Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - How Janet Jackson's Boob Led To The Creation of Youtube

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

The true story of how Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction led to the creation of Youtube

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I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The End of an Era. And don't miss Taylor Swift, the era's tour, the final show, featuring for the first time the Tortured Poets Department. Streaming December 12th, only on Disney Plus. So a single boob led to the creation of the biggest video sharing website in the world.

Let me explain. So the story starts with this woman, Janet Jackson, and Janet's 37 during this time, and she's been a huge pop star for a long time, as long as anyone can remember. But one day, in 2003, her whole life changes. Because that's when some execs from the NFL's entertainment team reach out to her, they offer her the gig of being the headliner for the Super Bowl 38 half-time show. And this is a huge deal for any musician. Now, other famous artists will make appearances in this performance as well.

That's pretty common for the Super Bowl to have like a bunch of guests artists. One of these guests artists is this guy, Justin Timberlake. And Janet, of course, wants this show to be remembered forever. She wants it to be the best halftime show of old time. However, as they're doing rehearsals for the show, she feels like the final moment of the performance still needs something extra. Something a little controversial, something to get people talking. And eventually, she and her stylist come up with a costume stunt for the end of the show. Their plan is that during the final performance, as the last song ends, Justin Timberlake will rip away part of the chest on her costume to reveal a red bra underneath.

ooh, it's going to be so scandalous. Now, they don't run this idea past CBS, the network the Super Bowl is going to air on. They also don't run it past any of the other event producers, because, you know, they probably would have vetoed it and told them no. In fact, this idea is so last minute that Janet doesn't even get a chance to talk to Justin about it until the day of the show, and even then,

they don't really have time to rehearse it. What could possibly go wrong? And so, fast forward to February 1, The Day of the Show. And the Super Bowl, it starts as scheduled, and about an hour and a half later, it's halftime. And bam, Janet's performance starts. And she's out there singing and dancing and it's going great. And Janet's hard work is paying off.

She is crushing it. Then, after about 10 minutes, Justin Timberlake comes out. And they start doing their part together. And they're performing their asses off to this giant stadium and about 90 million people watching on TV. at home and right as the final song ends, Justin follows the plan and boom, he rips off part of her costume. But instead of the red bra that was supposed to be there, he accidentally exposes Janet's boob on live TV to the 90 million people watching at home.

And you know, the video cuts away from it, but you can see in this picture here after the exposure Janet is like in shock covering herself up and Justin, well, he just kind of looks like, he just kind of looks like Justin. Now, unfortunately, even though they cut away, the damage is already done. The world done saw the boot. And everyone involved in the show knows that this is a disaster. And like MTV has to go and put out a statement, apologizing, so to CBS. And then Janet Jackson has to come out and she has to make a whole ass apology video about it. I'm really sorry if I offended anyone that was truly not my intention. But anyway, immediately this story blows

And the news media is all over it. I mean, like news outlet after news outlet is covering it all day, every day. This is easily the biggest story of 2004. And like reporters are going crazy, trying to decide if this was an accident or if it was all planned. And they're like covering it from every angle. And this new footage shows Janet and Justin the moment after the incident. Both seem to be confused. And the country is so prude during this time that people are up and all.

arms that they saw a woman exposed on TV at the Super Bowl soccer moms everywhere clutching their pearls like, oh my heavens. And because of this, the FCC gets around 540,000 complaints about indecency, which, according to them, they normally get like a few thousand complaints in a whole year. But after this, they got 540,000. And so then the FCC has to like launch a whole whole investigation into the incident and CBS gets fined for allowing it to happen. And soon the truth gets out that Justin was only supposed to rip away the top layer of her costume to reveal the red bra, but they somehow messed up and exposed the whole boo. So it was mostly Justin's screw-up, but everyone seems to want to put the blame on

poor Janet. In fact, Viacom, which owns MTV and a ton of radio stations, they blacklist Janet singles on the radio and her music videos. Also, the head of CBS at the time demands that Janet and Justin Timberlake give on-air apologies at the Grammys, which are the following week. He says that if they don't apologize on the air at the Grammys, that they won't be allowed to attend. So Justin agrees, and he actually goes to the Grammys and he gets on stage and he apologizes. What occurred was unintentional, completely regrettable, and I apologize if you guys are offended.

Well, Janet Jackson's like, no, I'm not doing that. And so they un-invite her to the Grammys, where she was supposed to present an award. Anyway, so yeah, Janet's career takes a big hit from this, while Justin Timberlakes does not. Because, you know, it's 2004 and, you know, sexism and whatnot. Now, during this time, anyone who wasn't watching it live, anyone who didn't see it when it happens, feels like they missed out on this big shared cultural moment. So people are scouring the internet looking for any footage online anywhere of the incident. In fact, so many people are looking for it that the name Janet Jackson becomes not only the most searched term in internet history, but the most searched image in internet history.

In fact, people want to see footage of this so bad that this Super Bowl moment becomes the most watched, recorded, and replayed moment on TiVo. I mean, you get the point. People are doing everything they can to see any video of this. anywhere online, but unfortunately for them, it's really nowhere to be found. Until. And that is where this guy comes in. His name is Jod. And Jod is around 24 years old during this time, and he's an engineer working at PayPal.

And like most of the internet during this time, bro really wants to see this boob too. And so, like everyone else, he searches online everywhere and he can't find any footage of it. So he goes and he complains about it to some of his coworkers like, I can't find a clip of this boob! And so the three of them put their heads together and they decide that the internet really needs a website, a website that can handle playing and sharing videos. Not only that, they're gonna build it. And so over the next year they get to work on coding and designing their video sharing website.

And in 2005, they finally finish it and they launch it to the public. And they publish their very first video called Me at the Zoo, which is actually just footage of Jod hanging out at the local zoo. All right, so here we are in front of the elephants. And about six months after that, the YouTube that you and I know really starts to take shape, with all kinds of people uploading all kinds of things. And pretty quickly, the site grows to a point where around 65,000 new videos are uploaded every day. And this is a huge deal in the digital industry.

And in 2006, Google buys it for over $1.5 billion, which is a lot of money considering it started over one man's quest to see a boob. Anyway, then in 2007, another huge cultural defining mega fantastic moment happens in history. I start uploading my first videos, which now I guess you'd call them like vlogs, but this is also huge, you know? You know what I'm saying? Everyone should celebrate this. Thank you.