BY AMY KLUBER
What do One Direction and ISIS have in common? Terrorism — at least according to The Daily Show.
JON STEWART, DAILY SHOW HOST: “Just as you were talking, a new terrorist group formed with one member each from ISIS, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, Hamas, One Direction and the Zetas drug cartel.”
Funny, right? Many fans of the group, dubbed Directioners, didn’t think so.
Apparently because band mate Zayn Malik is Muslim, Directioners were quick to assume the joke was singling him out.
The pop group has not responded to the ordeal, but angry fans did head to Twitter — #TheDailyShowGoneTooFar was a top trending topic. Cue the irony in the sheer terror Directioners brought against the show.
This user tweeted, “Zayn is not a ‘terrorist’ so if you mess with him you mess with the directioners!”
Other fans defending Zayn called him “a hero” and “the definition of an angel”.
But things turned violent with some users even tweeting death threats.
A writer for The Washington Post backed The Daily Show, writing, “Judging by the fact that most of ‘The Daily Show’ writers are middle-aged men, it does seem unlikely that this throwaway joke was intended as some kind of racial or Islamaphobic attack on Zayn Malik.”
The Daily Show responded to the backlash, tweeting what we all were expecting: “Dear 1D fans: We didn’t know the band members’ names, religions, hobbies, etc. Just knew they were popular. But not THIS popular. #whoa”
In the words of a writer for Salon: “Can’t we just hug it out?”
This video includes images from Getty Images.