Did ‘The Daily Show’ Really Call One Direction A Terrorist Group?

“The Daily Show” mentioned One Direction in a joke this week, and now fans are up in arms.

For context, here’s the clip in question, along with one Directioner’s take on the satirical news show’s bit. As correspondent Jessica Williams lists off different terrorist groups, she slips in 1D.

Although Williams was trying to describe a ridiculous, imaginary terrorist supergroup in order to demonstrate how frequently new terrorist groups seem to be popping up in the news cycle lately, Directioners heard “terrorist,” “member” and “One Direction” and immediately assumed she was referring to Zayn Malik, the group’s lone Muslim, British Pakistani member.

The only problem with this mental leap is that I doubt Williams could even differentiate the 1D lads by name. The humor and absurdity of the skit comes from throwing a harmless boy band like One Direction in with the likes of ISIS and Khorasan — not singling Zayn out as “a terrorist.” Trust me, I say this as a Directioner.

Directioners took to the Internet to let people know how mad they were.

They started the hashtag #TheDailyShowGoneTooFar.

Though, perhaps some Directioners went too far.