Louis Tomlinson named most popular One Direction star

Louis Tomlinson has been named the world’s most-loved member of previous boyband One Direction, as he saw the highest proportion of love reactions to articles covering his life.

Self-Made Celebs takes a look at the background of young high-earning celebs to see which boast the closest similarity to the average star featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 lists, and also reveals how they’re received by fans online.

Tomlinson saw more love reactions to articles about him than any other member analysed in the study, at an impressive 99%, while other loved members included Niall Horan (98% love reactions) and Liam Payne (96% love reactions).

The sentiment analysis was conducted over global articles over the last year, with the 5,784 articles written on Tomlinson covering things like his departure from the Syco record label, one-off charity livestream gig, and relationship with his fans.

On the other end of the scale, it was Harry Styles who saw the most articles written on his career and life on the whole, with an impressive 30,412 being reported over the last year.

In comparison, the One Direction ten-year reunion rumours from last year saw 148 articles published on the band, with 46% of the 13.6k online reactions collected being ‘love’.

One Direction members order from most-least loved, based on reactions

Louis Tomlinson (99%)
Niall Horan (98%)
Liam Payne (96%)
Zayn Malik (92%)
Harry Styles (77%)

Although Harry Styles saw the lowest proportion of love reactions, the other reactions were still mainly positive, with 17% ‘haha’ reactions, 3% angry reactions, 2% ‘wow’ reactions, and 1% sad reactions – compared to Zayn’s 5% ‘haha’ reactions, and Liam’s 1% ‘wow’ reactions.

Peter Bennett, Head of Brand Marketing at PlayOJO, comments on the analysis: “Although it’s clear that all the artists featured in the analysis are hugely supported by their fanbases, it is interesting to see how online sentiment varies from person to person.

“It’s also encouraging to see that the majority of reactions to articles around the artists are positive – particularly given the volatile nature of online forums.”

As well as looking at online sentiment, the study compared the background of the high-earning youngsters to that of the average celeb featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 lists, to see if the stars had a high likelihood of success, or if they worked to beat the odds.

This analysis revealed that it’s Billie Eilish who’s the closest match to the ideal celeb, as her background – including birthplace, birth date, ethnicity and age – bears a staggering 95% resemblance to that of the average star accoladed on historical Forbes lists since 2017.

Harry Styles was featured on the list, as his background proved an impressive 58% match to Forbes’ ideal star – suggesting he was always destined for fame and fortune.

The research is released in the run up to One Direction’s 11 year anniversary, which is on the 23rd July.