English singer Harry Styles has made a significant impact on popular culture with his music, artistry, fashion, identity, tours, and commercial achievements. He is a subject of academic research and media studies, with several academic institutions providing courses about him, generally focused on concepts of gender, sexuality, globalism, consumerism, and fan culture. Styles is regarded as one of the most influential men in music and fashion, and a subject of widespread public interest with a vast fanbase.
His musical career began in 2010 as part of the boy band One Direction, which became one of the best-selling boy bands of all time before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016. Styles has steadily amassed fame, success, and public interest throughout his career, with several media publications considering him a pop icon, a fashion icon, a global icon, and one of the most successful artists of the 21st century.
Styles has been credited for the rise in vinyl sales and has had simultaneous achievements in physical sales, digital sales, streaming, record charts, and touring. He has inspired several musicians and novelists, with Rolling Stone UK calling him the "new King of Pop" in 2022. Styles has often been described as a successor to artists such as Elton John, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury, and Michael Jackson, and one of the culture-defining figures shaping masculinity, femininity, and gender fluidity.
Fame and stardom
Harry Styles has been labelled one of the most influential artists by several media publications. He is one of the richest musicians in the United Kingdom, with an estimated net worth of £225 million as of 2025. Styles's musical career began in 2010 as part of the boy band One Direction, which became one of the best-selling boy bands of all time before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016. He has released four solo studio albums, all of which were commercially successful.
Styles has been referred to as a pop icon, a fashion icon, and a global icon. He is considered to be among the most successful solo artists to have emerged from a band. Ben Beaumont-Thomas of The Guardian wrote that Styles is "a star who has negotiated one of the most difficult transitions in music – from boyband to solo artist – with more panache than even successful forebears such as Justin Timberlake and Robbie Williams". He has often been described as a successor to artists such as Elton John, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Little Richard. Rolling Stone UK named Styles the "new King of Pop" in 2022. He is considered to be one of the culture-defining figures shaping masculinity, femininity, gender fluidity, and individuality through his fashion and lifestyle.
Identity Journalists deemed Styles a cultural touchstone in redefining traditional understandings of masculinity and the perception of male musicians. Anne T. Donahue of The Guardian described him as the harbinger of the "art-throb" persona, subverting expectations of machismo and hyper-masculinity promoted by other popular male musicians like Justin Bieber and Drake. Columnist Sarah Ditum of The Times labelled Styles "the gold standard of modern sensitivity" and said he "reinvented the playboy" through his chivalry and respectful nature. Guy Pewsey, writing for Grazia, thought that his "enthusiasm for frills and flamboyance is far from superficial – it's changing what it means to be a man". Jack Michael Taylor, a journalist who studied at the University of Bangor and Liverpool John Moores University stated "Styles is integrated within popular culture as a queer icon latched to the music industry and can be used as a vessel to bring forth the media's perpetuations of being genderqueer and what it means to be a 'man. Hannah Banks of the University of the Sunshine Coast argued "his current presentation of fluid masculinity and fashion, undefined sexuality, and political activation, seem to demonstrate an original and true self".
A study by scholars at the University of Georgia deemed Styles one of the most significant societal "nonconformists" in popular culture. Journalist Caitlin Moran considered Styles one of the contemporary public figures who are expanding ideas about masculinity and developing "a new pantheon of men". Robin Givhan of The Washington Post credited Styles for "being his singular self, at a time when people from so many corners of society are intent on telling less-advantaged folks [...] how to be and how to live. It's a small but invigorating thing to see a pop star making full use of all of the sweet liberty that comes with his territory". In a study across 102 headlines from The Independent, Josefiinao Jokela from the University of Jyväskylä found focus on Styles's actions and thoughts regarding several past or ongoing societal issues, representing him as an active feminist and a spokesperson of different minorities, with an emphasis on his vulnerable and emotional sides in several representations.
Rikke van Rossum of Uppsala University argued that the visibility of Styles's "bent masculinity" exposed the ideals of assumed heterosexuality in the mainstream, and his subversion of traditional norms highlighted the evolution of the responsibility for heterosexual male-bodied individuals to be masculine in order to reproduce and uphold society. Scholar Kate Harris believed that he contributed to altering hegemonic masculinity due to his audience size. Vicki Karaminas and Justine Taylor wrote that "maleness in the Styles persona is but an anchor point for registering the many ways that masculinities are questioned and revised" since he "ushered in a monumental shift in menswear" and has "become a muse for the gender fluidity movement". Liz Giuffre and Philip Hayward of University of Technology Sydney felt Styles's presentation and actions "offer[ed] leadership towards gender equality and diversity in the music industry that is still rare, and its consequence has positioned [him] as a relative outsider". Kirsten Zemke, senior lecturer in ethnomusicology at the University of Auckland said Styles "perform[s] gender, not sexuality". Anna A. Gornostaeva of the Moscow State Linguistic University argued that Joe Biden referencing Styles in a speech at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner allowed Biden to position himself as a "friendlier" figure in politics, due to Styles's association with a kind, well-disposed persona and identity.
Fandom
Styles's fan base is known as "Harries", including fans of all ages, ethnicities, and genders around the world. According to researcher Kate Pattison from The Conversation, they have made fan edits of him with their video editing skills, customised fansites with their coding and web designing skills, and organised marketing campaigns to promote his music and help him win awards. In a survey of fans conducted by Pattison in 2023, the skills they have learnt through their fandom included graphic design, sewing, writing, close reading, and digital literacy. Throughout the years, Styles's fans has raised over £30,000 for charitable causes, including over £11,000 in 2021 alone in honour of his 27th birthday.
On the fan fiction website Wattpad, there are over 270,000 stories about Styles, with some of them attracting millions of readers. His popularity on the platform has sparked academic and cultural discussion due to the often harmful tropes around sexual consent and aggression contained in the works published as part of a "bad boy" persona constructed for Styles. Patrycja Biniek wrote that such fantasies allowed fans "to indulge in closeness to the idol himself, as having contact with him is impossible" and argued that "the method of exaggerating the negative qualities of the male's personality is a result of the fascination with 'the dark triad of personality traits': narcissism, Machiavellism and psychopathy". Kerra Miles of Eastern Kentucky University argued Styles's ubiquity on the platform is also part of the larger trend of "safety in fantasy" because of his kind persona.
Styles has inspired his fans to dress up for his concerts, leading Fashionista to call the shows "his fans' Met Gala". Outfits often include sequins, cowboy hats, and feather boas, with fans encouraging others to "BYOB – bring your own boa". Styles's fans have been featured in Vogue, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. The popularisation of feather boas at Styles's concerts caused a shortage of the accessory in various locations he performed in, including Dublin, Melbourne, and New York City. The feather boas at Party City in New York City were completely sold out within the first two to three days of his 15-night residency at the Madison Square Garden. Some media publications criticized Styles's fans for the environmental impact of the single-use accessory as they have polluted parts of cities after his performances. Due to his popularity, Styles has often fallen a victim of bottling, frequently hitting him in the groin.
Styles has been known for his protective relationship with his fans, stalwartly defending them in his interviews. When asked in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone about his young female fanbase and if he is worried about proving credibility to an older crowd, he stated, "They're our future. [...] Teenage-girl fans – they don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool'. They like you, and they tell you". Publications such as Billboard, Vice, Teen Vogue, Vox, and Refinery29 praised Styles for his support. Time labelled his comment as a "powerful message about young women", and Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Guardian said he drove the "cultural change" towards respecting young women's passions for music. Jenessa Williams of the University of Leeds believed that Styles's quote has been "eulogized in contemporary fan canon" as a watershed moment where the purchasing power of fangirls became too visible for musical misogynists to ignore due to his support.
Stevie Leigh of the University of Cincinnati said "the saturated presence of women-identified fans in the Harry Styles fandom facilitated lesbian and bisexual identification" and allowed for the exploration of ideas around compulsory heterosexuality. Allyson Gross of the University of London compared the relationship of the fans with Styles to that of Ernesto Laclau's "the people" and the populist leader, who united the differences among them through an equivalential chain of signification. In a 2022 study, Janey Umback of Curtin University found that research participants unanimously agreed that their involvement in Styles's fan groups had resulted in an increased awareness of social and political inequality.
Since One Direction's early years, a group of shipping conspiracy theorist fans, often called "Larries", have been dedicated to proving that Styles and Louis Tomlinson, name blended as "Larry Stylinson", are secretly a couple that has been closeted by a homophobic music industry. In 2016, Vox Aja Romano deemed the group "one of the largest elements of the One Direction fandom, which itself is one of the largest fandoms on the internet". Academics Clare Southerton and Hannah McCann connected them to phenomena like queer reading and slash fiction. The theory, mainly proliferated on social media, has led to online bullying and harassment of Styles's and Tomlinson's friends, family, and partners.
Social media presence