I once had a student propose a thesis to me: That Justin Timberlake marked the onset of a new paradigm within society.

Neoliberalism infiltrated and co-opted the countercultural force of dance music and replaced it with a destructive, hedonistic pseudo-individualism that denies the collectivity of the common people and ultimately destroys the ecological, back-to-nature ideals of the hippies.

Frankly, I thought the thesis was stupid. Timberlake is a pop star with obviously commercial appeal. Nothing more, nothing less. However, I never forgot the student's thesis. I found it to be a very interesting idea.

I sometimes think back on that student's words and I wonder: Was Justin Timberlake an instrument of neoliberal propaganda?

Nowadays, there is a tendency to view everything as an instrument of propaganda. We have observed with neoliberalism a tendency to make everything into an instrument for the greater purpose of expanding itself.

This totalizing tendency is what is so dangerous about neoliberalism. That's the first thing we must be aware of. Justin Timberlake was merely a musician. He may or may not have been a propaganda instrument, but what is undeniably the case is that he was a cultural phenomenon.

As such, he exported neoliberal ideals into the mainstream through a slick marketing campaign. Timberlake was only popular as an extension of neoliberal ideals, he was not a harbinger of an infiltration into common culture.

His success was only a possibility under an already established paradigm shift towards a globalized market-based society. He was not the cancer, he was merely a seeping pustule.