The meme stems from NSYNC's 2000 smash hit "It's Gonna Be Me." When singing the titular line in the song, Timberlake annunciates the word "me" as "May." According to a 2016 article from E!

According to the database Know Your Meme, the "It's Gonna Be May" meme originated in 2012 after the song dropped in 2000 Jordan Greene is Society and Culture writer-reporter at PEOPLE. She has ...