Hysteria over Zayn Malik’s decision to leave boy band One Direction has officially set in.
Employment law experts at the company Peninsula based in the United Kingdom received hundreds of calls from employers with workers requesting “compassionate leave” following the pop star’s announcement Wednesday, as reports the Manchester Evening News.
Specifically, the company’s Employer Advice Service received 220 of such calls between the hours of 6pm Wednesday and 9:30am Thursday.
An employment law director at the company aptly labeled it “a story you could not make up.”
“While I sympathize with One Direction fans, I hardly think this qualified as compassionate leave,” explained employment law director Alan Price, adding that he gave that advice to the employers contacting the company.
“If employees feel strongly about the issue then request that they take days off as a holiday, but compassionate leave is what you allow if a close relative dies, unless the employer is unaware of family ties with Zayn Malik then I hardly think that this qualifies,” added Price.
The Zayn mourning appears to have been most evident on Twitter, where the breaking news gave way to 4,600 tweets per minute Wednesday, according to the Daily Mail.
The social media conversation went from sad to troubling when a trend of self-harm tweets emerged among fans.
A spokesperson for the children’s charity Barnardo’s described the Twitter trend as horrifying.
“We are horrified at the overnight trending of self-harm tweets after Zayn Malik quit One Direction with teenagers posting pictures of their self-inflicted injuries and encouraging others to follow suit,” said the spokesperson. “Self-harming sites and social media chat on self-harm are a disturbing aspect of culture which must be addressed and handled sensitively by all those responsible for caring for children.”
The hysteria was marked by multiple trending hashtags, such as #AlwaysInOurHeartsZaynMalik and #PleaseZaynBackForUs.
Oh, the tragedy of boy band breakups.
