Super Bowl halftime show: Nipplegate happened the last time the championship game was in Houston

Houston has a Super Bowl legacy. On Sunday, the city will host its third NFL championship game since 1974. It has seen the Dolphins stake their claim as league royalty and the Patriots lay the foundation for a dynasty across two different stadiums.

But that’s not what everyone remembers about the big game in Texas’ largest city. Instead, the lasting image from a Houston Super Bowl is Janet Jackson’s armored and exposed nipple.

“Nipplegate” continued America’s bizarre trend of throwing “-gate” to the end of all things remotely scandalous (see Deflategate, Donutgate, Bottlegate, etc) and captivated a nation with just one blurry image of a boob. Super Bowl XXXVIII featured one of the most exciting second halves of football the NFL has ever seen, and the tone was set thanks to one move that came to define the term “wardrobe malfunction.”

The stage was the halftime show of what was, at that point, the seventh-most watched broadcast in American television history. Janet Jackson shared the stage with Justin Timberlake, who was just reaching the peak of his solo powers. As he reached the tail end of “Rock Your Body,” he reached over to a leather-clad Jackson, sang the final verse of his song — “bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song” — and then tore a panel from her top.

There, for two glorious seconds, lay Jackson’s nipple; bare but for the decorative piercing it wore like an old time card dealer’s visor. CBS panned away as quickly as possible, but the damage was done. Viewer complaints flooded in by the thousands, notes of outrage over how one exposed breast ruined their enjoyment of watching grown men hit each other so hard they fail to remember their grandchildren. Nipplegate was born.

Despite the tragic effects and the lost generation of children who were forced to witness such savagery, Jackson’s brief moment of unscripted nudity did have a positive impact on the world. In fact, that lone nipple may have made America, and therefore the world, a better place.

For instance, the split-second clip served as inspiration for Jawed Karim, who saw the moment’s viral potential and would later go on to create YouTube as a result. It singlehandedly boosted the stock of TiVo by showcasing the inherent value of being able to rewind, replay, and record live television without setting up a VCR first. Now, DVR is a standard feature with most cable systems.

With one memorable shot, Nipplegate helped shape a world where events are compressed into moments. Had it happened at last year’s Super Bowl, there would be no frantic Googling in banner-ad filled attempts to figure out what happened. Instead, Twitter would have been inundated with GIFs, Vines (RIP), and Streamable clips. Rather than a drawn-out conversation starter, Jackson’s nipple would have exploded into the zeitgeist with the awesome power of the Tsar Bomba before dissipating into the air days later.

Lady Gaga will anchor Sunday’s halftime show, and despite her headline-making past, seems unlikely to step out from the shadow of Janet’s bared breast. If she finds a way, however, you can bet it will be all over the internet in seconds — with no telling how it could create a better future.