let Harry (who refuses to label his sexuality) babysit his child.Liam Payne On Which 1d Boy He'd Let Babysit Bear. Posted 26 May 2017. Accessed 6 Dec 2019. It resulted in the hashtag #liampayneisoverparty trending on Twitter#liampayneisoverparty on Twitter. Accessed 6 Dec 2019. with many fans being upset at the harmful fetishization of bisexual women in the song.
There were, however, people who were supportive of Liam:
and still others who believed that because Harry's album released so closely to Liam's it was Harry's fans being rude that caused the hashtag to trend:
Some people also tried to excuse the song by saying that Liam didn't write the song or it was label meddling that resulted in it being put on the album, despite him being credited as a writer.Tweet from @itboyfairy. Posted 6 Dec 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019. The trend was also overrun with tweets of K-Pop fancams declaring that people should stan a variety of K-Pop groups or idols instead of Liam, as is usual for popular Twitter trends.Tweet from @adorekais. Posted 6 Dec 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019.Tweet from @aIewjfe. Posted 6 Dec 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019.Tweet from @stillbbh. Posted 6 Dec 2019. Accessed 6 Dec 2019.
==Further Reading==
*Rubdown's response to the fat joke controversy (archived)
==Fannish Resources==
* it’s a liam god damn payne primer by needsmoresarcasm part 1, part 2, part 3 (August 2012)
==References==
Category:One Direction