Which 60s-80s band do we think inspired the most pre-internet teenagers to write "My Parents Sold Me To ________" short stories in their notebooks? Putting a polite moratorium on The Beatles because they're too obvious.
To come back around and be serious on this post, I think I've accidentally hit on part of what made the original "Sold To One Direction" meme so funny to people; the two halves, so to speak, of the concept are only jarring because they're being paired together.
Like, teenagers are daydreaming about One Direction? Of course they are--1D was the most successful boy band of the 2010s, and providing a vessel through which young girls can examine their own developing sexuality is (if viewed as positively as possible) what boy bands are for. And teenagers are daydreaming about being sold to hot boys against their will? Sure; the bodice ripper is a very old sub-genre, the appeal of which has been explained many times, and which isn't likely to go away any time soon. The thing that makes this weird is the fact that so many teenagers apparently looked at the squeaky-clean, clean-shaven, J-Crew-and-Hollister-clad young men on their bedroom posters and thought "Yeah, these guys look like they could be doing human trafficking. I don't feel the need to spend any time or worldbuilding justifying this to my audience."
If you did this same set-up with, idk, Mötley Crüe, it would still be Some Freaky Shit, but it would undeniably be more tonally consistent with the band's public image, you know?
