How *Nsync and Backstreet Boys Turned 'It's Gonna Be May' into an Unlikely Boyband Alliance
By Robert Thorne
The genesis of the phenomenon dates back to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm. Legendary Swedish pop producers Max Martin and Rami Yacoub instructed a 19-year-old Justin Timberlake to over-enunciate the word "me" as "may" to make the vocal track cut through aggressive synthesizer arrangements and compression. That deliberate phoneme twist helped propel "It's Gonna Be Me" to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in July 2000, giving *NSYNC their sole number-one single in the United States.
The cultural inflection point arrived on January 29, 2012, when a Tumblr user posted an image of an April calendar page featuring Timberlake’s frosted curls above the simple caption: "It's Gonna Be May." By 2014, the joke was a certified digital holiday. Even Timberlake surrendered to the wave, posting an annual acknowledgment every April 30. Unlike most viral formats that burn out within months, this one tied itself to a recurring calendar event, guaranteeing an automatic traffic spike every spring.
Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.
