This past Sunday, February 4th was the biggest football game of the year: The Super Bowl. The Eagles remained triumphant as the underdogs taking on the Patriots. The score of the game was 41 to 33 and the game had everyone on the edge of their seats. The Eagles were outperforming themselves, and Justin Timberlake should have taken notes for his Super Bowl halftime performance.
Watch the Performance Here:
The beginning of the performance was a little shaky and I wondered why the would ask him to perform when he hasn’t been current for a while. I really liked Lady GaGa’s performance last year which incorporated glam and the high stage production that left people talking about her performance. Justin was wearing some ridiculous outfit that looked like he was taking a trip to the grocery store, with camo pants and a similar color t-shirt that clashed. Some would say that fashion doesn’t matter, but it is a component of a performing artist. I would say the performance really started during the Prince tribute, but many people thought it was straight awful. I really was confused why Justin Timberlake would be covering a Prince song when they are entirely different artists. Despite this, it was pretty cool to see him throw the mic around during his song, “Suit & Tie” and the visuals during “Mirrors” was a highlight of the entire performance.
But no one is talking about the performance, they are only talking about the kid that Justin Timberlake ran up to when he was in the crowd during his last song, “CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!” If you are watching the video on Youtube, the moment happens at 12:48, where you can see the Ryan McKenna, the 13-year-old boy who instead of enjoying the moment with this super famous iconic pop star, was snapping a selfie and looking at his phone during his halftime performance. The memes were almost instant and sent a shockwave across the entire internet.
Although this happened and it was, of course, funny, it almost seems planned. Justin Timberlake could have gone to any spot in the entire crowd but he chose this one kid, and the kid did something heavily comedic that they knew would blow up on the internet. Memes are starting to become a huge marketing plan since it reaches a huge amount of people. The kid Ryan even got 8,000 followers on Snapchat and Instagram. He also got featured on NBC News and Good Morning America. This also drew an insane amount of publicity for Justin Timberlake’s performance and the hashtag #SelfieKid was trending almost instantly. The amount of publicity this got was almost suspicious. Fans should be talking about Justin’s performance rather than a kid in the crowd. Think to yourself: if you see that everyone is talking about this “hilarious” kid in the crowd, wouldn’t you want to click on the performance to watch it? It seems like everything in the music industry is calculated and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was staged for the publicity. Timberlake hasn’t been current in a long time, and since he has a new record he just put out, “Man of the Woods” he probably wants to relate to audiences by having a funny performance, but it lacked what we actually wanted: substance.
Although it might have been planned, it was still pretty funny.
— Tatered (@tatered) February 5, 2018
When your friend go dancing with strangers at the club and u just don’t know what to do #selfiekid pic.twitter.com/MzH4237Z1y
— crazy broke asian (@tribranchvo) February 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/OliverBaxxter/status/960341810005491712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.billboard.com%2Farticles%2Fnews%2Fsuper-bowl%2F8098057%2Fsuper-bowl-selfie-kid-best-memes
What #selfiekid was really doing pic.twitter.com/zemd7k1XIZ
— flamin hot cheetos (@beelorboy) February 5, 2018
— 🇺🇸 Sleigh-mie McCar-Tree🎄 (@JamieMcCarty) February 5, 2018
