Picture the scene: it’s 2010 and the X Factor has already been whittling down the weekends to Christmas for five whole years. Winners have come and then most definitely gone. Simon Cowell’s dress sense is no better. But then a Syco Production created boyband stumbled into second place - and One Direction Mania was born.

One DirectionOne Direction were formed eight years ago

Fast forward and what remains of the boys have celebrated their eight year anniversary and got #8YearsOfOneDirection trending.

Initially starring Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Mallik, the quintet became a quadruple when Zayn left the band and, shortly after, the remaining four took a hiatus after five years together.

Since then, One Direction as a collective has been sparse as the boys branched out into the own music.

But today (Mon), their Twitter came alive as the boys celebrated eight years together and started tweeting lyrics to their hit songs.

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Liam wrote: "#8YearsOfOneDirection what an incredible 8 years it's been with my brothers! Thank you to all the fans that are still supporting and following our journeys. Love LP [sic]."

Louis added to his own Twitter account how he couldn't believe how time has flown by, writing: "#8YearsOfOneDirection Where has the time gone!? Thank you so much to every single person who's ever supported us. Big love! [sic]."

Many hopeful fans have speculated the return of the boys to social media as a group could lead to the Story of my Life hitmakers’ reformation.

Liam previously said if they ever decided to reunite in the future, it would be likely they'd all perform one another's solo songs.

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He said: "For me the only way One Direction could better themselves from going to playing stadiums - like where else do you play? - is to manage to be, you know, like 'The Avengers', like we're successful on our own.

"Like if Iron Man wants to go and deal with someone, he just deals with them.

"He doesn't call up Hulk and be like 'oh, whatever' unless he really needs him.

"So my thing is, why aren't we like that? Like, we should go and boss it on our own and then when we do the show it can be like 'yeah, yeah, just sit down there boys, I'll sing a bit of 'Slow Hands'', you know what I mean? Imagine that?"