Share: mail

I love a good outrage more than anyone, but this is too much. “White Privilege: Justin Timberlake Gets Super Bowl Halftime ShowandJT at Super Bowl: White Male Privilege again?” These are stories that people who were deemed smart enough to work for companies worth millions of dollars came up with.

The outrage began on Oct. 23, when Justin Timberlake announced that he would be headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show in February 2018. Timberlake’s history with the show goes back to 2004, when headliner Janet Jackson brought him onstage for a guest spot.

A wardrobe malfunction on live TV at the end of Timberlake’s segment dominated the headlines after the game. The incident is more famous than the actual game, which saw the evil empire of New England win the championship.

To this day, the cult known as Social Justice Warriors are buying into the rumor that Jackson is banned from the NFL, since she hasn’t worked with them since 2004. The hashtag #JusticeforJanet was trending after the announcement in hopes to lift the “ban” off of Jackson.

Sorry to piss in everyone’s cheerios, but the NFL hasn’t banned Janet Jackson. Since reality sometimes get swept under the carpet during outrage parties, allow me to remind everyone that the NFL has stated that “There’s no ban,” and that Janet Jackson might even make an appearance in Timberlake’s show.

But let’s say the NFL did ban Jackson. Justin Timberlake doing the Halftime show still makes sense.

For one, the NFL needs to make a choice that will satisfy a vast majority of different and diverse demographics. Justin Timberlake does that. Now, I’m not necessarily bumping JT in my spare time, but sure, I’d watch him at the Halftime show, even if I’m sad my Raiders blew it this year. People claiming that the NFL supports white privilege also must be forgetting that the NFL’s first choice to do the show was Jay Z, who turned down the gig.

I admit, choosing Justin Timberlake after Jay Z’s rejection is a bit safe on the part of the NFL but with everyone divided on the players’ protests, the safe choice is the smart choice for the NFL.

But what do the social justice warriors expect the NFL to do? Get Janet Jackson to headline the show to push down the cis white males (whatever that means) and the powers that be? Yeah, okay well those same people probably think that reality shows are actually real.

Just look at the numbers:

Since the 2004 performance, Justin Timberlake has had three albums chart at #1 on the billboard’s top 200, two of them debuting at #1. Janet Jackson has only had one album chart at #1 since then. Also, Timberlake’s influence reaches beyond music.

Ranging from live-action acting to voice overs, the former NSYNC member has been featured in 18 films. Janet Jackson has been in 4. In case you couldn’t tell by now, Timberlake is simply the much bigger star. His 62.9 million followers on Twitter can confirm that, especially when compared with Janet Jackson’s 3.4 million.

I don’t know if anyone’s told these people complaining but that’s how business works. People who work harder, have more success, and generally are more talented get the jobs, not the people who’s skin complexion you like better.

But don’t shoot the messenger; I didn’t come up with these rules, I just recognize them.

Sure, I might cry myself to sleep when I realize we’ll probably never see Jay Z do the Super Bowl show, but I won’t be losing sleep over the NFL’s decision to let Justin Timberlake perform at Halftime. Outrage culture might not think so, but the decision makes total sense for the NFL.

They chose a performer who has been relevant for decades, who reaches multiple age groups, who always brings a decent show and who has been mainly non-problematic throughout his career. Of course the Janet Jackson groupies will have their feelings hurt by the NFL but too bad they don’t make band-aids for feelings.

Follow: rssyoutubeinstagrammail

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.