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It’s always a cultural event when a celebrity is arrested, but often enough, people are willing to forgive someone who has starred in big movies, dazzled as a professional athlete, or recorded their favorite hit singles . Justin Timberlake, however, can no longer trade his history with ‘NSync or his peak as a solo artist to stay in the public’s good graces: when he was arrested and charged with drunk driving in the Hamptons early Tuesday morning, the resounding consensus on social media was that he deserved the embarrassment.
For what? Put this down to a very poor record with women. In recent years, commentators have reassessed the infamous “Nipplegate” scandal during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, when Janet Jackson took blame for a “wardrobe malfunction,” while Timberlake , who had ripped off part of his costume and exposed his chest, kept his career more or less on track. Last year, Britney Spears’ memoir The woman in me made the accusation that Timberlake cheated on her during their relationship, after Timberlake released a famous song after the breakup, implying that She had been unfaithful. (Headlines about infidelities also tainted his relationship with now-wife Jessica Biel, although he denied them.)
While the turnaround against Timberlake may seem sudden, you can actually track his slide from “Prince of Pop” to persona non grata through the language of the 21st century masses – i.e. memes. Here, take a stroll through Timberlake’s last decade of viral content:
It will be in May
As early as 2012, Tumblr users joked about Timberlake’s vocals on the 2000 single “It’s Gonna Be Me”, from ‘NSync’s second album, No strings attached. When Timberlake sings the title of the song, he emphasizes the word “me” to make it sound more like “can.” Therefore, towards the end of April, you could post an image of Timberlake with the text “It’s Gonna Be May” to announce the month to come. It was the kind of light-hearted, Impact-font image macro that made sense in a more innocent time, when Barack Obama was headed for re-election (his communications team got in on the joke in 2014) and that Timberlake wasn’t “problematic” or “canceled” – terms that are not yet endemic to social media. It was a bit of premature Y2K nostalgia based on a familiar face and misheard lyrics, the kind of positive PR you just can’t buy. The fact that this meme was nowhere to be found over the past few springs shows you how far Timberlake has fallen.