Justin Timberlake

I'm not proud to admit this, but there was a time in my life when I wanted irreparable physical harm to come to Justin Timberlake. At the time I was lowly-paid freelance writer covering music in Charleston, SC and easily at the peak of my self-imposed music snobbery. If a band wasn't the type of act to play Bonnaroo I wanted nothing to do with them. Boy bands were the enemy and Justin Timberlake represented everything I loathed about popular music.

Granted, I still am a music snob and still genuinely despise most forms of pop music, but I consider myself a well-wisher to Mr. Timberlake in that I no longer wish him any specific harm. Chalk it up to maturity (though I am still woefully immature for my age) but I have seen the light: and I now know why White Chicks Cherish Justin Timberlake.

There's several good reasons why Justin Timberlake has continued to thrive in the years after the horrifically formulaic clap-trap boy band era. Seriously, JT may be the only boy band member of that musically loathsome period who still has a relevant career—and I'm not talking about staying popular through appearances on shows like "Dancing with the Stars" (which white chicks also cherish and most self-respecting heterosexual men hate but likely watch to appease a fantastic white chick) or making brief blips on the pop culture radar for coming out of the closet and striving to be a gay astronaut. (On a side note, have any of the token boy band members with super-stupid facial hair designs had anything resembling a career after the demise of their singing groups?) Justin Timberlake is a masterful talent, insanely charismatic, has a great sense of humor and, I'm comfortable enough with my sexuality to say, he's a damn good looking guy.

Even though I may not be a fan of JT's music, the dude's won enough Grammy Awards, has had enough hits and has collaborated with everyone from 50 Cent to Madonna to Duran Duran that even my own personal music snobbery is not enough to prohibit me from recognizing his accomplishments. The dude makes white chicks dance and that—in and of itself—is enough to stay popular for eons.

Sure, be brought sexy back and enlightened the world on the weird nipple-accoutrement of Janet Jackson, but there's other reasons why I've come to view Justin Timberlake's existence on this planet as a splendid thing. He showed humility by being "Punk'D," a terrific sense of humor through hosting "SNL" ("Dick in a Box" is easily the funniest thing the show has produced since "Wayne's World") and proved to be a genuine, likable dude on his recent interview on "The Daily Show" (I also have a huge non-gay man crush on John Stewart, but that's an entirely different blog idea). And I've yet to see it, but I hear JT is terrific in his role in "The Social Network."

(I totally forgot to post this in the original draft and cannot believe I did. But JT's "History of Rap" performance with Jimmy Fallon was nothing short of super awesome and a HUGE reason I decided to do a WWCC post about Justin Timberlake. His impressions of the Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg and everyone else was just so spot-on).



Justin Timberlake is pure, undeniable talent and only a complete troglodyte would say otherwise. And you don't have to be a white chick to appreciate him, but it sure does help. Maybe all the time I've spent delving into the behaviors of white chicks is beginning to influence my own tastes (I have been yearning for more boutique cupcakes ever since that fateful day "researching" them) or maybe I'm just somewhat maturing.

But I've come to an important relization: Life is too short to spend any time or energy to carry anything resembling a negative opinion of someone as masterfully talented and insanely likable as Justin Timberlake.

Especially when there are hordes of skanky talent-voids like Ke$ha or mouth-breathing, record industry puppets like Justin Bieber out there wasting perfectly good oxygen. Clearly, they are much more deserving of one's ill-will and negativity.

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