It’s been five years since Britain’s most popular boyband went on what some call a hiatus or what others call a break-up. In exactly a week, on Thursday the 23rd of July, One Direction celebrate their ten-year anniversary. With the members succeeding with their individual solo careers, fans have been wondering if they will get the band back together one more time for the 10^th birthday.

On Wednesday (July 15) PR manager Simon Jones revealed the plans for a 1d-anniversary on his Twitter account. “There will be a ‘10 Years of One Direction’ anniversary website, a brand new anniversary celebration video for @YouTube, reformatted EPs and steaming partner activations”, the tweet reads, including a link to a statement on his website which contains more information about the celebrations.

After the band announced their hiatus in 2015 (which was originally meant to only last 18 months), many fans were hoping for a reunion for the anniversary. And though the directioners are planning on honouring their bands’ anniversary, many aren’t too happy about Jones’ news. Most of them are questioning the sense behind a website, as well as the so called “mixtape playlists”, arguing that they can create playlists and even a website by themselves.

i just really really hope the biggest boy band of the 21st century doesn’t celebrate their 10 year anniversary with a website and old footage just to disband afterwards because i’ll drown in my own tears

— vic,²⁸ (@tobaccovanillou) July 15, 2020

“A special ‘10 Years of One Direction’ website will launch on 23rd July, that will be an immersive and exciting interactive fan experience. The site will take the form of a timeline charting the history of the group, from the first audition right up to the start of their hiatus. It will host an archive of music videos, artwork, TV performances, behind-the-scenes and rarely-seen content, all in one place”, the statement reads. It will guide the fans through the band’s history. In only five years, One Direction have won nearly 200 awards, sold over 200 million records worldwide and achieved over 21 billion streams on streaming platforms. A lot of achievements that are now being put together in one big timeline.

“Fans will also be able to generate their own shareable ‘mixtape’ playlist on the site, which will be personalised according to how they’ve interacted with the site’s content and the eras they’ve spent the most time exploring.”

But to everyone hoping that there’s a bit more originality to the plan: “A brand new anniversary celebration video for YouTube will also be released on 23rd July”, the statement reads. Who knows, maybe the video will contain some unreleased footage. Earlier this year, One Direction member Liam Payne revealed in an interview that his bandmate Louis Tomlinson threatened to egg Payne’s house if he’d reveal too much information about the anniversary. So, there might as well be more to it than we currently know.