It’s Gonna Be May

Meaning

What does It’s Gonna Be May mean?

It’s gonna be May refers to a line of popularly mispronounced and misinterpreted lyrics, also known as mondegreen from the hit single of NSYNC titled “It’s Gonna Be Me”.

Starting in 2012, the phrase has been spread online toward the end of every April, in the form of image macro memes and GIFs, depicting Justin Timberlake paired with “It’s gonna be May” captions.

The meme could be used for expressing various forms of excitement, related to events happening in May, similar to the May The 4th Be With You trend.

via GIPHY

Origin

What's the origin of It’s Gonna Be May?

The song “It’s Gonna Be Me” was released as a single on NSYNC’s second album: No Strings Attached on June 13th, 2000, clearly in the wrong time, as May has already passed that year.

The official videoclip of the song was uploaded to the *NSYNC YouTube channel on October 25th, 2009.

“It’s gonna be May” first appeared on a meme on January 29th, 2012, when Tumblr user amyricha shared an image macro of Justin Timberlake paired with the titular captions.

Spread & Usage

How did It’s Gonna Be May spread?

By March 2012, the joke grew, with a photo of a calendar, including an “It’s gonna be May” image macro gaining massive traction on Tumblr and later BuzzFeed.

On April 30th, 2012, YouTube user Dr. Aaron Ochoco uploaded a video, depicting the Timberlake meme, with the one line where he says “It’s Gonna Be Me” isolated from the song.

Almost a year later, on April 26th, 2013, YouTube channel PassionateFriendTime uploaded a parody of the original song, with the title “It’s Gonna Be May”.

The gag was also embraced by Maytag who launched a commercial in 2019, featuring the NSYNC song.

For a brief time on April 30th, 2020, NSYNC complemented the title of “It’s Gonna Be Me” with “It’s Gonna Be May” on Apple Music and Spotify.

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