Did One Direction Cause the Global Stock Market Crash? Newsworthy Investigates

One Direction before causing turmoil in global financial markets. Photo / Reuters
One Direction before causing turmoil in global financial markets. Photo / Reuters

Here are two facts.

1. Yesterday, The Sun reported One Direction will go on an "extended hiatus" next year. 2. Yesterday, stock markets went into freefall around the globe.

Two momentous events on the same day. Is it coincidence? We at Newsworthy find that hard to believe. This is....

Our story starts with a shock Facebook post.

It went up on March 26, opening with the words:

‘After five incredible years Zayn Malik has decided to leave One Direction...’

Hundreds of news stories were posted within minutes. Many of them focused on the toll the news was inflicting on 1D’s legion of teenage fans. But all-but-unnoticed in the fuss, a strange thing was happening: the Dow Jones was falling.

As it turns out, Zayn was the canary in the coal mine.

Markets, always volatile and emotional, struggled to regain their confidence. Maybe they sensed the internal ructions rumbling beneath One Direction’s forced displays of public unity. Maybe they were monitoring the signs of fraying, the Twitter spats.

Whatever it was, something snapped yesterday, and everything came tumbling down.

In the following graph, the red line represents the number of members in One Direction, while the blue line tracks the performance of the Dow Jones.

You’ll notice the trend lines mirroring each other: their times of relative peace appearing in unison; their crises all but simultaneous.

Maybe you say something as small as a beloved pop group can’t cause something this big.

Haven’t you ever heard of The Butterfly Effect?

What about World War 1? It began after the assassination of a single Austro-Hungarian monarch.

One Direction is a $200 million enterprise. They’re no Google, but they’re no Newsworthy either.

Is it crazy to think they are the market’s version of a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon; its Franz Ferdinand?

No, it’s not crazy. It’s pseudoscience.

At least John Key understands the danger this crisis poses to our continued solvency.

That’s right. One Direction forever. Or else.