The character assassination of Janet Jackson by the coward Justin Timberlake

In 2024, you tin spell onto YouTube, 1 of the astir fashionable media distributors successful the United States and the world, and you tin propulsion up Janet Jackson’s 2004 show astatine the Super Bowl. There are videos with her full 11-minute show and others that amusement lone the 3 seconds that shook the country. Justin Timberlake, lasting to Jackson’s near and singing “better person you bare / by the extremity of this song” from his opus “Rock Your Body,” reaches crossed her body, grabs her garment, and yanks. A “wardrobe malfunction” ensues, and alternatively of revealing a beauteous reddish bra, you — for not adjacent a afloat 2nd — spot her astir bare breast, a star-shaped shield obscuring astir of her nipple.

It’s conscionable a nipple. They’re everyplace connected the net now. But successful 2004, radical saw Janet Jackson’s and mislaid their flipping minds. It was a little and (given it was broadcast successful 1080i) blurry glimpse of a woman’s mostly covered nipple, but it would rapidly go 1 of the astir disposable nipples successful TV past — due to the fact that it happened during the Super Bowl halftime show, and that year, implicit 89 cardinal radical tuned successful for the game. TiVo aboriginal declared it 1 of the most-viewed moments successful the past of the platform; users were unsurprisingly repeatedly rolling the broadcast backmost to the infinitesimal of vulnerability alternatively than to the game-winning 41-yard tract goal.

Twitter and Facebook and the feed-driven quality rhythm didn’t beryllium erstwhile Nipplegate happened. In 2004, the net was dispersed retired among insular forums, Usenet groups, and nascent societal media platforms similar Livejournal and Myspace. There were nary online spaces for the mainstream nationalist to get unneurotic and collectively freak out. So, alternatively of processing the infinitesimal unneurotic online, radical processed it the old-fashioned way, possibly for the past time: successful dependable bites connected the news, quotes successful the paper, and a grounds fig of complaints to the FCC.

Michael Powell, past caput of the FCC, called the infinitesimal a “classless, crass and deplorable stunt” and announced an investigation. CBS, which had broadcast the offending mammary, banned Janet Jackson’s euphony and punted her from the Grammy Awards lineup (though Timberlake, absurdly enough, was inactive allowed to perform). CBS besides forbade MTV, which had produced the show, from producing each aboriginal halftime shows. 

It got internet-level weird, too, and fast. People questioned whether Janet Jackson‘s nipple was meant to distract america each from the arguable Iraq War. Others noted that then-embattled President George Bush was utilizing the infinitesimal to obstruction against motivation failures alternatively of improving his historically atrocious support numbers. (He’d spell connected to beryllium reelected that year.) Disney adjacent removed a statue of Jackson from 1 of its taxable parks.

The sermon astir accidental nudity has changed rather a spot since 2004, and yes, a batch of that is down to changing standards connected nudity and a diminishment of almighty voices successful censorship similar the Parents Television and Media Council. But it besides began to displacement due to the fact that the mode we watched TV was astir to alteration forever. 

Phones were atrocious astatine video backmost then. The net was inactive much for horny weirdos and assemblage students (I was both) than the wider public. There was nary convenient and accelerated mode to dispersed videos unless you were torrenting. Even the iconic photos from that year’s Super Bowl — which item Janet Jackson’s wide daze successful the infinitesimal — were harder to stock online.

Jawed Karim, a PayPal worker astatine the time, missed the halftime amusement and frankincense missed the lone happening anyone wanted to speech about. He couldn’t find it online, either. He’d been kicking astir startup ideas with his friends Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, and the 3 decided that moments similar this 1 would request a spot to beryllium cataloged and searchable connected the internet. A fewer days later, they started moving connected an online video level called YouTube.

Did Janet Jackson’s nipple make YouTube and the streaming, online, on-demand, virality-fueled aboriginal of media each by its shielded self? Maybe not exactly. But it surely helped usher successful caller platforms and caller ways for radical to relive these culture-shaking moments together. Now, 2 decades later, broadcast TV is astir dead, and the streaming services meant to regenerate it are battling YouTube, which conquered the net and is present looking to conquer TV, too.

And it’s not conscionable however TV has changed. People stock large moments otherwise now, too. Images and videos are nary longer held backmost by bandwidth and are often disposable seconds aft incidents occur. Conversations are nary longer constricted to forums and the remark sections of your favourite blog. They’re connected Threads and Instagram, wherever nipples aren’t allowed but invective is, and connected X, wherever some nipples and invective are allowed and encouraged. People process large events successful remixes and memes connected TikTok and successful cringeworthy posts with AI-generated creation connected Facebook. Everything happens truthful fast, and successful specified ample numbers, that thing similar a nip rip doesn’t consciousness arsenic momentous arsenic it erstwhile did. 

And due to the fact that that contented is shared connected the net alternatively of connected broadcast TV, determination are nary governing standards. You don’t constitute to the FCC anymore. You kick astir an exposed nipple connected YouTube. You enactment a remark connected the video — possibly study it to Google. The platforms mightiness care, oregon they mightiness not. But determination volition beryllium different nipples. Sports get broadcast connected a hold to forestall things similar the wardrobe malfunction from happening, but the net moves excessively fast.

Even the FCC has evolved since those days, for that matter. Powell, the erstwhile commissioner, told ESPN in 2014 that helium thought it was “really unfair” that Jackson, and not Timberlake, was the recipient of each the wardrobe malfunction blowback. “In reality, if you dilatory the happening down, it’s Justin ripping disconnected her breastplate.” He besides said that the thought of the FCC protecting you from harmful images connected your tv was already over, acknowledgment to the internet. “I conscionable deliberation that’s astir apt a bygone era.”

The large irony of Nipplegate, and possibly its existent legacy, is that thing similar it would beryllium capable to question overmuch faster and wider present — and yet successful ample portion due to the fact that of what happened connected that signifier successful 2004, due to the fact that of the alteration it wrought some technologically and culturally, it wouldn’t beryllium astir arsenic large a deal. After all, it’s conscionable a nipple.