British band One Direction was criticized and forced to delete a tweet that encouraged their fans to send in videos of their tattoos to appear in their new movie.
One Direction was accused of encouraging minors to get themselves inked. The band took to their official Twitter account to post a tweet, which requested all fans to send in videos of their tattoos and win an opportunity to appear in their new movie.
"Have a real 1D tattoo?" they wrote on the social networking sites, "Show us! Submit a 90 second YouTube video to 1d3dfan@gmail.com and show us why you should be in the 1D3D movie! 1DHQ x."
Though most fans were excited about the competitions, others accused the band of encouraging fans below 18 to get themselves inked to win a chance to meet their favorite band.
Julia Zwagerman said: "Okay One Direction, I love you guys to pieces I really do, but promoting young girls to get a tattoo?"
Aimee tweeted: "WHY ARE U PROMOTING TATTOOS TO UR FANS DO U REALIZE U HAVE 10 YR OLD FANS OMFG"
Sarah Ha added: "Wow okay I actually really hate this status, what if like everyone actually go gets omg i luv 1d on their arm and we're all like teenage-young adult girls, and it'll be there for life. Why would you condone that." (sic)
The band was forced to remove the tweet but reportedly the damage has already been done. The tweet has been retweeted 4,000 times by over 10 million fans of the band and has more than 6,000 of its 13 million fans on Facebook set it as their favorite.
After the tweet was removed, the band's spokesperson Simon Jones said the tweet was a mistake and the earlier tweet was replaced by another that encouraged fans to submit their One Direction collection instead in a 90 seconds YouTube video.
Following this backslash, band member Harry Styles came under the wrath of the media with reports that the young singer may have "taken his love of ink a little too far" by getting a butterfly tattoo that takes up the majority of his upper body. The boy band has been accused of being "obsessed" with tattoos and reports have it that the earlier posted tweet was just another hint of this obsession.