The Hidden Economic Agenda In *NSYNC’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” Video

3:30 pm, December 5th | by Sarah Devlin

One of my favorite holiday traditions, along with watching Love Actually and decorating Christmas cookies with very little skill or precision, is listening to novelty Christmas music. A pillar in the novelty Christmas music canon, as any fan knows, is *NSYNC’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” from their album Home For Christmas, which was released in November of 1998. Now that everyone feels old, let’s take another look at the video for the single, because I’m pretty sure there’s some political propaganda hidden away in there.

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The facts are these. Santa is sick (or faking. What? I'm just saying.)

His personal assistant Gary Coleman is freaking out — someone has to deliver the Christmas gifts, after all.

Enter *NSYNC. What kind of experience do they have? Are they working for free? Clearly a replacement refs/union busting move on Gary's part.

This does not look OSHA-compliant.

Okay, it looks like there's no food or gifts for these veeeeery authentic-looking homeless guys. The abundance of soot on their faces suggests that these men all happen to be homeless chimney sweeps, hanging out together at Christmastime. Know who else was a chimney sweep? Dick van Dyke in "Mary Poppins." Know what happened in "Mary Poppins"? A run on the banks. What are you trying to tell us, *NSYNC????

The members of *NSYNC show up to save the day and serve dinner and give gifts, and I'm going to go ahead and take this as a commentary on the largesse of the 1%.

Chris Kirkpatrick is raising the roof here, making him the group's advocate for raising marginal tax rates for the top 1% of earners. If I had to guess.

What are those orange and green flags? Those ladies are terrible at Christmas.

Luckily *NSYNC is here to show them how it's done. Step aside, ladies. #waronwomen

10.

Here are some cute kids who were tiny in 1998 and are probably hoping to go to college now...right as the country rolls over the FISCAL CLIFF.

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Turn around! They're right behind you.

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I don't think there's a hidden agenda here, unless it's the agenda is "getting people to say 'Wow, that kid is really cute.'"

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Joey Fatone and the redhead are optimists about our country's future; the brunette is more reticent.

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Um, is that a missile? I didn't know this video was also about foreign policy.

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Seriously, *NSYNC, WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?

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Predicting the eventual economic dominance of the Germans?

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And also global warming?

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Google tells me this is Croatian...so are they the next superpower, or what? Is this an exhortation to bone up on our Croatian economists? This video is a beautiful mystery.