We’ve come a long way since 2010. It seems like just yesterday Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik captured our hearts as a group while singing and dancing their way to the top on X Factor. Though the OT5 ended up becoming an OT4 after Zayn left the band in 2015, they will forever be in our hearts as the boyband of the 2010s.
As we approach One Direction‘s tenth anniversary as a band on July 23, we rounded up some fast facts about the milestone moment for the boys and their fans — including whether or not to expect a reunion this summer.
When Is One Direction’s 10th Anniversary?
The group celebrates their ~bandiversary~ every year on July 23 — but fans start honoring the band a month earlier. They keep the party going with trending hashtags like this year’s “1DMonthBegins,” which popped up on Twitter on June 23.
Why Is 1D’s 10th Anniversary Celebrated on This Date?
When the five U.K. natives appeared on the talent reality series, they originally competed as solo artists. They were all eliminated before making it to the on-air portion of the show — until Simon Cowell came to the rescue and decided to group them together to form a boyband. July 23 is the date that episode aired in 2010.
What Can Fans Expect From the Band on July 23?
According to PR firm Simon Jones, fans will be able to discover never-before-seen pieces of the band’s ~history~, including “an archive of music videos, artwork, TV performances, behind-the-scenes and rarely-seen content” through an immersive fan experience website called 10 Years of One Direction. There will also be new musical content on Apple Music and Spotify, including “B-sides and rare songs, remixes, live recordings and acoustic versions of tracks.” So, let’s rejoice, everybody!
Is One Direction Coming Back?
This is the question on everyone’s mind. One thing to say upfront: Nothing has been confirmed so far. But that didn’t stop Liam, 26, from touching on the topic during an Instagram Live session with DJ Alesso.
“Most of us are in London. We’ve been trying to arrange the first group FaceTime at the moment,” he said on April 19. “You can come and fill in for Zayn. Join the band!”
He also told The Sun the boys were working on something days before the Live broadcast. “We’ve got a 10-year anniversary coming up so we’ve all been speaking together a lot over the last few weeks, which has been really nice,” Liam said on April 9. “There’s a number of different things that we are all working on to try and make happen and people are forwarding emails around.”
When Did the Boys Officially Announce Their Hiatus?
One Direction revealed they were going on a hiatus in August 2015. The news came three months before their final album, Made In the A.M., was released. Their break began in March 2016 — and they never toured their last release. Us Weekly confirmed they would split and dissolve their record contract as a group in January 2016.
The band posted a retrospective video clip on their official Twitter account just before their hiatus took effect … but on May 5, 2020, they deleted that tweet, according to stan accounts on the social media platform. So you never know what the former boybanders might have up their sleeves!