--- title: It's Gonna Be May Meme With Justin Timberlake Is Inescapable description: The gag is a play off a moment in NSYNC's hit song "It's Gonna Be Me." canonical: https://time.com/4310271/its-gonna-be-may-justin-timberlake-nsync-meme/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-29T14:30:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-15T02:00:24.000Z og:title: There's No Escaping Justin Timberlake's 'It's Gonna Be May' Meme og:description: April showers bring May...memes og:url: https://time.com/4310271/its-gonna-be-may-justin-timberlake-nsync-meme/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There's No Escaping Justin Timberlake's 'It's Gonna Be May' Meme twitter:description: April showers bring May...memes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 'It's Gonna Be May:' There's No Escaping This Justin Timberlake Meme > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Updated: Dec 15, 2023 2:00 AM UTCPublished: Apr 29, 2016 2:30 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Updated: Dec 15, 2023 2:00 AM UTCPublished: Apr 29, 2016 2:30 PM UTC It’s that time of the year again. The time when everyone on the Internet is confronted with a photo of [Justin Timberlake](http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/justin-timberlake/?iid=sr-link1) smiling and sporting his circa 2000 [ramen noodle hair](http://www.thegloss.com/2015/01/31/culture/justin-timberlake-birthday-nsync-hair-looks-like-ramen-noodles/). Of course, that picture also features a now-infamous caption: “[It’s gonna be May](http://time.com/3842186/justin-timberlake-nsync-its-gonna-be-may/?iid=sr-link1).” > [](https://twitter.com/KimBhasin/status/593818656049627136) For anyone who has somehow managed to avoid this meme since it [became popular in 2012](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-gonna-be-may), the gag is a play off a moment in NSYNC’s hit “It’s Gonna Be Me” when J.T. sings the title lyric in a way that sounds like he’s announcing the start of a certain spring month. **Read More:** [These 2 Members of NSYNC Are Back in the Recording Studio Together](http://time.com/4229726/nsync-joey-fatone-chris-kirkpatrick-reunion-recording-studio/) While many have come to [loathe the joke](https://twitter.com/koreykuhl/status/593816712719372288?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw), the photo continues to go viral every April 30\. In fact, it has become so pervasive that even [President Barack Obama](http://time.com/84527/barack-obamas-facebook-page-joins-its-gonna-be-may-meme/) and Justin himself have gotten in on the action. > [](https://twitter.com/jtimberlake/status/726100939518545922) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4310271/its-gonna-be-may-justin-timberlake-nsync-meme/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4310271/its-gonna-be-may-justin-timberlake-nsync-meme/"},"headline":"'It's Gonna Be May:' There's No Escaping This Justin Timberlake Meme","datePublished":"2016-04-29T14:30:31.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-15T02:00:24.000Z","description":"April showers bring May...memes","url":"https://time.com/4310271/its-gonna-be-may-justin-timberlake-nsync-meme/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Music","viral","Holidays","Justin Timberlake","memes"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4310271/its-gonna-be-may-justin-timberlake-nsync-meme/","name":"'It's Gonna Be May:' There's No Escaping This Justin Timberlake Meme"}}]}] ```