Brazil is another country that the boys would love to visit one day but they haven’t yet. Brazil’s Bring Me To 1D contest was run by the Fantástico TV show and to enter fans had to film a video with a parent taking part too. The winner of the golden ticket was 13-year-old Victoria from Cotia, São Paulo. To win her ticket Victoria and her friend choreographed a One Direction routine … and got Victoria’s dad Paul to take part too.
It was actually Paul’s idea that they should do a dance routine – and it ended up looking really good, even though he struggled to pick up the choreography at first. They danced to ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ and ‘One Thing’.
It only took them one day to rehearse and then they filmed themselves lots of times until they got it just right. Fantástico picked a shortlist of entries and then played them all to Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn on 4 November 2012 to see which video they liked the best. The boys liked all the videos but Victoria’s caught their eye because of how funny Paul looked doing the dance moves. They told Victoria via the video that Paul helped her to win.
Mariana, 15, and Julia, 14, from São Carlos first found out about Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn when they were searching for a song for their ballet group’s choreography. Julia explains, ‘We listened to more than 56 different songs, but had almost given up hope that we would find a suitable song when we heard “Moments” by One Direction, and we just fell in love! We used their song and won first place in a local competition!’
Fourteen-year-old Fernanda from Curitiba really admires the way the boys didn’t give up when they didn’t win The X Factor. She also likes how much they care about their fans and always try to make them happy.
Sixteen-year-old Camila from Santana de Parnaíba became a Directioner when she was going through a really tough time in her life. ‘I was moving school, going through family problems and losing people I loved,’ she explains. ‘I also had problems with myself. I never felt pretty; I used to feel fat and unloved. But then I heard “What Makes You Beautiful” for the first time. The song says that the girl is insecure and she doesn’t really know why, and that’s exactly what I felt. Being able to listen to the song really helped me and made me stronger. One Direction helped me turn a corner and I am so much happier now.’
Yasmin, 14 years old and from Macaé, is a dedicated Directioner even though her friends at school aren’t. She collects any magazines that feature the boys, has posters up in her room and has joined lots of different fan clubs so that she can keep up to date with what the boys are up to.
Rafaela is 17 and she lost a lot of her old friends when she became a Directioner but has gained lots of new ones. She is one of the administrators on the Facebook fan page ‘Tudo One Direction’ (which means ‘Everything One Direction’) and it has over 56,000 fans. She says, ‘It is difficult for fans from Brazil to get hold of 1D merchandise. To be a true fan is not about having all the magazines, T-shirts, posters, bracelets, books and other things; ultimately, what matters is your love for them.’
Sixteen-year-old Stephani has done some really crazy things since being a Directioner. ‘Once I was in school and Liam was doing a twitcam, and I was doing a test,’ she says, confessing, ‘I left the classroom and locked myself in the bathroom and watched the twitcam. I could have gotten into so much trouble if my teachers had found out.’
Marcela is 15 and from São Paulo. She first heard about 1D on 4 November 2010 from her cousin, who called her to tell her about five cute boys who were going to be a worldwide success. As soon as Marcela saw one of their performances on YouTube, she instantly agreed. She explains what happened next: ‘The next day I created their very first Brazilian fan site (onedirection.com.br) and in the beginning, it was really hard to find information on them. Because they weren’t huge in Brazil yet, my website didn’t get many views to start with. I decided to do my best to promote them in Brazil: with my mum, we contacted the biggest Brazilian magazines, radio and television studios. I was only 13 at the time but I wrote to/called all of them to tell them about One Direction.
‘I felt so proud when I saw the boys in the biggest Brazilian magazine for teenagers, Capricho. It felt amazing. In the months that followed, One Direction’s popularity grew worldwide, and the website’s views did too. Today I still run the website but I have six more people who help me to update it with translated news, buy stuff to make giveaways, and the best thing, promote meetings for the fans in the two biggest cities in Brazil! It’s really nice because there are always a lot of different people united for the same reason, sharing the love that they feel for 1D!
‘We were invited to go to an MTV award show, VMB [the Brazilian version of the MTV VMA – Video Music Awards], to go to the stage and accept the award on behalf of One Direction as they could not be there! That was the best experience ever!
‘I love all of their songs, but my favourite is “Irresistible” from Take Me Home. I just find the lyrics beautiful and I keep wondering if they are singing it for me; lol, just a teenage dream!
‘Unfortunately I’ve never met them, and I don’t think they know about the website. This makes me sad, but I have faith that my day will come, as Sony Music Brazil supports us and all the important TV channels and magazines here in Brazil know us, so I just can’t wait for them to come to Brazil and make all of us crazy fans happy. You can ask big stars like Justin Bieber, Lady GaGa, Black Eyed Peas, McFly, Demi Lovato and many others what they think about Brazil and they will say that they love it! All concerts in Brazil have such a good vibe. People sleep in the queue for weeks to see their favourite stars. Most artists take a long time to come but, when they do come, they say they’re sorry they didn’t come sooner. We have such beautiful places, beaches, people and energy.’
Melissa is 14 and from Recife. She started out hating One Direction but is now one of their biggest fans in Brazil. ‘It might seem crazy,’ she explains, ‘but I really did hate One Direction. Someone posted a story about them on my blog with their “One Thing” video and I didn’t like it. Then they were in the Top 10 on MTV Brazil and I thought, ‘This band isn’t funny … they won’t be around for long, it’s just a fad.” I started getting angry about how they were everywhere and then I couldn’t get “One Thing” out of my head, it was too catchy. Before long, I was searching on the Internet for their other songs and watching their appearances on The X Factor. Instead of finding them irritating, I was falling in love with these five cute boys from the UK and Ireland. Before long, I had succumbed to the “One Direction Infection”.
‘I set up a 1D fan club on Twitter, started voting for them to win awards, started watching their shows live on the Internet, even if it was 4am. I made so many good friends who loved them too and I decorated my room with everything 1D related. I introduced my best friend Sarah to them and together we are waiting for the day when they will visit Brazil for the first time.’