Harry Styles refuses to promote his upcoming album like a normal human being would. Rather than run a typical advertising campaign, Styles instead opted to create a fake tourism website for Eroda, an island that does not exist.
People first started noticing the strange website around late November, when Twitter user @TheBrotographer posted a thread on the mysterious account, hypothesizing that it was anything from a tourism scam to a school project. Ultimately users were baffled by the account—although some suggested it could be a promotional account for an upcoming video game or movie, there were no links to any media.
People eventually started to connect the site to Harry Styles, piecing together parts of the account that seemed to reference his work. For example, the site recommends that you should wear one gold earring for good luck when fishing, similar to the single gold earring Styles wore to the Met Gala in May of this year.
On December 2nd, it was revealed that the Eroda Twitter account was a part of the marketing campaign for “Adore You,” the third single from Fine Line (2019). The music video for “Adore You” was released on December 6th.
The short film tells the story of Eroda, the fictional island where Styles is the only person who can smile amidst the otherwise melancholy population. He is ostracized because of this, and chooses to walk into the ocean. Before he can drown himself, he finds a washed-up fish on the shore, and decides to take care of the fish instead. The town, while initially disapproving of his actions, comes together to help Styles release the fish into the ocean. At the end of the music video, Styles sets out to sea on a one-man-boat to explore the world.
From a musical standpoint, “Adore You” continues Styles’s trend towards psychedelic pop-rock. The song’s themes of self-discovery and acceptance fit with the singles Styles has released so far, especially “Lights Up.” More than anything, I admire the creativity that it takes to release a project like this. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Styles discussed his decision to ignore pressure to create a commercially safe album. In the interview, Styles said, “I kind of went into the second one feeling like I want to work out how to make all of this feel really fun.” It seems clear to me that the strangeness and unorthodoxy of the project show that he lives by the themes of self-acceptance that have emerged in the singles from Fine Line.
