With April coming to an end, it’s time to defrost a classic meme. If you’re seeing a lot of young Justin Timberlake photos floating around today and wondering what that’s about, here’s a crash course.
Videos by American Songwriter
In 2012, Tumblr user amyricha—who now goes by astro_kianna on Twitter—created an image of Justin Timberlake overlaid with the words “It’s Gonna Be May.” This is a play on the NSYNC song “It’s Gonna Be Me.” JT’s particular singing accent while he was in the boy band made it sound like he was saying “May” instead of “me,” and Kianna capitalized on that coincidence.
The original image was created in January 2012, but another Tumblr user named Nairobi-blue posted a similar image in March that year. This was a picture of a calendar turned to April with a picture of Justin Timberlake posted on the 30th.
Buzzfeed picked up on this image instead of the original, causing it to go viral. Over the years, many YouTube videos and a plethora of social media posts have been made about the meme. It has since become part of the Internet lexicon.
Often, the first of May is celebrated by posting a young image of Justin Timberlake with no context. Either you get it or you don’t. It’s also been warped into obscure references such as a simple image of ramen noodles and the word “Soon.”
Original Meme Creator Has Trouble Being Credited for Her Creation, Despite Acknowledgement from Justin Timberlake
According to Twitter posts from Kianna, the originator of the meme, she’s had trouble getting credit for her creation. Every year, people post the Justin Timberlake meme without realizing where it came from.
“It’s honestly annoying that people continue to capitalize off something I created each year, and I had to fight through noise for YEARS just for people to know it was me,” she wrote in 2024. “No one shared my posts except the few people who cared. Even after JT acknowledged me it’s still that way.”
The issue Kianna has is with other people taking credit for something that she made. However, it’s most likely not possible for her to copyright her meme, as it already uses copyrighted material.
Memes are an interesting gray area. For example, Chad Kroeger of Nickelback has stated that the band could get the “Look At This Graph” meme taken down. This is because the band owns the copyright to that song. However, Nickelback thinks the meme is hilarious so they leave it up.
This April 30, we celebrate the coming of May with Justin Timberlake’s weird 2000s Ramen noodle hair. Still, don’t forget who started it, as all memes must come from somewhere. “It’s Gonna Be May” was not born in a vacuum, so credit where credit is due.
Featured Image by Ron Davis/Getty Images
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.