One Direction is cool. There, I said it

In One Direction: This is Us, the feature-film length documentary that follows the boy band 1D through the hundred sold-out stadia of their first worldwide tour, we get a 3D look at just how feverish teenage girls around the world are about the five boys picked for superstardom on the British X-Factor. The frenzy is at Beatlemania levels already, and it's happened in such a short amount of time—1D finished in third place on the show just three years ago.

I'm no stranger to this kind of intense fandemonium; as a card-carrying Swiftie, I can scream my heart out with the best of them. What is it about One Direction specifically that causes these levels of hysteria? I decided to watch This is Us to find out.

It didn't take long. My attention was immediately grabbed by something Zayn Malik, the mysterious one, says during an on-screen confession. As he's casually lounging on a couch with his pretty dark eyes all sleepy looking, Zayn lets slip a profound truth:

"When people say oh, you're in a boy band I'm like, okay I am—but I'm in a cool boy band, so, whatevs."

"Whatevs." 1D's collective attitude is basically just that: whatevs. Of all the hours of concert footage in the film, most of it shows the band meandering around the stage singing out into the crowd. Occasionally, the boys will stand next to each other and halfass some synced boyband-looking choreography with smirks on their faces. It’s very very cute: I found myself giggling like a tween watching it. But it isn’t that the guys lack a stage presence: There is a level of nonchalance to their routine that's so relaxed I don't even care if it's practiced. 1D are a boy band who spends almost all their time refuting the basic premise of being in a boy band. It is both endearing and commendable.

But the boys follow firmly in the footsteps of their boy-band predecessors when it comes to the music. In singles like “Kiss You,” the boys assure the everygirl that they want her to let them kiss her. In ballads like “Little Things,” they praise a girl’s natural beauty and funny quirks, and give a shout out to her back dimples (probably the first pop song to do so ever?) Every 1D song elicits that familiar feeling of a sweeping camp romance or the fleeting rush of a middle school dance. "They say things to us that nobody else says," one Italian tween fan explains to the cameraman in broken English. I can’t help but compare the 1D fandom to the huge and tenacious Taylor Swift fandom, who also feel as if Tay is singing directly to them about their (real or imagined) relationships.

One Direction is Simon Cowell's biggest success to date. And picking the boys out from the bigger group took Simon ten minutes. “I have no idea why girls go crazy for them,” Simon shrugs. He cites the social media power of a small group of fans from the UK as the catalyst for the viral phenomenon. Two hundred fans were waiting outside X Factor after the series seven finale of X-Factor. Now, the members of 1D can tweet out to their Twitter fanbase of ~12 million (apiece) and ask everyone to wear orange to their Amsterdam show, and it happens. One Direction’s manager guesses their appeal comes from the boys singing “rock-influenced” songs and their “slightly archaic” demeanor to them, but his sentence inflates up into a question, because he isn’t exactly sure.

Anyway, it’s cool when One Direction go to Tokyo and you see the look of surprise on all of their faces when thousands of fans are waiting for them at the airport. It’s cool when Liam pantses Harry at the Mexico City show. What I have decided is that the boys of One Direction are genuinely cool lil guys who are as surprised as anyone that they’ve become so famous. And when the credits roll at the end of the doc and “Best Song Ever” plays, I decide them winning the fan-chosen VMA for Video of the Year was fair and well-deserved. Scuse me while I go shamelessly listen to them on Spotify.

(LAST MINUTE SPOILER ALERT: surprise appearances by Chris Rock and Martin Scorcese, who I think have children who are big fans of 1D.)