GQ UK deals with an onslaught of Twitter abuse and death threats following One Direction covers
British GQ has faced a torrent of abuse from One Direction fans over its September issue which features five covers, each with a different member of the band on the front.
The provocative straplines used to accompany the images of Harry, Louis, Naill, Liam and Zayn left some One Direction fans less than impressed, with a barrage of hateful social media messages aimed at the magazine, including death threats, appearing online.
Responding to the tweets GQ wrote on its website “we weren’t quite prepared for how many tweets we would receive in such a short space of time…While most were positive, some less so, a few frankly has us fearing for our lives.
“Although the issue doesn’t even go on sale until Thursday, a lot of the band’s fan base took issue with certain cover lines, in particular one on Harry Styles’ cover, “He’s Up All Night To Get Lucky.” It just goes to show: hell hath no fury like a Directioner scorned.”
GQ’s US publication also got pulled into the madness with GQ US’s social media editor Nate Erickson explaining to Mashable that the US magazine’s senior editors had also been dealing with an onslaught of threatening tweets, voicemails and emails.
With the fans messages to the magazine rely heavily on caps lock and swearing to get their distaste for GQ’s covers across, Erickson said “It's the death threats with proper spelling and grammar that worry us.”
As well as posting a selection of the ‘most terrifying responses to our One Direction covers’ the GQ post signs off, “We’re still debating how to respond. To the rest of you, consider your feedback noted.”