6. One Direction Fans Riot
The more devoted fans of chart-topping boy band One Direction have a reputation for being... a little overzealous. A recent Channel 4 documentary showed the extent of some fans' devotion including waiting in the lobby of the group's hotel and hurling online abuse at Taylor Swift for breaking up with band member Harry Styles. But what happened in Los Angeles on the 3rd of August this year puts that in the shade. A cinema in LA was showing an advance screening of the One Direction documentary film This Is Us, which premiered in Leicester Square earlier this week. The screening had a limited number of attendees and a large number of the fans who had queued up (some as early as quarter to four in the morning) weren't able to get seats. So presumably they cut their losses, went home, and made plans to see it after its general release. Oh no. L.A. Times journalist Amy Kaufman (who was attending the screening) tweeted that roughly 200 fans had rushed the cinema and pushed past security in an attempt to get into the screening room after being turned away at the door. Things got so out of hand that the doors of the screening room had to be barricaded and the Los Angeles Police Department were called to restore order. All because of a group of teenage girls' unrelenting desire to see a film. And not one that was a live stream of a concert, but a documentary film that was only a few weeks from getting a multinational release. Boyband fandom certainly seems to have stepped up a gear since the days of The Beatles.