Let's Remember The *NSYNC Song That Sparked A Thousand Memes

The first of May. To some, it is just the day their rent for the month is due, a day to have to rewrite the date over and over because they still think it's April. But to others, it's the day when they can finally celebrate the best misheard lyric in pop music.

First released in July 2000, NSYNC's song "It's Gonna Be Me" quickly became the iconic boy band's first and only #1 single. The danceable hit had its moment in the spotlight before getting stored away in the back of our music libraries with the rest of early 2000s pop, living on only in the hearts of diehard fans, before it found new meaning in the form of a meme.

While fans had noticed Justin Timberlake's distinct pronunciation of the word "me," the meme only graced the internet in 2012 where it instantly went viral. It is now effectively a national holiday by internet standards. The meme became so widespread that in 2014 it was referenced by Barack Obama in a Facebook post.

According to an interview Timberlake did with Capital FM, a U.K. radio station in 2016, we have a producer to thank for the pronunciation of the now infamous lyric. “In my defense, Max Martin made me sing ‘me’ that way,” Timberlake said. “I think he just wanted me to sound like I was from Tennessee.”

The hilarious meme taking over all of our Facebook and Twitter feeds is not the only thing that happens as we bid adieu to April and usher in the month of May. Data provided by Youtube shows that "It's Gonna Be Me" has its highest spike in popularity the day before on April 30. The official music video now has more than 56 million views.

Fully embracing his immortalization via meme, Justin Timberlake, the comedic class act that he is, joined in last year with a tweet saying, "EVERYBODY... IT IS ACTUALLY GONNA BE MAY!"